My Future Self - Nov 6 2022

 

My Future Self

Nov 6 2022

I'm not very good

at imagining my future self

and looking out for him.

I know this

because the past versions of me

didn't do it very well.

After all, current me

has priority,

so why not one more slice of pie,

second mortgage,

nasty divorce?

That things didn't turn out

as I expected

is no surprise.

After all, no one really gets it right.

The question is

if I could go back in time

with what I know now

would I do it any better?

A tempting thought

but I think not.

Not when you consider

that my temperament

and essential flaws

haven’t really changed;

that I'm guilty of the same short-sighted thinking,

am just as weak

when instant gratification

tests my resolve.

And the future

would feel as far away;

like the earthquake

that happens to strangers

on the other side of the world

you know should be deeply affecting,

but you just nod sympathetically

and go on with your day.

If only I'd been

the grasshopper, not the ant;

remembered to floss,

hadn't kept putting it off,

or refused to stop

whatever it was

that never once worked.

And the lottery, of course

was clearly no financial plan.

The future,

as if it were singular

predetermined

and the best of all worlds,

when between now and then

there are so many possibilities

contingencies

blind-sided turns.

The future,

that hypothetical space

as big as the multiple universe.

But which will probably end up

feeling like more of the same;

not a place, an end, a summation,

but more the muddled middle

of hoping for the best

and living for today.