How do you imagine yourself five years from now? It sounds like an interview question, but unknowingly, our subconscious perception of our future self impacts many of our recent decisions. Whether that’s in our relationships, how much work we get done today or simply what we eat for dinner.
Talking to your future self
I discovered the website called future me a year ago. Nothing fancy, it simply allows you to write letters and send them to your email at a set future time or on your chosen future birthday. You can even choose to make your letters anonymously public. It is like writing letters to the future. I know it is so simple but something that we all inherently want to do.
I wish I could talk to my 25-year-old self. Ask her if she is doing fine. Ask if she has travelled enough yet, if she has her apartment with her kitchen and a coffee machine, or if she finally took that pottery class.
But no spoilers…
If you are wondering what about those important questions, “Do you like what you do for a living, do you have a passion now that you never get tired of, also have you finally found the one?”. I probably asked these first, or maybe not. I don’t know if I would want to know the answers to these. Maybe I would want to leave this as a mystery. I might choose deliberate ignorance because if I know the answer to these I might not live the way I live now. I might choose to live the journey with no spoilers.
Well, yeah fortunately or unfortunately, it’s a one-way street. Your current self can talk to your future self, not the other way around. Although a little bit of reassurance would have been nice, I guess what’s important is what you choose to believe and create.
Listening to your past self
If I had to talk to my younger self, I would probably choose the 14-year-old Suhaani. She was a wreck, not really but in some aspects. If I just had an hour with her, where I could sit down face to face and give her some advice, what would that be?
“Math is a nightmare right now, I know, but you’ll become so much better at it, I promise. Also, believe in yourself a little more. You are less shy than you think you are. Just raise your hand more in class, or initiate that conversation. Let others judge you a little. You don’t have to agree all the time or need everyone to like you. Also, you’ll soon feel prettier. You don’t have to deal with the bullshit of anyone telling you that you are too dark or that you smile too wide.” I can go on for a long time for this one.
Unless we live in a multiverse, my younger self doesn’t exist anymore. So essentially I am not really talking to her. But what I am doing, is really talking and listening to myself. Listening and realising those past self-perceptions are not fixed. It is important to realise that all these versions of ourselves we want to converse with are within us, the present us.
I am still scared of the sun
It was a gradual process to unlearn a lot of these past self-perceptions. These opinions and self-images that I had ingrained within myself. A lot of these self-limiting beliefs remain today. I still keep holding on to the beliefs that I am not creative or suck at math, without even trying.
I often find myself being self-condescending. Maybe it’s that 14-year-old girl telling my current self that she should not go out in the sun or she will get darker. It is weird how hard it is to unlearn a few things, how hard it is to let go of the fear.
I am still scared of the sun. I still need to convince myself that it is okay to get tanned, that I love myself no matter what I look like and that the colour of my skin is not a standard of beauty. I don’t blame that girl though. I don’t blame her for believing what family, friends and media convinced her to believe for years; the importance of being light as a brown kid.
Work in progress
When we try to unlearn these self-perceptions, I suppose we need to replace them.
I’ll be 21 this January. It’s scary but exciting. I am excited to read that letter that I wrote as a 20-year-old to my 21-year-old self. It’s interesting how that version of “me” doesn’t exist anymore though. It shows the limitations of our language but it’s true that 20-year-old Suhaani does not exist outside of that letter.
I will read it with a degree of compassion. It is easy to cringe and judge, but it is also important to understand that you were doing your best then. It’s also important to realise though that your best changes with time. For me, this acts as a reminder that I will change. That I will learn, unlearn and relearn. That I need to keep working and believing in life and the version of myself that I want to create.
Now it is your turn, what would you want to write to your future self? What would you tell them about your current self? Anything you hoped that they would have achieved by now? Maybe remind them of a few things you don’t want to unlearn, perhaps some things you wish you have preserved.
Learning to unlearn is hard. It is hard to let go of your current ideas of yourself. But remind yourself, all your versions, that those perceptions are not of your future self. That this future version of you does not exist yet, it’s a work in progress and it can be whatever you want it to be.