Meg Jay Essential questions to ask your future self TED
Transcriber:
Meg Jay: We need to talk
about the empathy gap.
So the empathy gap is
why we sometimes hate on people
on the other end
of the political spectrum.
Or it’s why maybe we shrug their shoulders
at the problems of those
who look different
or live different
or love different than we do.
It’s why we almost certainly
aren’t doing enough
to protect our kids and grandkids
from climate change.
It can just be difficult sometimes
to care about people that we don’t know
or to do right by people
who don’t even exist yet.
But what if I told you
that that same empathy gap
can also get in the way of us doing right
by ourselves in our 20s and beyond?
And before I go on,
let me say that everything
I’m about to talk about
also applies to all of us out there
who are well beyond our 20s.
But for a little bit of background,
in 2013, I gave a talk
about why our twenties matter.
So it’s about almost 10 years later.
I’m still a clinical psychologist
who specializes in 20-somethings.
But these days, the 20-somethings I see,
they know their 20s matter.
So they want to get them right.
They want to move to the right city.
They want to take the right job.
They want to find the right partner.
They want to have the right answers.
Well, the bad news is
there are no right answers.
There are no right answers for where
you should live or where you should work
or how you should settle down.
These are what are called
“large world problems”
because there are just too many unknowns.
No app, no algorithm, no enneagram
can ever solve these problems
or answer these questions for you.
But the good news is,
because there are no right answers,
there are no wrong answers.
There are only your answers.
So your 20s are a great time
to listen to and be honest with yourself.
They’re a great time to have
a conversation with your future self.
So philosopher Derek Parfit said
we neglect our future selves
because of some sort of failure
of belief or imagination.
So I’m going to say that again,
because it’s really important:
we neglect our future selves
because of some sort of failure
of belief or imagination.
So when you’re young,
it can be difficult to imagine or believe
that you could ever really be 35,
especially when most of the influencers
you see on Instagram or TikTok
are younger than that.
But that’s a problem
because research shows
that our brains think
about our future selves
similarly to how
they think about strangers.
And that’s where the empathy gap comes in.
It can be difficult for us to care
about a version of ourselves
that we haven’t met yet.
Yet research also shows
that if we find a way
to close that empathy gap
between our present selves
and our future selves,
we start to think more
about what we could do now
to be kind to ourselves down the line.
So in one of my favorite studies on this,
researchers used virtual reality
to show 20-somethings
what they would look like
when they’re old.
Scary, I know, but the 20-somethings
who saw their age-morphed selves,
set aside more money towards
retirement than those who didn’t.
So I don’t have
virtual reality in my office
and saving for retirement isn’t something
that comes up a whole lot.
But what does come up a whole lot
is that about 85 percent
of life’s most defining moments
take place by around age 35.
So I ask my clients
to imagine themselves at age 35
and I ask them to believe in their ability
to have created those defining moments.
And then I ask them to get
really specific about what they see.
What do I look like, where do I live,
what do I do for work?
Do I enjoy the work? Is it meaningful?
Is it important? Does it pay well?
Might these things be true one day?
Which of these things
do I really care about?
What about after work?
Who do I come home to?
Do I have a partner?
What does that relationship look like?
How does it look different or similar
to the ones that I saw growing up?
Are there kids in the picture?
How old was I when I had my first child?
How old might I be when that child
goes to college or has their own kids?
And of course, am I happy, am I healthy?
And what exactly do I do or not do
that makes me happy and healthy?
So the idea here is just to try
to get to know your future self,
because when we spend time
connecting with that person,
we do some reverse engineering
and we start to ask
our present self questions
about how our present and our future
can come together or meet somewhere
in the middle, along the way.
We start to ask questions like,
“How is everything
I think I want going to fit?”
or “What does all this mean
about what I need to be doing now?”
Or here’s one of my favorite questions
to ask yourself at any age:
“If I’m in a job
or a relationship or a situation
I would like not to be in in five years,
then how much longer
am I going to spend on this?”
So, like I said, many
of these are tough questions.
But 20 years of doing this work
has taught me that 20-somethings aren’t
afraid of being asked the tough questions.
What they’re really afraid of
is not being asked the tough questions.
And maybe that’s because
they’ve told the world
that they’re interested in having
courageous conversations
about race and class
and politics and the environment.
And perhaps at any age,
one of the most courageous conversations
you can have is with your future self.
Thank you.
Whitney Pennington Rodgers:
Thank you so much, Meg.
That was wonderful.
I’m glad to be here with you
and with all of our members.
And I know that your work is
with people in their 20s, young adults.
But you mentioned in your talk
that this is something you can apply
at any stage of your life
and at any point.
It’s not just advice that you should use
in your 20s, is that right?
MJ: Oh, yes.
I mean, I think our 20s is when we first
start having to sort of figure out,
“Oh, there’s a future self out there.
And I guess I better think
about that person.”
Because, you know, like,
school kind of does it for us,
has us plot two or three years in advance.
So our 20s are when we first start
to think across those horizons.
We get better at it over time.
And then in our 30s, 40s, 50s, we have
more built-in connections to the future.
Like maybe if you have kids,
you think, “Hey, I really
want to be around
when they graduate from college”
or whatever the case may be.
So there are there are ways we kind of –
it becomes a little bit more natural
the older that you get.
But it’s always important.
I have a couple in my practice right now
and they’re actually having a conversation
with their future relationship,
because in about five years,
their kids are going to
be leaving for college
and they want to be sure they have
a marriage they feel good about
when the kids are gone.
Or if I think about myself, I’m 51.
So I’m having a conversation
with my future self
about, “Hey, you know,
what do I want to get out of
the years of my career
that are just ahead in my 50s
and, you know, time’s running out.
What is it I want to get done?”
So I think we’re, you know,
we always need to be
in conversation with our future self.
It’s just something that’s new
and usually quite difficult
for 20-somethings.
WPR: So I guess one thing
I’m curious about is, you know,
people have said, “OK, I like
this idea of these questions.
I want to ask myself these questions.”
And they do that. And then what happens?
You know, I guess,
what do you recommend people do next?
What is the way that
they can sort of take this further
to advance themselves and this thinking?
MJ: Yeah, so, you know, again,
it depends on the goal
or what ended up happening
between you and your future self
in this conversation.
But I think like most long-form projects,
so I would suggest some, you know,
pencil and paper, do some math,
sort of sketch out
some things just to start with.
And then as you go along,
you might realize other things
that are important to you down the line
that you want to be sure
that you get in there and add in there.
And then I would figure out –
it depends on what it is,
but a schedule that works for you,
where you check in about your progress on,
“Hey, am I being true to myself
and to my future self
in terms of what I said
I was going to start prioritizing more.”
So maybe that check-in is once a month.
Maybe it’s every year on New Year’s.
Maybe it’s your birthday.
It really kind of depends.
But I do think – I mean,
having this conversation one time
because you heard my chat today
and then dropping it is probably
not going to do a lot for you.
But if it’s kind of the beginning
of an ongoing conversation with yourself
and like with any goal,
it’s probably something we need to
keep circling back around on.
“OK? Is this still what I want
and how am I doing on this?”
It kind of create some accountability.
And so for that, that is where I think
some people find,
I’m going to tell a friend
or I’m going to tell my pastor
or I’m going to write it in my journal
or whatever it is for you
to kind of say, this is a goal
that I’m going to own
and I’m going to keep coming back to it.
WPR: Have some sort of partner,
even if that partner is yourself,
your future self.
MJ: Right.
WPR: Well, Meg, thank you so much
for being with us today,
for your for your talk and for sharing
so much of your wisdom
around these questions
and your 20s, and so much more.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
MJ: Yeah, my pleasure. It was really fun.