An Amazing Strategy You Should Use To Talk With Your Future Self
Never forget who you were and who you’re going to be.
Make today a gift to your future self.- Anonimous
Can we be sports icons and shy people at the same time?
Until I was 20 years old, I had an inner struggle between the ability to play sports and my brain’s willingness to get away from the noise and dive into the world of books.
At school, everybody wanted a piece of my attention. I was an athlete icon on basketball and beach volleyball. I played basketball on the best team in town and beach volleyball in the nationals.
My body corresponded perfectly to any stimulus that put a ball in front of me. So I was a pride of my entire family. I appeared weekly in regional and some national newspapers and was mentioned as the so-called “young hope” of national sports.
The thing is that inside my mind I didn’t like a bit about popularity. I loved sports and still do, but being popular was not my thing. Most of the time, while my friends were at a party, I was reading books in my bedroom.
The world of books fascinated me more than being at a party with cute girls. So until my mid-20s, I was not a dating type of person.
Yet, athlete icon and intellectual nerd don’t match, and sometimes, I had some of my friends getting angry with me. They didn’t understand why couldn’t a person like me take advantage of the iconic public image. Personally, I didn’t give a damn.
When I wasn’t playing sports, I wanted to be inside the authors’ brains. Ernest Hemingway, Marguerite Yourcenar, Paulo Coelho, Jonathan Coe, José Saramago, Arundhati Roy, and so many others. I spent endless hours in my bedroom diving deep into characters and their imaginary worlds. It was my way of seeking the unknowns of humanity.
Huge challenges in sports, beautiful girls to conquer, and friendships to consolidate were waiting for me- I didn’t need to rush things up.
One day I was on my way to school, thinking about life (I was always thinking about life), and decided to talk to my future self.
So I chose a precise moment, in a precise place, where I stopped and closed my eyes to an amazing trip into the future.
I’m going to show you four moments when I stopped in time and space and talked to a future version of myself.
18 years old, walking on my way to school.
I remember it was a hot day, maybe spring or early summer. I felt the warm breeze coming inside my shirt. Flowers were at the peak of the fragrance on that trail where I passed every day on my way to school.
At that moment, on that trail, feeling the world that surrounded me, I realized that it was possible to send messages to my future self.
Some reasoning that got lost in the endless ways of my neurons made me think that I could try to keep in my memory a thought that could be transported to my future self.
So I stopped, closed my eyes, and memorized that moment. I remember perfectly speaking to my future self and telling him that I am now only 18 years old, and that I am proud of my career as an athlete, and that I feel within me a restlessness that I cannot explain.
I was always wondering why my mind constantly navigates in a sea of endless thoughts.
In an instinctive move, I opened my eyes, continued on my way to school, and never thought about it again.
28 years old, when I met my future wife.
I was in my grandfather’s house at the beach when I received a letter in the mail. Not a message on my phone, nor an email, but a love letter on my mailbox- so old school.
It was anonymous, but I thought it was kind of funny.
The next weeks I was waiting for the secret admirer to identify herself, but she didn’t appear.
I ended up forgetting the subject, until the day when a girl who rarely appeared at my health club, told me she was the author of that letter.
From dozens of women, I never imagined Ana Lucia would be the one. The next Wednesday I was having dinner with her in a beautiful restaurant in Lisbon with a view of the river Tejo. At that moment, I thought I had found the woman of my life.
We can’t explain these things of pure chemistry. I knew, at that precise moment, that I was facing the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
Two years later, on a beautiful spring morning, I was preparing for my wedding day.
On that special morning, while I was dressing up for the most important day of my life, I closed my eyes and had a vision of my past self. I saw a young 18-year-old kid in a trail full of flowers, with his eyes closed, on his way to school. I took a 10-year-old trip to that trail of flowers.
I remembered my doubts, my insecurities, my constant anxiety before the world around me. I even remembered the intense smell of flowers coming to my nose.
For a moment, I traveled back in time and did the memory exercise- a very intense moment for a wedding day.
At 28, the time stopped again. In my room, at the sound of Angeles by Elliott Smith, I felt my heart overflowing with joy.
While I was with my eyes closed, I remembered the teachings of my grandfather and that phrase that always accompanied me: Respect others to be respected.
I opened up my eyes and smiled.
From 18 to 28 years old, many wonderful things happened. Beach volleyball tournaments, datings, writing in my various journals, conversations night ahead with my best friends at my grandfather’s beach house.
In my memory, I kept also moments where indie music always accompanying us everywhere. I remembered me and my friends never losing the best sunsets of every single summer or the smell of the mountains on endless walks.
It was all part of me, in these 10 years of memories.
39 years old, when my wife and I had to make the toughest decision of our lives.
It was a cold day in October. The rain stopped and I had just left my house. My legs were shaking and my head was numb. Ana Lucia and I had just decided that our marriage no longer made sense.
My instinct made me return to the church where we were married. At one of the highest points in the city, a small chapel emerges, with a stone staircase that ran down the hill until reaching the foot of the city. The views from up there are beautiful, as we see Leiria’s castle embracing the city.
The chapel’s door was closed, but I leaned back and sat on the floor. Tears flowed uncontrollably.
Without ever creaking, Ana Lucia and I had stopped loving each other. We had both reached a painful conclusion that day. Without realizing how or why, something was disconnected between us, only held by an infinite love for our two daughters.
We stopped having friends in common, we stopped enjoying the holidays together, we stopped knowing how to be together at home. Something had been lost, and for the past two years, we had done everything we could to try to reactivate our marriage. We never failed to respect each other and be friends with each other, but that flame went out and we never managed to light it again.
Leaning against the door of the chapel where I got married, completely defeated by that decision, I started thinking about the good things I could grab out of that decision.
I closed my eyes and visualized a moment 11 years before. The moment I was listening to Elliott Smith’s Angeles in my room, on my wedding day. Then I managed to travel further back, and I remembered again that special energy that always accompanied me when I was 18 years old. With my eyes closed, 11 years after the last memory exercise, in a moment of deep pain, I managed to find some light, some hint of hope.
Despite the separation, my relationship with Ana Lucia remained good and respectful. We had two beautiful daughters to support, so, preserving a respectful relationship with my ex-wife should only bring good things.
A big door closed in my life, but that day, I was peeking into a small window. I had to be able to see beyond the window, to realize that there is another way forward. I never forgot who I was or where I came from. The memory exercises always made me fully aware of the path I had come from and pointed to the path I had to go to.
In the most difficult moment of my life, my past saved me and projected me into the future.
Today I have an excellent relationship with Ana Lucia. She joyened Luis and they had a son, little António. We get all together for Christmas and birthdays. We go to each other’s houses and our relationship is great. Ana Lucia and I are friends, we help each other, we support each other, and our daughters are happy and balanced children.
I know it’s not normal for this type of separation to end up so well, but my ex-wife and I knew how to manage our emotions in the best way. We have always had a great affection for each other and we have always known how to maintain respect.
Conversations with my past made me project my future.
45 years old, at my birthday party.
Turning myself into a full-time writer has its own challenges; it’s an act of courage. My financial life is stable and my savings gave me two years of advancement to be able to make another dream come true — to become a writer.
At 31 years old I was broke but my resilience made me read everything about financial education, which allowed me to reach 45 years old and be in a frankly stable position.
The pandemic forced us to spend more time alone in our world, closed within four walls. I spend my birthday alone and so it allowed me to do my memory exercise again.
At 45, alone at home, I remember the moment of the pain of my 39, leaning against the door of a small chapel where I got married.
I also remembered one of the happiest moments of my life, the day I got married. Funny to think about it now and feel nothing more than love about that moment. I was really happy and fulfilled with joy with the woman I loved.
With my eyes closed, I remembered the smell of flowers, on that trail on my way to school, feeling the pure and beautiful energy and ingenuity of an 18-year-old kid.
My 45 years old journey showed me almost everything: an immense love from friends and family, two wonderful daughters, a divorce, the painful loss of my father, the conquer of my financial freedom, and a full-time writing hyper challenge.
Writing on an international platform is a tremendous challenge, especially in another language. So many ideas to share, huge questions to rise, and the desire to write words for the world to hear.
Writing for the world is, in a way, opening a window on your soul. It’s an act of courage and generosity. You are subject to scrutiny, criticism, envy, but on the other hand, you also receive love, compassion, admiration, and friendship.
I love to look at the good things and get the best out of them. I have received the most beautiful messages I have ever imagined receiving from readers. People who admire what I write, who perceive and get inspired by my thoughts, people who question themselves as I do about everyday issues.
On my birthday, the pandemic forced me to be alone, but in reality, I never felt so accompanied. I gained another family with writing. On this platform, I hear what others have to say to me, but I also write what I want to share.
I’m always accompanied because this family is special.
We are all writers; we know what it takes to get here; we advise each other; we give each other strength; we try to help the youngest; we admire the most experienced, always, but always, to satisfy the reader.
It’s the reader who trues reason for our existence.
Final Thought
A man can be destroyed but not defeated.- Ernest Hemingway.
Life tries to destroy us in every step we take. It’s up to us to look at the good side of our own universe. There are so many good things going on in the world that you must be attentive enough to appreciate.
I like this phrase by Ernest Hemingway, as it precisely sums it up.
Life will continue to make you uncomfortable. You will lose people who are close to you, you will have friends who will disappoint you, your favorite club will lose a few more championships, the platform where you write will continue to change the rules of the game, your skin will become more wrinkled with the passing of time, and other things that don’t even cross your mind.
This is all going to happen because this is all a part of life itself.
But please, don’t forget that love can be just around the corner. Never forget your insignificance. Never forget that a new friendship may come from the person you least expect. Be sure to contemplate Mother Nature; it was the best creation the universe offered us. Simplify the complicated and never forget to apologize.
My leaps into the past always made me realize that life is beautiful, even when it hurts. The past made me realize that I’m as human as any other person on this planet. And now I become a writer.
To be a writer is to leave footprints in the clouds.
To be a writer is to draw pieces of knots on the leaves of the trees.
To be a writer is to cross the sea with footsteps, to then get lost in the woods, dressed in sand and rags of wind.
Who am I going to be in the future?
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