I came across a concept some time ago, years ago, that has stuck with me ever since. The concept is that every six months you experience so much life that the person you are in month one is fundamentally different than the person you are in month six. Simply put, you become a new person every six months. Extrapolated over your lifetime, if you live for 80 years, you are 160 different people. So, when you make choices for yourself, you aren’t simply making choices for your present self but for all 160 versions of you that have existed and will exist in the future.
Now, if you’re a skeptic, you might be thinking ‘All I’ve done in the last 6 months is eat, sleep, and work, how could six months of that make any meaningful difference in who I am?’. Of course, some periods are more transformational than others, but even during the times that we think of as slow we’re still living 180+ unique days where, at minimum, we eat, sleep, and occupy our awake time. So that’s 540 meals to obtain and consume, 1440 hours to sleep, and 2880 hours to fill with everything else. Even during the ‘slow’ periods of life, we’re making thousands of choices. Each choice reflects our priorities and actively shapes who we are mentally, physically, and spiritually.
I like this concept because it provides a very compelling framework for the choices I make in a day. If I tell myself that I have 160 people in my charge it becomes clear that I need to make choices that promote the health, happiness, dignity, and respect of each person in the group. I’m thinking about future versions of myself and whether they are best served by the choices I’m making in the present. But I’m also thinking about past versions of myself. Do my choices take into account the people that I have been and what they have experienced, learned, and valued?
Often the answer is ‘no’ and that’s alright. Aligning my choices properly within this framework is a constant work in progress. And one that I have found to be quite worth the effort.
MW 