The person you choose to be right now

Abandoning futuristic thinking and goals and turning to identity

TL;DR: 
• We tend to indulge in dreaming about an idealized future, but being present is a more effective practice for living our lives, especially because the future doesn't exist. 
• Abandoning goals and embracing identities helps you live your life in the present with every decision you make.
• Choosing an identity for yourself gives you confidence in what you want and specificity about what you do and don't do.
• Labeling and living your life can help bring futuristic over-thinkers back to the here and now.

While trying not to suffocate from the smoke hanging over New York (my head is foggy writing this so we’ll see how well it turns out) I was reading this great writeup, Growth Without Goals by Patrick O'Shaughnessy. He starts with this incredible excerpt from Jiddu Krishnamurti on time:

Man lives by time. Inventing the future has been his favorite game of escape. We think that changes in ourselves can come about in time, that order in ourselves can be built up little by little, added to day by day. But time doesn’t bring order or peace, so we must stop thinking in terms of gradualness. This means that there is no tomorrow for us to be peaceful in. We have to be orderly on the instant.

It is only then [when the mind is completely still] that the mind is free because it is no longer desiring anything; it is no longer seeking; it is no longer pursuing a goal, an ideal—which are all the projections of a conditioned mind. And if you ever come to that understanding, in which there can be no self-deception, then you will find that there is a possibility of the coming into being of that extraordinary thing called creativity.

I am very much someone that spends too much time thinking about the future – it’s an addictive habit because I can always be optimistic and ideal about it. Drawing the line forward from now and carving out a strategy to get to some awesome end state is satisfying – I craft a story for the future.

The challenge with overthinking about the future though is that it puts you in this vague operating space where your head is hard at work imagining and optimizing what’s to come while your present self slows to a crawl. When I do this I procrastinate and don’t do the smaller more routine things that need to get done but rather indulge in dreaming.

I’ve always been aware of the positive effects of being present. Just as the quote above suggests, there’s a freeing sensation that comes with being in the moment. Meditation has been a great tool for bringing myself back to the present, but Patrick’s writing has made me pause and reevaluate how to find an even stronger habit of being present.

It seems to be that the key for a futuristic thinker to be brought back to the present is to remember that being present is the most concentrated and effective way to get the future you want. Especially because, as Patrick writes:

Accomplishments, by their very definition, exist only in the past or future—which are not even real things.

Even as you read this think about the personas, identities, and narratives you’ve been telling yourself you’ll get to eventually. What’s stopping you from being a musician right now? Or the founder of a startup right now? Or the type of person that organizes your group’s weekend outings right now?

The only way you’ll convince yourself that you can become that narrative is by proving to yourself again and again in the present that you are the type of person who does whatever you aspire to become.

While Jiddu’s note argues to abandon aspirations to be your most present egoless self, I think it can also be used to inspire the way you choose to live your life in the here and now.

Abandoning goals and deciding what to reject

My problem is that I always shape some futuristic ambition of whatever I do into some grand over-the-top success. Slicing up these big ambitions into baby steps or just putting one foot in front of the other in the direction of a goal has helped, but Patrick’s idea of pursing growth without goals condenses the approach to life to a refreshingly present center.

Becoming a narrative of what you’d like to be starts with letting your identity be totally consumed by the narrative in the moment. From right now you are an entrepreneur, or you are an athlete or you are an artist.

The first part of Adam Grant’s phenomenal book Atomic Habits talks about how identity precedes behavior when it comes to starting new habits. Habits aren’t isolated actions, but reflections of who you think you are.

It helps to have an identity because you not only start mimicking the habits of those narratives that you think about, but you also reject activities that don’t align with those narratives.

Oprah said that across all of the successful people she’s interviewed, the one thing that has been consistent is that they all know what they want in their life. She goes on to say that most people don’t know what they want, so having that confidence in identity alone sets you apart from everyone else – also leaving behind any reason to measure yourself with others.

And knowing what you want is a powerful tool because you know what you stand for and what you have to say no to:

• If you are the type of person that goes to the gym every day at 8am, then you’ll say no to a breakfast invitation for 8:30am, but might ask to move it to a later time.

• If you are trying to become a consistent writer, then you might turn off your phone for hours, isolating yourself from the outside world to channel your creative energy.

• If you are trying to catch the attention of Hans Zimmer as an incredibly talented producer, then you’ll exclusively reserve your Sunday afternoons for making music like my friend Henry Phipps does.

When you say no to things people will probably be upset sometimes – but you’ve chosen to embody an identity and that identity demands your decisions. Having the identity helps you filter the things you do in the present.

Becoming a citizen of the world

To give a personal example, one of my goals is to become a “citizen of the world.”

My loose definition of being a citizen of the world is having a good enough understanding of other languages and cultures to not be a completely ignorant American when traveling. Language is the best way to show that you have empathy or are trying to connect with another culture, so I try to learn languages.

So far I’ve done a year of Italian (lessons), 2 years of French (lessons + half a year of Duolingo), 5 years of German (middle + high school), 1 of Mandarin (college), and roughly 1 and a half of Spanish (Duolingo). I admittedly have forgotten a lot of these languages or confuse them frequently, but I’m not completely rusty. I was at a restaurant in Barcelona and was able to chat with my very kind and accommodating waiter in a blend of French and Spanish because she didn’t speak English.

But what once was a goal (“to become a global citizen”) is now an identity – “I am a citizen of the world.”

What does it take to become a “citizen of the world”? It takes daily practice of language, even if for just 2 minutes. It takes being willing to be really really stupid in foreign countries. It takes trying things that look really unappetizing or are uncomfortable.

And it’s brutal.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sworn at the little green Duolingo owl for reminding me to do my daily lesson to keep my streak going.

But it’s what I’ve chosen as the narrative and identity that I want for myself, and it’s a necessary part of being a citizen of the world.

Becoming present with your aspirational identity is a great method of understanding what it is that you want. It takes time though. It takes doing the work in the present.

Always more than one identity

Right now you are living an identity in your head. Actually, you’re living a couple of identities. You work for one company, or you like to do X on the weekends, or you’re a loving and committed partner to Y.

But what about the identities you’re hesitant to prioritize? Have some of your narratives inflated to become too overwhelming, blocking out your chance to work on the other things you’d like to do? And at the end of the day, isn’t it impossible to do it all?

It starts to feel overwhelming when you consider everything you probably want to try in the world. But rather than aspiring to have a one-time goal of doing an activity or achieving some milestone, it’s more effective to throw away your goals, choose a specific identity for now, and use that identity to make decisions.

The truth is that you won’t ever just be subscribed to one identity. There will always be a couple in your head that you’ll lean into more than others at any given moment. Labeling those identities, even if they’re aspirational, are what you can use as your new tool for how you do things in the present.

And for leaning into your newer-labeled identities, remember that centering yourself in the present is an excellent way to start that new narrative. The things you do in the present are what help you become what you want. Eventually after you continuously do the habits of an identity you want for yourself you’ll realize that you were just going through the beginner phase of realizing the identity.

It was always just as easy as labeling it and living it.

…there is no tomorrow for us to be peaceful in. We have to be orderly on the instant.