I don’t check my pay stub too often. When I was an hourly worker I inspected each pay stub with great care, ensuring my time given to my company was paid for. Nowadays, being on salary means I can get complacent as long as the amount my company deposits into my bank account is consistent. Still, every so often I go over my pay stub and lament over all the deductions I have going on. But there’s one deduction that I don’t mind at all. It’s my 401k. I might not be able to spend this 401k money today…or tomorrow. But one day I’ll spend this money I’m squirreling away and investing. One day when the income from a job stops, my main source of income will be this deduction in my pay.

When I think about this future where I’ll be living off my savings, I mistakenly think it will be me. But this is incorrect because it won’t be me spending that money. It won’t be me in my future.

I realize I’m saving money for someone else.

I’m saving it for a person I will never know. A person I dream about and think about quite often, yet is just out of reach like a carrot dangling from a stick in front of me. Forever barely out of grasp. I’ll never be able to meet this person no matter how hard I try.

This person I’m working so hard for is a sci-fi parallel world alter ego version of myself. Someone just like me, only different, depending on the random chaotic events that rule our world. I’m saving and investing money because I think this person would want that, but I can’t be sure. It’s all just a guess. A guess in the hopes that I can please this stranger, who’s unknowingly become my master.

This person I’m saving for would be my “future self”. We all have one. They’re like an imaginary friend that only we can see. A shadow that follows us around, there for every decision, watching, remembering, judging.

Our future will never be what we think it will be. Not only will our circumstances change, but our personalities also change. Psychologists have been claiming for some time now that our personalities change gradually over time. This means that in a few years I’ll be another person, kinda.

If I look back a decade to when I was 29, my wants are very different than they are today. My wants a decade ago consisted of career oriented ascension, purchasing a home, drinking a bunch on weekends, and maybe buying a boat or camper trailer one day.

I wanted more.

Today, on the cusp of 40, I want completely different things.

I want less.

In fact, most of the things I wanted when I was 30, look foolish to me today. Not that what I wanted when I was 29 is wrong or bad for someone–those are perfectly fine things for someone to want, but my wants have changed because my direction in life has shifted.

I’ve changed. Grown. Matured. Wisened.

I’m a different person today than I was ten years ago. I’ll likely be a different person ten years in the future than I am today. So who’s to say what I’ll want in ten years time?

time travel

Humans have an innate ability to simulate various future scenarios and fantasize about how things might be. Psychologists call it episodic foresight. I call it daydreaming, and I’m pretty good at it. I find myself at times leaving the present moment and drifting onwards into another imagined time in the future, thinking of where I’ll be, what I’ll like, how financially secure I’ll be. All good things, for the most part. All fantasies no doubt.

Thinking about the future is called prospection. I fight against this everyday. Personally, I’m constantly striving for more mindfulness in my life to counterbalance my default to daydream. I meditate daily in this endeavor. I find that thinking less about the future makes my life better in the day to day moments. The less I think of my future self, the more I can enjoy myself today and not worry that I’m somehow messing things up for my future self.

But without prospection, I would be directionless in life.

I need something to look forward to. A vacation. A big event at work. A milestone for my children. Sailing. A cool hike. A good meal. FIRE. These little and big future events let me know the future is going to be okay and bright. Without future events to look forward to, I’m not sure today would be enjoyable either. What else would I be able to daydream about?

Prospection is a key ingredient to human evolution. There’s a deep biological connection we have to planning for the future and then putting this plan into action. Tapping into this primordial need to prepare, and harnessing it for early retirement, takes the edge off a high savings rate, if not making it downright enjoyable.

I can’t shake the notion that the future will be better for me. Even if it means conveniently denying the fact that I’ll be older in this rosy future I’ve built for myself. Less healthy. Less able. My kids will be grown, and will probably want to spend less time with me. When I imagine myself in my future, I somehow don’t see the bad things that come along with being older.

future self

What if everything I’m working and sacrificing for is not what my future self wants?

What if I quit work early to travel around the globe because I think that’s what my future self wants, only to realize that I was wrong.

What if my fifty-something future self hates living on a tight budget that was dictated by a naive forty-something self? What if this person actually liked working and having a work title and making big decisions that demand a high salary? What if this person’s kids don’t like having a life radically different childhood than the typical American stationary life and resentment begins to manifest?

It’s possible for me to look back over my life and see some wrong choices I’ve made years ago that have made things harder than they should have been. In the past, those decisions felt right. They felt like something my future self would be happy with.

For example, I purchased a brand new vehicle in 2013. At the time, a $500 monthly car payment felt like the right trade off for owning a cool new car. But now looking back, I can imagine; what if I’d just settled for a cheaper used car? All that money that I paid over the course of five years could have been better spent. What if I’d been able to invest $500 a month into index funds religiously from 2013 onwards instead of paying some bank? What a missed opportunity!

But in making that “wrong” decision, I’ve bettered myself my future self. Without making mistakes I can’t learn how to do things better. Makes me wonder what sort of wrong decisions I’m making today.

Making wrong decisions, is in a way, good. I argue that making bad decisions is essential to the full human experience. What kind of life would we lead if every decision we made was the correct one? How would that corrupt our minds? How naive would we be if we knew every choice we made was right? How bland and boring would life be? How would we get any better?

So when I look down at my weekly paycheck stub and see the deduction for my 401k, I might not ever know who will spend my money in that hazy distant future. But I do know that I trust that well known stranger who will spend my money. I hope that person in the future understands I’m trying my best to give them a good life. I hope I succeeded.