My future self wanted a different Christmas tree
Last weekend we went to a local tree farm to pick out our Christmas tree. It had been raining all day, so when we arrived, we were the only ones in the parking lot.
But soggy boots be damned; we take the Christmas tree hunt very seriously. For two hours we roamed from hillside to hillside, taking photos of the best candidates. After we had examined every…single…tree, my daughter and I stopped to review the photos. We had a clear winner: a tree we had seen at the very beginning of our hunt. So we began the half-mile trek back to the magical spot.
It was 3:30 by that point, and the farm closed at 4. When we passed the hut where you pay for your tree, the woman working there asked, a bit nervously, “You haven’t found your tree yet?”
Where did it go?
We knew we were in the right place because we found the first tree that made our list. The “winning” tree (№2 in the lineup) had been just a few trees over.
But we could … not… find… it.
We inspected the photos for clues. Any distinguishing features? What was to the right and left of the tree? Anything distinctive on the ground around it?
Nothing. We re-examined every tree in the area and our tree was not there.
Except that it was. We just didn’t love it anymore. After seeing all the other candidates at the tree farm, this one just didn’t catch our eye the way it did the first time around.
So, we gave up the chase. With 10 minutes until the farm closed, we set out to quickly find a replacement for our ringer. My daughter spotted “the tree” just in time, and we cut it down and brought it home. Albeit a bit larger than we had planned (you can’t worry about these things when you’re in a rush), it’s the perfect tree. We love it more than any other Christmas tree we’ve ever had.
What our present self doesn’t realize
Ironically, the day before the tree hunt a friend sent me a TED talk, “You don’t actually know what your future self wants” by Shankar Vedantam (he has a podcast called Hidden Brain which I’ve since started listening to).
The talk was about how when we look backwards at our life, we can see how dramatically we’ve changed; the things that used to be important to us, that we thought would always be true, are no longer true. But when we look forward in our life, we believe that we’re always going to feel and think the way we do today. We can’t imagine that we’ll change our viewpoint or perspective.
But we always do.
He calls it the “illusion of continuity.” We spend most of our lives trying to make our future selves happy.
His advice?
Stay curious
Don’t limit yourself to the first tree you loved; take time to appreciate other trees on the farm.
Since we don’t know what will be most important to our future self (even though we think we do), we should spend time on relationships and interests that aren’t just the ones that are “most important” to us right now. In other words, we should keep our options — and eyes — open. We’re changing all the time. By staying curious and continuing to expand our horizons, we play a role in who our future self becomes — what she’s good at, who she values most in her life, and how she spends her time.
Practice humility
Don’t declare to everyone at the Christmas tree farm that you have found the perfect tree and that no other tree can compare.
Vedantam warns people against making bold proclamations on social media and in other public settings that, believe it or not, our future self might not agree with. I heard an interview with a female musician the other day who has been politically outspoken over the years, and she said, “I no longer believe anything I said up until about four months ago.”
Be brave
Trust that your Christmas-tree hunting skills will improve over time.
Our future selves may be able to do, accomplish, or manage what feels like the impossible today. If we have courage and are willing to keep learning and growing, we can move beyond our present limitations to realize our potential.
All that said, next year I’m bringing along a spool of ribbon and marking the darn tree.