365QOD- Day1129

Short Term vs. Long Term Self

"I wish I’d partied a little less. People always say ‘be true to yourself.’ But that’s misleading, because there are two selves. There’s your short term self, and there’s your long term self. And if you’re only true to your short term self, your long term self slowly decays."- Humans of NY blog

Our lives tend to be very hectic.  It is not very surprising to most that we are trying to satisfy our ‘short-term self’.  What about our long term self?

The wisdom in this quote from a young woman on the Humans of NY blog is to focus not only on the short term but also the long term.  This is pretty wise for someone so young.  But is it true?

I read this quote this morning and immediately it made me think about the difference between the two.  It is amazing that even when our short term makes great self sacrifices for the future,  the long term self often does not appreciate the sacrifices.  Hell, the long term self might not even like the short term self when we look back in time.

But as the quote advises, we can not simply think in terms of now.  If we do then the long term self slowly decays.  To me that means that the long term changes into a different long term self.  If you are choosing to live in the present and not worrying about what your future self will have to worry about then you:

 1) expect everything to be ok in the future

2) you might not even make it that far.

In the end, after dragging tis thought with me all day, I concluded that the 80/20 rule holds true.  We need to spend 80% of our time focused on our short term self and 20% of our time on things of benefit to our future self.  It makes sense to me.

Today’s question is:

“Are you true to your short term or long term self?”