Discussion Forum > Time capsules
It rather reminds me of a conversation I had with an old school friend I met the other day and somehow we got onto the subject of the essays we had to write about what life would be like in the future (this was about 1960) - and we agreed that if we'd attempted to describe a Smartphone no one would have believed it was even remotely possible and we'd probably have been severely disciplined for impertinence!
May 8, 2014 at 18:11 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
It also reminds me of another passing thought I had which is to re-write our goals for the month so that we describe what actually happened (a bit like the re-writing of history in "1984"). Then we can claim a 100% success rate!
For instance:
Instead of the goal "Read War and Peace", re-write as "Read first three chapters of War and Peace, get confused by the fact that all the characters seem to have at least five names and give up"
Instead of "Exercise every day" re-write as "Exercise once a week, reducing to once every 9 days by end of month"
Instead of "Learn Chinese", "Do lesson 1 of Chinese, find it really difficult and peter out in Lesson 2".
For instance:
Instead of the goal "Read War and Peace", re-write as "Read first three chapters of War and Peace, get confused by the fact that all the characters seem to have at least five names and give up"
Instead of "Exercise every day" re-write as "Exercise once a week, reducing to once every 9 days by end of month"
Instead of "Learn Chinese", "Do lesson 1 of Chinese, find it really difficult and peter out in Lesson 2".
May 8, 2014 at 18:18 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
Mark - this sounds similar to what you were trying to do with Dreams, no?
Lachlan - my initial resistance (to trying this) has to do with efficacy. And how would you even measure if doing this exercise, vs not doing it, is beneficial? Of course, this very act might be enjoyable enough to forgo an attachment to outcome. Anyway, I'm curious to read what you discover.
Lachlan - my initial resistance (to trying this) has to do with efficacy. And how would you even measure if doing this exercise, vs not doing it, is beneficial? Of course, this very act might be enjoyable enough to forgo an attachment to outcome. Anyway, I'm curious to read what you discover.
May 8, 2014 at 18:20 |
avrum
avrum
avrum:
<< this sounds similar to what you were trying to do with Dreams, no? >>
I assume "this" refers to Lachlan's idea, rather than my imaginary Smartphone essay, or my re-writing of history.
Yes, if I remember correctly the idea of writing letters to oneself in the future was one of the strands in my mind at the time I wrote the book. The was quite a lot of discussion about it in self-development circles at the time.
<< this sounds similar to what you were trying to do with Dreams, no? >>
I assume "this" refers to Lachlan's idea, rather than my imaginary Smartphone essay, or my re-writing of history.
Yes, if I remember correctly the idea of writing letters to oneself in the future was one of the strands in my mind at the time I wrote the book. The was quite a lot of discussion about it in self-development circles at the time.
May 8, 2014 at 18:29 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
avrum:
<<how would you even measure if doing this exercise, vs not doing it, is beneficial? Of course, this very act might be enjoyable enough to forgo an attachment to outcome.>>
Yes, to some degree I'm not attached to any particular outcome.
That said, I suspect there could be practical benefits, which would be tied no doubt to what we choose to focus on. For example if the focus is on predicting achievements and changes in our life circumstances, there might be a practical benefit in terms of honing the skill of being realistic and accurate in making these sort of predictions. In this sense, the exercise might be comparable to a sort of long-term predictive to-do list.
Personally, I'm not going into this with any expectations. In that sense, it isn't a true experiment: there's no hypothesis to test. It's just an exercise in 'seeing what happens'. Hopefully what happens is that the letters are interesting and offer useful insights, but the only way to find out is to follow through with the exercise.
My guess is that there won't be a middle ground: either I'll eventually get bored with the process because the letters don't seem to have any value, or else I'll find myself looking forward to opening the next letter. This ultimately will determine whether I continue or not.
<<how would you even measure if doing this exercise, vs not doing it, is beneficial? Of course, this very act might be enjoyable enough to forgo an attachment to outcome.>>
Yes, to some degree I'm not attached to any particular outcome.
That said, I suspect there could be practical benefits, which would be tied no doubt to what we choose to focus on. For example if the focus is on predicting achievements and changes in our life circumstances, there might be a practical benefit in terms of honing the skill of being realistic and accurate in making these sort of predictions. In this sense, the exercise might be comparable to a sort of long-term predictive to-do list.
Personally, I'm not going into this with any expectations. In that sense, it isn't a true experiment: there's no hypothesis to test. It's just an exercise in 'seeing what happens'. Hopefully what happens is that the letters are interesting and offer useful insights, but the only way to find out is to follow through with the exercise.
My guess is that there won't be a middle ground: either I'll eventually get bored with the process because the letters don't seem to have any value, or else I'll find myself looking forward to opening the next letter. This ultimately will determine whether I continue or not.
May 9, 2014 at 10:17 |
Lachlan Black
Lachlan Black
(A previous version of this post was posted in the wrong thread.) You can actually use http://www.futureme.org (or several other sites... that's just the first to come up in a search) to email yourself in the future. That is assuming you don't change your email address in the meantime, and the site is still operational, etc.
Here's an example from someone who got an email from himself 9 years later:
http://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/24pku0/i_recently_received_an_email_from_myself_9_years/
Here's an example from someone who got an email from himself 9 years later:
http://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/24pku0/i_recently_received_an_email_from_myself_9_years/
May 9, 2014 at 14:22 |
Don R
Don R
Don R:
Interesting tool Don. I'd usually be a bit sceptical about the longevity of such services, but this one has already demonstrated that it's a survivor, so could be worth a look.
Personally I'm going to stick with paper for my tests. For whatever reason something about it seems more 'real'. On the other hand I'd probably write a lot more if it were electronic!
Interesting tool Don. I'd usually be a bit sceptical about the longevity of such services, but this one has already demonstrated that it's a survivor, so could be worth a look.
Personally I'm going to stick with paper for my tests. For whatever reason something about it seems more 'real'. On the other hand I'd probably write a lot more if it were electronic!
May 10, 2014 at 11:43 |
Lachlan Black
Lachlan Black
Update: first letter opened.
After opening my first letter, my biggest surprise was how many of the things I thought or hoped I'd achieve in the first month actually did get done. This might have something to do with the fact that the only things I addressed in the first letter were "quadrant 2" things, but then again, these are often the most neglected tasks.
I'm realising with the 1/4/12 month initial setup intervals that while it is easy to see a month into the future and focus on reasonably predictable outcomes for the near future, it is much harder to do so at 4 and 12 months and there is a natural tendency to talk instead about current frustrations, goals, etc.
Another observation at this early stage is the (for me unexpected) tendency to not merely write to the future self but also to reply to one's past self in so doing. Useful? Not sure. Interesting? Yes, at least so far.
After opening my first letter, my biggest surprise was how many of the things I thought or hoped I'd achieve in the first month actually did get done. This might have something to do with the fact that the only things I addressed in the first letter were "quadrant 2" things, but then again, these are often the most neglected tasks.
I'm realising with the 1/4/12 month initial setup intervals that while it is easy to see a month into the future and focus on reasonably predictable outcomes for the near future, it is much harder to do so at 4 and 12 months and there is a natural tendency to talk instead about current frustrations, goals, etc.
Another observation at this early stage is the (for me unexpected) tendency to not merely write to the future self but also to reply to one's past self in so doing. Useful? Not sure. Interesting? Yes, at least so far.
June 2, 2014 at 14:01 |
Lachlan Black
Lachlan Black
<<Useful? Not sure. Interesting? Yes, at least so far.>>
I'll take interesting over useful most times.
I'll take interesting over useful most times.
June 2, 2014 at 14:22 |
avrum
avrum
avrum:
<<I'll take interesting over useful most times.>>
Agreed!
Useful often means we've decided (and are limited by) what we think something is and how we think it should behave. Interesting means we are open to being taken on a journey.
Of course it's great when something interesting ultimately turns out to be useful as well. As for this experiment, we'll see!
<<I'll take interesting over useful most times.>>
Agreed!
Useful often means we've decided (and are limited by) what we think something is and how we think it should behave. Interesting means we are open to being taken on a journey.
Of course it's great when something interesting ultimately turns out to be useful as well. As for this experiment, we'll see!
June 3, 2014 at 12:06 |
Lachlan Black
Lachlan Black
Just got an email via from myself of 30 days ago, which I'd completely forgotten that I'd written:
-----------------------
Dear FutureMe,
You are still doing the Chinese, AREN'T YOU???
If not, restart NOW!!!
If you are, how are you getting on?
----------------------------
Answer:
Yes, I am.
很好，谢谢你！
-----------------------
Dear FutureMe,
You are still doing the Chinese, AREN'T YOU???
If not, restart NOW!!!
If you are, how are you getting on?
----------------------------
Answer:
Yes, I am.
很好，谢谢你！
June 8, 2014 at 20:14 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
Mark:
It's good to see I'm not the only one whose past self tends to lecture me about what I should or shouldn't be doing! lol
It's good to see I'm not the only one whose past self tends to lecture me about what I should or shouldn't be doing! lol
June 11, 2014 at 0:41 |
Lachlan Black
Lachlan Black
I wouldn't put up with that sort of hectoring from ANYONE else!!!
June 11, 2014 at 9:37 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
Well so far so good. The July letter, which I opened on the 1st but haven't really thought much about due mainly to the demands of work at the moment, had a few interesting insights, but nothing spectacular.
Unless anyone has any comments or questions I don't intend to post anything further until September, since that is the first letter that will be four months old as opposed to a mere one month. Perhaps there will be some qualitative difference due to the difference in the interval.
My initial thoughts on this experiment, at this very early stage, is that there might be more value in the writing than there is in the reading.
I'm not sure if anyone else is experimenting with this, but in any case I'd welcome any input on that last statement (or any other aspect of the experiment of course).
Otherwise, I'll report back in two months!
Unless anyone has any comments or questions I don't intend to post anything further until September, since that is the first letter that will be four months old as opposed to a mere one month. Perhaps there will be some qualitative difference due to the difference in the interval.
My initial thoughts on this experiment, at this very early stage, is that there might be more value in the writing than there is in the reading.
I'm not sure if anyone else is experimenting with this, but in any case I'd welcome any input on that last statement (or any other aspect of the experiment of course).
Otherwise, I'll report back in two months!
July 3, 2014 at 15:34 |
Lachlan Black
Lachlan Black
I suppose I'll be getting another letter from myself in a few day's time. I can't remember what I wrote.
July 3, 2014 at 19:15 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
Remembering this experience has made me think that there has to be a useful future self/future reality exercise buried somewhere in this technique.
I'm thinking of trying the idea of writing my future self a monthly letter (no theme, just whatever I feel I want to say to /ask of my future self) to be read one year from today. However I don't won't to wait a year to test this method, so I'm thinking of currently writing letters for one, four and twelve months from today. There should only be one letter to be opened each month, so the one-month and four-month intervals are to be dropped when no longer needed and eventually the method would be to just write one letter each month, for one year into the future. (The irony isn't lost on me that this effectively means I have only half as much patience now as I had when I was 11 ;-) !)
Just putting this thought out there to see if anyone else wants to try it as well and if so, hoping you will all share some feedback on whether anything useful comes out of it.