Reflections on Time · Issue no. 3
Balancing present, past, and future-oriented time perspectives to influence your decision making, your feelings, and how you spend your time
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Would you trade one year of your life today, to gain an unknown number of years in the future? That was the question my mom faced when deciding whether to do chemotherapy for stage 1 cancer.
Chemo would take a year to fully recover from, if “fully” was even possible. If she didn't do chemo, there was the scary unknown: had the cancer cells escaped through her lymph nodes, sitting hidden in the rest of her body, until one day, they came raging back with more fervor? Or had the surgery removed everything? Modern medicine doesn't know.
As her daughter, my first instinct was that chemo was worth it: kill the cancer cells once and for all, optimize for a long future. Her first instinct was the opposite: she’ll never be as young and able as she is today, and who knows what will happen in the future?
The concept of time confounds and fascinates me. Time is a human construct, a way for us to contextualize change. It is a valuable, non-renewable resource that money can’t buy. Time has a powerful influence on our feelings, decisions, and actions. Yet we don’t often think about our perception of time, how our relationship to time changes over our lives, and how other people might have very different relationships with time than we do. Movies and books that challenge our perception of time and space (i.e. Inception, The Three Body Problem) are the ones that keep me thinking long after I’ve finished consuming them, because they challenge such a fundamental influence on my life.
The Time Perspectives
You might have heard of Philip Zimbardo, the Stanford psychologist famous for the Stanford Prison Experiment. But his lesser known work, The Time Paradox, is actually more applicable to our lives. He defines six time-oriented mindsets, which I’ve illustrated below:
Each time perspective has positive and negative tendencies, illustrated below:
Future-oriented people tend to optimize for efficiency of time spent, and are less able to enjoy ephemeral, consumable activities and experiences. When their goals are attained but not as good as they expected, future-oriented people may experience a mid-life crisis, engrossed by the feeling that what they sacrificed in youth wasn’t worth the future they worked so hard for.
Future-oriented people are less likely to help those in need (!). In a study, 90% of students that were late and told to rush across campus didn’t stop to help a homeless person, even though they were being tested on compassion.
The more educated a society is, the more future-oriented its citizens are, of which anxiety and competitiveness explains a higher rate of mental health issues. Societies with militaristic rule tend to have more present-fatalist citizens. Some of the most creative artists in the world are present-hedonistic; an over-reliance on the future or past can stifle creative risk-taking.
How my time perspectives have shifted over…time
I have realized over my adult life that I am predominantly future-oriented, optimizing my present for future gains -- more time, more money, more optionality, more happiness. I resonate with Morgan Housel’s definition of true wealth in the Psychology of Money: the “ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want to.” Yet, as Alan Watts eloquently puts it in The Wisdom of Insecurity, “There is no other reality than present reality, so that, even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly.”
As a kid in elementary school, I'd ask my parents, "Why do I have to study?" They said that the pain of studying is worth it in the end, but the “end” was too abstract for me. I just knew that spending time inside with my math problems meant I couldn't be outside building castles in the sand. My mom would tell me that college was the best four years of her life. "Study hard and you'll get to enjoy that too. You want to have options in life, and the way to get options is to be really good at what you do." Sometime at the end of elementary school and the beginning of junior high, it clicked. I’d complain about having too many art projects in school, and not enough learning from books (which I believed would get me farther in life). My present-hedonistic mindset was shifting quickly towards a future-oriented mindset, thanks to education and my upbringing.
In the competitive atmosphere of my high school, almost everything my friends and I did was for the purpose of getting into a good university. Practicing aikido was my way of standing out from all the people playing American sports. I racked up almost a thousand hours of community service so it would make me look "well-rounded" on a college application. I sacrificed lunch hour to participate in math league tests. Sure, I had fun too, but my over-scheduled days were optimized for the future. The collective adult wisdom at the time was that a good university would set me up for the rest of my life. Sidebar: I’m stoked to see this change by the time my future kids reach this stage, and I hope it will have a positive impact on teenage mental health. Cohort-based learning is moving online and I strongly believe it will democratize world-class, higher-level education. See On Deck and Wes, Shreyans, and Gagan’s new startup.
When I finally made it to university, having made it through one “life gate”, I felt an immense freedom. I could be anybody and try everything. The four-year timebox gave me a sense of urgency to make the most of my exploration. I often chose maximizing joy in the present — going on spontaneous road trips, staying up all night to watch the stars, learning how to drive stick in the countryside, auditing “impractical” classes that sparked my interest — instead of studying for practical courses in the library. The more different someone’s life story was from my own, the more I wanted to spend time with them.
At the same time, my ultimate goal was to secure a job after graduation, so I got an internship every semester, and optimized my junior summer internship to get a full-time job offer. I developed the ability to switch between present-oriented and future-oriented time perspectives with ease. As long as the big rocks for my future were taken care of, I was free to live in the present.
It’s fascinating that we naturally start life in a present-oriented mindset. Unlike the later years when we might switch back to present-oriented with a dwindling number of years left in life, as children, all we know is the present. This is why it’s easier to shift back towards a present mindset, where we started, and harder to shift a present-oriented person to be future-oriented.
Early in my career, I chose opportunities that maximized my options in the future, but these days I’ve chosen more optimizing for my present life and interests. Though I have achieved some of my dreams for age thirty that I had dreamed of at twenty, I’ve already moved the goal posts and look ahead at the next ten plus years.
I am also increasingly past-positive, reminiscing on fun college memories and valuing traditions with friends and family. Time seems to pass faster and faster the older I get, like sand slipping through my fingers. I have found meditation, hiking and yoga to be some of the best ways to slow down time. Time, after all, is relative: just think about how sitting in silence for ten minutes feels compared to ten minutes scrolling on Tik Tok.
Embracing pain
A few years ago, I was training for a week-long trek in the Swiss, Italian and French Alps. My partner and I would do 10-20 mile hikes in the hot, dry California sun every weekend. A few miles into each hike, my legs would start burning. Every step brought more pain. I kept telling myself to keep going because the summit would have a pretty view. But this stopped working pretty quickly as I was training on the same hard trails every weekend. One day, I decided to shift my perspective and actually looked forward to when I got the burn. Pushing through the burn meant I was getting stronger, and I reveled in how powerful it felt to stretch the limits of my body and how privileged I was to be able to use it. The pain and time spent wouldn’t have felt worth it if I weren’t working towards a life goal of trekking through the Alps. If I didn’t remember my past, I wouldn’t have appreciated how far I'd come, since being the asthmatic kid who struggled doing cross-country laps in P.E. class. All three perceptions of time were critical for enjoying the training, the ultimate trek, and the everlasting memories.
Finding an optimal time-perspective mix
How do we reconcile these seemingly opposing past, present, future time perspectives? We all have natural tendencies towards certain time perspectives, based on factors like our age, our environment, what country and city we live in, our level of education and our upbringing. However, these mindsets are learned, and thus can be shifted. Like a toolbox, we should find our optimal mix and evaluate major decisions from a variety of time perspectives.
Zimbardo advises, “Develop the mental flexibility to shift time perspectives fluidly, depending on the demands of the situation. Allow one to take precedence while others recede temporarily. Your life will be happier, more fulfilling, and you will live longer and be more successful, if you can balance your time perspectives.”
It’s not about choosing between being present, past or future-oriented. All can coexist. We should understand what we tend towards naturally, and consciously shift our focus when advantageous. The easiest way I’ve found to shift my mindset is to focus on enjoying the journey, while having an eye on the destination, and appreciating how far I’ve already come.
As a future-oriented person, I finally understand why self-help books don’t resonate or stick with me. They recommend future-oriented people to be more future, which burns us out. As Alan Watts said in The Wisdom of Insecurity, “The miracles of technology cause us to live in a hectic, clockwork world that does violence to human biology, enabling us to do nothing but pursue the future faster and faster.”
My mom chose not to do chemo, and I understand it now. Sacrificing a year of healthy life at age sixty is a very different calculus than doing it at age thirty. Shifting my mindset to be more present-oriented helped me see that. Many of the major life decisions I’ve made in my first thirty years were based on getting optionality in the future. I’m realizing now that I don’t want to get to the end of my life still holding all the option cards in my hand, with no time left to spend them.
To find your current mix, ask yourself…
How much of your time this week was spent:
Optimizing for the future
Optimizing your present happiness
Reminiscing about happy memories
Ruminating on negative aspects of your past or your upbringing
How much of what happens in your life is fully within your control?
How much time do you spend worrying about the future and what can go wrong?
Do you ruminate over failed relationships?
Do you believe in life after death? How does that affect your decisions?
When do you choose immediate gratification vs delayed gratification? What if you tried doing more of the one you don’t naturally lean towards?
Increasing past-positive, reducing past-negative
"To be able to enjoy one's past is to live twice." - Martial, 1st century Roman poet
The past gives you roots, connecting to your identity, family, and community. In Kat Cole’s wise words, “Don't forget where you came from, but don't you dare let it solely define you. Our past is our truth, not our prison. We all have permission to change.”
Tactics:
Write down what you’re grateful for everyday
Create happy traditions and rituals that compound over time, such as, mailing yourself postcards from everywhere you visit, taking an annual trip with the same group of friends, or Martine Rothblatt’s weekly “Love Night” family tradition
Reframe failures as learning opportunities and bad memories as something that makes you unique. Formula 1 Driver Romain Grosjean reframed his life-threatening crash last year by comparing it to a phoenix rising from the ashes. He was even able to joke about it recently, calling the place where he crashed on the track “his corner”. Failures and trauma make us stronger and give us more empathy for the struggles everyone else is going through
Read: The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma
Increasing present-hedonistic, reducing present-fatalistic
When doing something creative, present hedonists worry less about the outcome, who will be judging it, and how long it will take. Worry less about failing. Failure is not having tried.
The Power of Now is a book I still think about regularly despite reading it over five years ago. Eckhart Tolle says, “Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry — all forms of fear — are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.”
Knowing when to switch on the present mindset vs stay in a future mindset is very similar to the concept of explore vs exploit in machine learning algorithms. This is actually what we do for Spotify recommendations! Do we serve you recommendations close to your taste (exploit) or nudge you towards a new genre or podcast? (explore).
Tactics:
Consume less news (feeds a present-fatalistic mindset)
Meditation
Try a new hobby, without telling anyone about it. Remove the pressure to be good. Paint without worrying what it will look like in the end
Write for yourself, not for any audience, to figure out your thoughts on a topic you are uncomfortable talking about
Write a letter to your inner critic who tells you that present hedonism is a waste of time or money
Take one of the many “options” you’ve accumulated over your life and cash in
Carve out time in your calendar to be fully present - no phones, no planning, no to-do lists, no taking pictures. Just do something spontaneous and fun
Do that thing you want to do that seems like a waste of time. If you’re having fun doing it, it’s not a waste
Closing thoughts
Time is a human construct, a way for us to contextualize change. Therefore, time is relative, depending on what angle we’re evaluating it from and how much is changing around us.
This time perspective framework has helped me understand myself more deeply. I’ve realized where I skew and what optimal mix of time perspectives I want to evolve towards. I have the words to explain why I obsessively optimize my time, but then burn out from all the scheduling, and choose to “waste” time instead. More importantly, it’s helped me understand other people, especially people who make decisions that seem irrational at first, and especially those that have opposing political views. It makes sense when I consider a different time perspective and how their environment, age, upbringing, community, education and other life experiences might have shaped their perspective.
Further reading
Book: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I still think about what I learned from this book almost everyday. For those who would like to be more present.
Book: The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts. There are so many quotables and insights beyond what I included above that it deserves another post.
Book: Personality isn’t Permanent by Benjamin Hardy. For the people who love personality tests and horoscopes, and those who detest them.
Book: The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. He argues that the way people deal with money is more psychology than science and numbers, and I tend to agree.
Article: An overview of the main philosophy around Time from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Meditation: The Art of Timefulness on Insight Timer
I’m curious about you
What is your current and ideal mix of time perspectives? What do you naturally default to? If you naturally tend towards a present-oriented mindset, I’d especially love to chat.
How has your dominant time perspective changed over the course of your life? What were the inflection points?
How does your time perspective affect your opinions on social and political issues? Major decisions you’ve made about family, money, or how you spend your time?