Six months from now

“I’m full but I can stretch myself and finish it”, I overheard a girl sitting at the table next to us in a restaurant. Her friends seem satiated. “Why waste?”, she said while picking up the last slice of the pizza.

Stretching ourselves is a day-to-day endeavor for most of us.

We stretch ourselves to finish the remaining pasta on the dinner table. We stretch ourselves to sit through a boring meeting. We stretch ourselves and avoid confronting our friend/spouse for something that’s bothering us.

All this while, our intention is noble. We are trying to save food, a job, money, and relationships.

Unfortunately, stretching yourself can backfire.

Those extra calories eventually show up on the scale. Staying stuck in a job that sucks deteriorates the quality of your life. Your friendship/relationship turns sour if unresolved issues keep piling up.

Stretching yourself is not always a bad thing. Sometimes, it’s a challenge you beat to get better:

• Run an extra mile even though your legs give up.

• Swim an extra lap even though your lungs are tired.

• Go for another pushup after the final one!

Logistically speaking, stretching ourselves is beyond normal. Our mind needs to dedicate bucketloads of willpower.

How do we make sure that every time we’re going the extra mile, it’s in our best interest?

Your future self has the answer. But not any future self:

• Your 5-minute-from-now future self is like a toddler drooling at a candy store. She/he only cares about instant rewards.

• Your 5-years-from-now future self is a stranger to you.

• Your 6-month-from-now future self is a smarter you to whom you can relate to.

In reality, we don’t even know for sure what our 6-month-from-now future self will like or dislike. Maybe mine would read this post and point out a dozen mistakes. Maybe she’d pat me on the back for not breaking a weekly streak. Maybe she’d question me for not writing enough, who knows?!

From my 5-6 years of writing to my future self, I’d say it’s a risk worth taking.

It’s possible to roughly predict what you’d appreciate or disdain six months from now. With a little effort, it is possible to stay in the good books of your 6-month-from-now future self 😉.

How do you build a line of communication with your future self?

If you read my work before, you’d know that I use futurme.org to write letters to my future self. If you haven’t tried it yet, let me tell you that most times you forget what you wrote.

When you read a letter from your past self, it feels like hearing from another person. Sometimes, she’s grumpy and all I get is useless whining over something trivial. Sometimes, she’s happy and that reminds me of a special happy memory. Sometimes, she’s even wise and rightly predicted what I need to hear.

When you are not sure if you’re stretching yourself for the better or worse, run it through your 6-month-from-now future self.

So what are you stretching yourself to do today?

The only person you’d want to please is your 6-month-from-now future self.