The Future You
You’re about to get in your car and drive somewhere you’ve never been. You’ve got everything you need for your adventure and are ready to go. As you put the car in drive and start, where is your attention?
If you’re serious about getting wherever the adventure may lead, you’ll probably look through the windshield, at what’s ahead of you. Looking in your rear-view mirror wouldn’t make a lot of sense and wouldn’t get you anywhere, except in trouble.
At least the past feels known.
As obvious as that seems in the context of driving a car, it’s crazy how strong the urge to look behind us can be when we’re embarking on a new adventure in life. I suspect it may have something to do with the discomfort so many of us have with the unknown. At least the past feels known.
If we look to the past when we’re trying to go somewhere new, the best we can expect is a pale imitation of what’s already been. And if we expect sometime similar to what we’ve seen/done/had in the past, the likelihood of recognizing the sweet, new opportunities that will invariably be presented to us becomes remote. We condemn ourselves to a life of stale repetition, and at the same time, we may be wondering why life doesn’t feel new and fresh anymore.
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When I was seventeen years old and had just graduated from high school, I worked as a merchant seaman for the summer, before I started college. I remember how excited I was before I shipped out, and how I felt that life was opening up to me. I also remember that I had some very strong ideas about how the adventure would play out.
I was telling an older neighbor about what was ahead of me, and he looked straight at me and said, “That sounds great, but however you think it will be, it won’t be.”
That turned out to be some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten.
That turned out to be some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten. (The strange thing is, though I was only seventeen, I heard and recognized it as something true!) I took what he said to heart.
I wonder what my voyage would have been like if I’d clung to the images and expectations I’d dreamed up before that talk with my neighbor. The exciting things I did and saw would have seemed tainted, or not up-to-snuff. I would have seen all those wonderful sights and experiences as less than what I’d expected them to be.
That brief chat with my neighbor changed my life. It comes back to me from time to time when I realize I’m looking to the past instead of letting the future unfold in the direction life is taking me.
Your old ideas of yourself, the you of the past, doesn’t have a place in your future, except as a not-so-helpful ghostly reminder of what has already been. Making the assumption that you know, or need to know, how your future will play out ignores one simple truth: you don’t know the future you yet. Wouldn’t you rather meet that person, free of the mental limitations of that past than see the one you’re already familiar with?
