Relative Something

I recently saw a news article on the topic of “health span” as compared to life span. If people live longer but haven’t taken care of their health, the golden years can be fraught with ailments instead of desired retiree pursuits. It gave me a new appreciation for how many of my present moment decisions are made with “future me” in mind.

Planting trees is a primary exercise in doing something for “future me.” Sometimes, it’s even more for generations that will be around after I’m gone. I like to point out the giant maple trees near our labyrinth with an invitation to imagine what it will look like in a hundred years when the fingerling we transplanted from beneath them has matured in the center of the labyrinth.

We could all do better by making more decisions each day with our future selves in mind.

Even when it comes to the water we drink toward healthy hydration each day, what we are doing in the moment actually pays dividends tomorrow. There is a time element to how our cells absorb, so to be at our peak tomorrow, we need to drink enough water today.

The planking and stretching exercises I do in the morning are a routine I adopted to strengthen my core for next year and beyond. A little workout at a time for a future me in ten years.

Scrubbing my mental health to purge negative thought patterns and replacing them with positive messages as a daily practice is absolutely a gift to future me. I have witnessed more than enough people who seemed to grow gloomier with each year that passes to inspire my goal of achieving the opposite.

With these life practices, I’m hoping “future me” will be happier and healthier than present-day me. I would be very satisfied if my health span and life span came out as close to even as possible.

Wouldn’t everyone?

I recommend allowing our future selves to guide all our daily decisions instead of just relying on the possibility of luck to bring us happy endings.

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