This Future Self Guy
If there is one person that has annoyed me the most recently, it is this “future self” guy. Apparently, I should be disciplined, take care of things well now, so he can live well in the future.
I used to believe in that BS until a few years back. Not that I steal from him now, but have come to a conclusion that we should both have a middle ground. There should be a reasonable give and take between us. Not everything he needs can be taken care of anyway. Allow me to explain.
If he wants a comfortable life monetarily, I would need to spend time working and earning now. If he wants a good & fulfilled retired life (with some purposeful work and all that), I am supposed to be laying the groundwork for it now. If he wants to be healthy, I should eat-well, sleep-well, exercise-well and do several such things already. If he would like to have healthy relationships, I should work on it now.
You know what, he wants all of the above. Greedy Boy! His wishes are impossible to achieve, unless I let go of all my hedonistic needs of the present. Funnily, even if I do that, some intermediate future-self might actually claim his mental health isn’t good, because of the Time Paradox. I am supposed to be doing some activities to keep my present-hedonism score high, so this future guy doesn’t have mental health issues.
Sigh. He better cut some slack. He ain’t gettin everythin.
There is another angle to this — The belief that your future self will be grateful to you if you do things that would make his life easier. Really? If I analyze rolling cycles of past-current selves, I don’t see the current self feeling grateful to the past self, at least in most of the cycles. If that is the case, what is the guarantee that the future self will be grateful to my current self? Pretty low, I say.
Finally, don’t take all these too literally. I had some time this morning due to a cancelled meeting and spent 15 mins writing. At this stage of life, I am so conditioned to be concerned about the future, that I suspect it is difficult for me to even consider jumping into a hedonistic lifestyle, ha.
Also: you would like this strip where 3 Calvins from different times meet.
