I’ve been thinking a lot about how I treat the me who lives in the future. This was partially spurred on by finding a twenty euro note in a pair of jeans I hadn’t worn in a long time. When I pulled it out of my pocket I was like “Hey, thanks Ryan!”
And I realized that in the present I have a relationship with both Past Me and Future Me. Sometimes there’s a me that gets pissed off at Past Me, when I’m tired because I stayed up too late the night before, or have a busy couple days ahead because I procrastinated on a deadline — basically, that dick put all the responsibility on Future Me to bail him out. And Past Me’s Future Me is me in the present.
On the flip side, sometimes I do something great in the present, not because of the joy it gives me there and then, but because it will bring Future Me some joy or serenity (I believe this is known as ‘delayed gratification’.
Anyway, by expanding things outward, temporally, I realize I can make much better decisions, and treat me in the future well, or at least better than I have in the past.
