The Ghost of Future Me (Experiment #8)

Cutting Ties with Perfectionist Fantasies

Photo by Tandem X Visuals on Unsplash

On Thanksgiving, my daughter approached as I was bustling around the kitchen, and apropos of nothing, said:

“Mom, I think I figured out why I feel so scared and anxious sometimes. It’s because I’m thinking about the future, and all the things that might happen then. But none of them have actually happened. I’m not thinking about, like, right now. Because if I was focused on right now, I would be fine because there’s almost never anything wrong, like, in this moment.”

Right. She’s 10 and figured this out.

The dissonance between the imagined future and the reality of right now shows up in all kinds of situations in my daily life.

Take, for example, my daily to-do list.

All month I’ve been starting my day by jotting a short list of things I aim to get done. At the end of the day, I’ve tried to return to the list and reward myself with a check for efforts to move items forward. Maybe a gratifying line-out if I was able to complete a whole task.

But as I sat checking and striking items off the other day, I realized that the woman who sat crossing things off her list at the end of the day was very different from the woman I’d envisioned as I made the list.

When Morning Me jots down her dreams of a perfectly executed day, she imagines how amazing and accomplished Future Me will feel at the end. She envisions End-of-the-Day Me, grinning and self-satisfied, drawing hearts and celebratory stars around the day’s completed tasks, the sounds of a standing ovation ringing in her ears.

But it turns out that End-of-the-Day Me feels more meh than marvelous as she checks and crosses off her list.

• Yeah, I wrote, but not as long as I meant to.

• I started the laundry, but I’ve still got another load to finish.

• Mergh, I didn’t even get to items 4, 5, and 6 on here. (Likely because I was busy completing invisible items 7, 8, and 9 that presented themselves over the course of the day, instead!)

I tend to end my days more preoccupied with the towering pile of things yet to be done than impressed with the tiny pile of tasks I did complete.

I’ve always known I’m not the kind of person that gets a rush of dopamine from crossing things off a list, but it wasn’t until my daughter made this observation about present and future self that I was able to watch myself with curiosity and I realize how off the mark I’d been.

I’m terrible at predicting what 5 p.m. me will be thinking or feeling. She’s too far away. None of the things that she’s processing and carrying are things that are knowable to me as each day dawns.

I’ve wrestled for a bit with this conundrum. I don’t want to stop making lists. They help me focus and take action on my projects, the happy opportunities I’ve been given to create and contribute to the world.

But, I don’t want to feel disappointed when I get to the end of the day and I’m not 100% satisfied with my efforts. Sure, I could work on feeling more celebratory and proud at the end of the day, but the truth is, I don’t want to wait until the end of the day at all.

I’ve started thinking, what would happen if, when I was making or using my to-do lists, I were to move the goal up closer?

What if I simply focused on 20-minutes-from-now Me?

I’m pretty sure happiness and satisfaction is within reach for 20-minutes-from-now Me. I’m not expecting that Me to have accomplished all the things. But I know she can experience all the joy and fun of doing the dang thing.

For example, I know that if in 20 minutes I‘m sipping warm tea as I’m wrangling a couple more paragraphs of my Substack newsletter while the rain drips down off the yellow leaves outside my window, I'll be pretty happy. I can be sure of this, because it’s the same thing that Right Now Me feels, too.

Sure, 20-minutes-from-now Me would enjoy sitting and scrolling interesting Substack newsletters instead of marching up and down the basement stairs umpteen times with holiday decorations boxes. BUT, 20-minutes-from-now-me also feels giddy that task is done for the year, and I’d love to make that happen for her.

So, the experiment I’m trying this month, one with oh-so-many lists and to-dos, is to pause throughout the day to consider 20-minutes-from-now Me.

• How can I make her happy, proud?

• How can I support her to be focused and prepared?

• How can I take care of her needs and desires?

Because her feelings are my feelings. Her success is my success.

I’m excited to discover how much lovelier life will be when I drop the expectations of End-of-the-Day Perfectly Proud and Accomplished Me, and instead begin focusing more on the small delights and wins of the Me that’s just up ahead, relishing the life that’s twenty short minutes away.