Use Your Future Self for Today's Decisions

How a Little Anger Ruins Your Day

You’re driving down the road, things are just great. Sun is shining and it’s pre-covid times so everything is just better. Suddenly some guy who isn’t looking pulls out in front of you and you have to slam on your breaks. Your $5 tall Starbucks mint jazz tea refresher spills into your cupholder, your shopping bags tip over, and your heart beats too fast for comfort. You have the right to be angry. But...is it smart to let yourself get angry even just a little bit? How much do we let anger control the way our days, weeks, and months play out? It might be a lot more than you realize. Today we are going to talk about anger on the road no matter how small and how it affects your life.

Use Your Future Self for Today's Decisions

Whether it's emotions, difficult things or big life decisions, using your ability to imagine what future-you will care about will help you make sense of the now. The next time you are overcome with anger, embarrassment or fear imagine what you will feel and think about whatever it is that's bothering you in...10 hours...10 days...10 years. This rapidly defuses what otherwise might consume you. The next time you're struggling to complete something physically or mentally difficult, imagine how grateful your future self will be about pushing through and completing that thing. When making life decisions, imagine what your future self might think and allow that to influence your decision. Try utilizing your future self!

The Doom of Seeking Sensational Things

I once gave a book to a friend with high recommendations. They gave the book back a few weeks later and said "sorry, nothing really jumped out at me...I didn't like it." This caused me to stop and think about how much of life one is missing if they are forever fixated on sensational things as opposed to choosing to realize that most of this world and most of life are made up of non-sensational things. If you go through life expecting all important things to jump out at you, you will miss most of what life consists of.

The Paradox of Being Young

We are all young one way or another. There will always be someone wiser, more experienced, and more articulate than each of us. Therefore, we cannot wait our entire lives until we "have enough experience" or "have gained the necessary wisdom" to speak about the important ideas in life. We have to dive in now while we are still "young" and risk being wrong before our lives slip away and we never took any action. We must speak with courage mixed with humility and curiosity in order to be bold now while remaining respectful of the fact that we do not know all there is to know.

Counting on the Unknown in Life

Most of us try to plan our lives as best we can. We attend schools to prepare us for a certain job. We work certain jobs to prepare us for a certain career. We live in certain cities in order to begin to prepare to settle down and create a family. There are many opportunities for us to fall into the trap of believing that we have eliminated the unknown in our lives as a product of great planning. The truth of the matter is that the unknown will always be a part of a life and therefore it should be counted on and not strangled. Some of the most important moments in peoples' lives have come out of the unknown; have come out of nowhere and completely surprised the planner. Consider how you can count on the unknown in your own life.