Future Me

Is there maybe a two and under class I could join? Image via Wikimedia.

Procrastination is an ongoing problem I've been meaning to deal with for awhile now, but it's hard to be active when they keep making couches so comfortable.

Each morning I wake up with a list of things I want to accomplish that day and time has yet to become my enemy. Truthfully, I usually just wake up with a song playing in my head and I spend 20 minutes trying to simultaneously get rid of it, remember the complete lyrics, and figure out when and where I last heard the tune. On my way to work though I'm compiling my to dos. After my arrival:

Morning coffee. Emails. News. Colleague chats.

While at lunch I'm thinking of how I'm going to "really go at it when I get back to the office."

Full. Sleepy. Distractions. Funny emails. Time Passes.

Before leaving for the day I'm setting aside my work list for my home list, and as I go to sleep I think about what a failure I was that day and how tomorrow seems so bright and boundless. Long ago I learned to write "make a list of things to do" as the first entry on my list of things to do. This way I could immediately mark something off. When overtly desperate for a sense of achievement I would also add things like "take shower" and "eat."

Whether or not you create a mental or physical checklist of desired or necessary personal tasks, most of us are all too often in the habit of hyping up our future selves as gung-ho, workaholic, athletic, dedicated, and generous superfolk. In our optimistic visions of our idealistic doppelgangers we can do everything. We exercise, talk to our neighbors, make our own bread, volunteer at the local shelter, go to the library, build birdhouses, and watch PBS sober.

In the future I get up at 7AM and jog two to three miles, eat a big breakfast while watching the morning news and catching up on personal correspondence. (Sometimes I even write letters using old pen and ink on aged parchment for effect. Future me is classy.) My work day is productive and everyone is impressed with how much I can get done in a day and how my results are always so superior to any other employee, past or present, and of course future. When I come home I read two chapters of two books, one for pleasure and one for education, and I complete a lesson of Rosetta Stone with the end goal of mastering at least four languages. (Future me is a world traveler who stays with small village families, not fancy tourist hotels.) Every one of these activities is enhanced by intermittent pipe smoking while formulating a conclusion about, new idea from, or opinion over the information I've recently absorbed. Stir in some reflection, a chuckle about something funny I said earlier, and a snifter full of brandy and my evening is set. On the weekends I work on my novel and every second Wednesday I dabble in oil paints.

We all have a future version of ourselves and optimism is good in small doses. I do believe people can change and a big part of life is striving to be a better version of yourself. Just make sure there is a plane of reality where your current self and future self can meet. It is also advisable that you don't sign up for advanced Taekwondo if going upstairs significantly alters your breathing. Future you is strong and agile. You are still fat and slow.