Back to the future

Interviews often ask, 'what advice would you offer to your younger self?' A more useful question is to ask what advice an older version of yourself would offer to you now. Our actions today have a direct bearing on our future selves, hence why we have savings accounts and plant apple trees.

Sometimes when I'm sitting on a train, I like to look at everyone around me and make guesses about their lives. Each person acts as either a warning or an inspiration for the direction I want my life to go. 

So heed some encouragement and caveats from your 80-year-old self. Write a letter from 'future you' to 'current you'. What would they tell you to do with your life? What will they think about where you are right now? What would they plead with you to change? 

This is the idea of 'backcasting': if I want to end up there, what direction must I walk and how quickly? If I continue on my current path, where will that put me when I'm 80? 

A similar but opposite exercise is to write a letter to your future self. Picture where you want to be in a year or five. What are your hopes and dreams for that person? Declare what you will do today to try to make them happen. This is the less epic equivalent of Ulysses lashing himself to the mast. He wanted to listen to the Sirens' song but first commanded that his men must not change course under any circumstance. 

Try this exercise in self-accountability on www.futureme.org. The website emails the message to yourself at a chosen point in the future. It is an opportunity to hold yourself to account. You can also opt to make the letter public if you really want to be held to task.

OVER TO YOU:
- Write a letter of advice from your 80-year-old self to you today.

- Send a message to your future self.