Future-Self Thinking

Take better care of yourself.

Ten years ago I’ve never really cared much about what I ate, as I’ve always felt that the amount of exercise I do nullifies it and keeps me at a decent weight. However, in other areas of my life, I like to act in service of my future self. Ie: I want to be able to look back in w years time and think I’m glad I spent my time doing x, y, z. 

I think I’m pretty good at following this advice in most domains (in fact, it’s one of my main ‘secrets’ for being productive / getting stuff done), but when it comes to food, I’ve been neglecting this advice.

Over the past few months, I decided to change that. I’ve decided to eat less sugar, fewer crisps, fewer takeaways and reducing my meat consumption, and thinking far more about what goes into my body. After all, there’s almost no circumstance I can imagine where I’ll look back and think it’s good that you ordered KFC and Slamburger twice a week. 

Moving away slightly from that self-centered paragraph, I think this is good general advice for everyone - act in service to your future self. I think a key takeaway (hehe) is that this does not mean you have to be miserable in the present, which is the standard objection to advice like this. It means you just think a little bit more about whether that short-term hedonistic impulse is actually going to make you or your future self happier.

I think that’ll do for now. Inshallah, have a lovely week!

Farhat

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