Your Future Self

A Year Begins

New Years reflections are everywhere. You’ve seen ’em, the braggy holiday newsletters, demands to perfect yourself set resolutions. I’ve made the year-end gratitude list, and the 2024 goals list. Sure, there’s some interesting info, but what’s the story?

According to Hidden Brain’s Shankar Vedantam we can’t know what our future-self wants, because we don’t know who our future-self is. It’s clear looking back —our childhood dreams yielded to young adult goals, to “real world” adult choices. And we change with every wave of experience. Avocation, career, parenting, and serendipity shaped us into who we are today.  

We expect to go gray, show some wear-&-tear, but we assume we’ll be just like we are today rather than the quite different people we evolve into. At ten I longed to be a large animal vet. At twenty an art teacher. By thirty I was in marketing. I had no clue how each parent’s death would change me. In my late 50s I took writing more seriously. Look back at who you were 20, 30, 40 years ago, and marvel at the lives you’ve lived.

Now look forward. Who will you be, one year from today? 

What you believe today, you may not necessarily believe tomorrow.

Ed Smith

Arriving at retirement I’m surprised. I am not the result of a careful, stepwise plan. I can see elements of my intentions, but I’ve been blown off course more times than I have toes. How did I end up ME?

My year past was full of remarkable changes. I made progress with physical and mental health, creative work and social connectedness. I maintained new habits from the previous year and built on them. Having clear goals was a help, but so were chance collisions with people and out-of-the-blue experiences that shifted my spiritual center. 

What we become in 2024? Let’s find out.