Think about who you were ten years ago. The music you loved, the plans you made, the things you were sure of. Most people can list a good deal that has changed since then.
Now think about who you will be in ten years. For most of us the picture is oddly familiar. It looks a lot like today, with a few details moved around. This gap between the past and the future is real, it has a name, and a letter is a good way to test it.
The mirror that stops too soon
In 2013 the journal Science published a study by Jordi Quoidbach, Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson called “The End of History Illusion.” The researchers measured the personalities, values and preferences of more than 19,000 people aged 18 to 68. They asked some to report how much they had changed in the past ten years, and others to predict how much they would change in the next ten.
Young people, middle-aged people and older people all gave the same kind of answer. They believed they had changed a lot in the past, and they expected to change relatively little in the future. The authors called this the end of history illusion. It is the feeling that the present is a turning point at which we have finally become the person we will be for good.
What it can cost
The study also found that the illusion has practical effects. People were willing to overpay for future opportunities to indulge their current preferences. If you are convinced your tastes are final, you may pay a premium to protect them, and you may be paying for something your later self does not want.
The same belief can shape bigger choices: a tattoo, a long contract, an assumption that a friendship or a job will always look the way it looks now. It is worth noticing, gently, how often “I could never change my mind about that” turns out to be wrong.
What this does not mean
Be careful not to take too much from one study. It relies on what people say about themselves, and it describes an average pattern, not a rule for every person. Some people change a great deal and some very little.
It also does not mean your relationships are flimsy. Feeling settled is not a mistake, and some things do hold: the people you love, the way you treat others. But the study looked at personality, values and preferences, and people underestimated how much they would change at every age. Even the things at the center of who we think we are may shift more than we expect.
The exercise: write your certainties
Here is a letter that works like a small experiment. Write down the things you are sure will stay the same, and send the list to yourself years from now. When it arrives, you get to see how many held.
Start with ten lines. Try some from each of these areas:
- A thing you love doing and cannot imagine giving up
- A person you cannot picture life without
- Where you live and why you will stay
- Your job, or the work you want to be doing
- A belief you hold strongly
- A fear you think will always follow you
- Something you refuse to try
- Your idea of a perfect Sunday
- Your favorite music or food
- How you describe yourself to strangers
Write each in one sentence, plainly, without hedging. The point is to catch what you believe today.
Write the changes list first
Before you start the ten lines, write a second, shorter list: what has changed in you over the last ten years. Be specific. A job, a city, a friendship, a taste, a fear that faded. Reading that list before you write your certainties makes it harder to pretend that the past was a time of change and the future will be a time of stillness.
You can then end the letter with one question: “Which of these did I get wrong?”
Why a letter does this better than memory
Memory is a poor witness here. It is easy to remember what we once believed as a little closer to what we believe now, and the old version fades. A letter keeps the original, in your own words, with the date on it.
That is what makes the comparison honest. You are not asking how you feel about the past. You are holding the actual sentence you wrote, and seeing for yourself whether it still fits.
Five years or ten
Five years is a good distance for this one, because enough happens to test most of your lines. Ten years makes for a bigger surprise. If you would like a quick first check, write a smaller version for one year and see what moved. We email it on your chosen day, between 8:00 and noon in your time zone. A saved letter cannot be edited, so keep a copy if you want to compare it later.
Marking the lines
Read the list one line at a time, and mark each as still true, changed, or surprising. Do not grade the person who wrote it. They were doing what most of us do, describing the present as if it were permanent.
The lines that changed are often the most interesting. You may find a belief you now hold the opposite way, or a plan that quietly became something else. Notice what you feel: relief, amusement, or a small loss for the person you were. All of those are fine. Next to each line that changed, write roughly when it stopped being true. The marks give you a small timeline of your own change, and the next letter will have more to work with.
A letter of certainties
Dear future me,
Here are the things I am sure about right now. I will never like running. I will still be in this apartment, because the light in the back room is too good to leave. I will still be friends with the same four people. A perfect Sunday is the market, a nap and a long call with my oldest friend. When strangers ask, I say I am a teacher before I say anything else. Ten years ago I was certain I would live in another country, so I know I may be wrong. Mark each line as still true, changed or surprising, and be kind about the misses.
[your name]
Write it now
Make your list of ten certainties, with the short list of changes first. Choose a date five years from now, and send it. When the email arrives, you may learn something about yourself that no one can tell you today.
