GET TO KNOW FUTURE-YOU
"January," as I recently overhead a girl tell a friend while walking Haight street, "is a time for self-reflection....especially when it's a New Moon and you're a Capricorn."
She’s right. But not because of how well lit the moon is from our point of view or how the stars were aligned in the month you were born. Call me a romantic but I believe we are all born individuals with a world of possibilities ahead of, not assigned one of twelve personality types.
No, this youth was right about it being a time of self-reflection because it always is a good time to check in on yourself. Throughout a semester, students get like 16 mid-term grades. And you will be up for review at work every few months. So It’s never a bad time to step away from your day-to-day hustle and ask “How am I doing?”
I want to introduce you to my good friend, Future-Ben. He is a best version of myself that I know can exist, but Present-Ben is not there yet. He’s still working, still polishing. He’s a lot like Future-You, and who knows? Maybe Future Ben and Future-You will be friends, some time in the future.
The first time I recall meeting Future-Ben is Halloween, 2010.
I had recently come out of a 13 year marriage and was living alone for the first time in...well, ever.
A rock-bottom time in your life can feel like a very long New Years Day, a time when it was necessary to set aside what you were and focus on who you want to be. I wasn’t proud of who I was or where I was (sleeping on a borrowed pool floaty in an apartment full of boxes) But for the first time ever, I was realizing that what happens in my life is completely up to me. This meant that any feelings of sadness or loneliness were mostly wiped away by a sense of giddy hopefulness that can only come from hitting rock-bottom and witnessing yourself bounce skyward.
My new friends had invited me out for Halloween. The plan was to take their 11-year-old trick-or-treating in the Oakland Hills, then the adults would hit up a spooky art show opening in San Francisco's Mission district. I didn't have a costume. I just wanted to look good. Luckily, I owned one suit. That worked. I had a short beard for the first time ever (facial hair was frowned upon by my ex) so I shaved it into an old-timey chops and mustache configuration and slicked back my hair. Who was this character? I didn't know. He was just some dapper, weird guy who's ballsy enough to have ridiculous facial hair. A guy who's far more confident and attractive than I was. Isn’t this what Halloween is for? Thank you, Halloween.
As the night went on I felt a strange comfort and confidence in this character. I realized, "I want to be this guy all the time. Why can't I? I'm a single dude in the San Francisco Bay area. I can be whoever I want."
So this "costume" turned out to be simply me. I had merely dressed as the confident, well put together person I wanted to present to the World.
We all can benefit from having an inner friend who is the best version of ourselves, someone we can look up to and work towards becoming over time. Somehow when you start looking like a person who has his shit together you find yourself acting like, then slowly becoming a person who actually has his shit together. I have since found that people who have their shit together call having their shit together “Living a purposeful life”. A Halloween outfit, a suit you found at Goodwill, even some decent socks that didn't come in a 12-pack, these things can be a spark that lights a fire under your ass to become a better man.
Just do your best impression of Future-You every day. When something you want seems too difficult, when you’re tempted to do a half-assed job, think "If there were a version of me who has his shit together, What would he do?" That makes it easier to see what you need to do, difficult or not. Then it’s a matter of doing it. That’s the tough part and that’s why most of us avoid this subject completely.
