Do Things You’ll Love Yourself For

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Do Things You’ll Love Yourself For

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The night before you travel somewhere, order your favorite pizza, eat some of it for dinner, and seal the rest in a bag and put it in the freezer.

A week later, when you get home unexpectedly late, wiped out and ravenous, you’ll open your fridge to find only eggs, pickles, and condiments. Then, you’ll remember that your favorite pizza is right there in the freezer!

In that moment, notice that alongside the joy of unexpected pizza, you also will feel love for – and will feel loved by — your past self.

A regular version of this is FlyLady’s recommendation that you shine your kitchen sink before you go to bed. This small, easy ritual has a disproportionate benefit on your morning. The version of you that wakes up and makes coffee next to that shiny sink will not only have a better day, but will feel respected and cared for.

It might seem like these actions are a kind of zero-sum, one-to-one exchange: you lose something now to gain something later. Your future self receives a gift, but it can only gain what your past self has given up.

In practice, it’s not zero-sum. It almost feels just as good to do these things as it does to discover them done for you. Shining the sink and wrapping up those pizza slices are acts of love for your future self, and acts of love feel good to do, so you benefit on both ends. Doing these tasks intentionally gives you the same warm, nurturing feeling as brushing a grateful cat or tying someone’s tie for them.

"Good morning, loved one"

And Present Self definitely sees Future Self as someone else. Think of how often you feel at odds with this hypothetical future version of you, such as when you put off something you ought to do today. You’re just dropping more work onto the desk of Future Self, who know will have enough to do already. You can rationalize it only because he feels like some other guy. He’s not you, not really. You obviously don’t want the task in question on your own desk.

Say Present Self wants to sneak in another episodeof The Wire before going to bed, because it’s getting really good. This will cost Future Self something — she now has to carry the day’s already considerable burdens on 6 hours of sleep. But Present Self is the one who gets to choose for both of them.

Not a priority shared by Future Self

This arrangement is their eternal relationship. Present self is the actor, the decider. Future Self helplessly inherits the fruits of those actions and decisions, which could be ease, security, wealth, and good situations, or their opposites.

From these new conditions, Future Self then becomes the new Present Self, acting and deciding and leaving something for her counterpart to come.

The most important relationship

The quality of this relationship between Present Self and Future Self shapes your whole life. If it’s a loving relationship, you’ll do well, because you’re always both people, and loving actions benefit both players.

Strategic pizza benefits all

Look at your present with the mind that you’re always inheriting what the previous Present Self left you, when he thought of you as that other guy. The sum of this inheritance determines much about your living situation, your level of wealth, your abilities, your relationships, your health, and your options.

If you’re stingy with your love for the other guy, it means you’re always living with a stingy inheritance, because that’s what’s always being left for you. Everything will be perpetually strained and scarce — money, time, options. You don’t feel very well-loved, and which will incline you towards the same stinginess.

The not-ideal situation:

I always thought the key to improving this cycle was self-discipline: identify the rational move and make yourself do it. Get better at this over time. Form habits, strengthen character.

Self-discipline has its place, but I think there’s a better, more human way to get there: regard everything you do as an opportunity to love the other guy.

The ideal situation:

Lovingly pack his lunch for him. Shine the sink for him. Get the thing done Friday afternoon, not because it’s rational, but because you love Monday Guy.

Come Monday, he will know he’s loved, and by that love he will understand how to conduct himself towards his own future counterpart.

Monday Guy needs your love more than you know (and you need his)

The loving relationship with Future Self mostly comes down to how Present Self does things. A task done lovingly is done with an open heart and full attention.

You can iron your shirt because you “have ironing to do,” or you can iron it because you love the person who will be wearing it tomorrow.

When you do it with that motivation, it’s not even the same task — your attention works completely differently. You...