Just a quick thought
I was just talking with someone, and they’d had some big crisis in their life, and it felt very much like, “This is the end of the story. Things are never going to get better. This is always going to be like this from now on.”
And I was thinking, as I was listening to them speak, that so often when we have those kinds of big life-upsetting moments, it feels very, very strongly like ‘this is the end of the story’. ‘This is always going to be like this from now on’. ‘This is going to be my new normal’.
And I’m struck by how there are so many times in my life that have been like that, that I can now look back on and say, “Oh yeah, that thing was a big life-altering moment, and I’m still here. My life has gone on.”
What if this isn’t the end of the story? What if this is the middle?
And I’m trying to navigate not saying that in a way that sounds dismissive or just cliche, like ‘life will go on’, but more of like, “What if this isn’t the end of the story? What if this is the middle of the story? What if this is a particularly painful chapter, but I can look at the book and see that the book still has a few 100 pages to go? This is actually the middle of the plot line.”
And when I’m reading a book like that, and there’s a really, really hard part in the middle, sometimes I’ll scan through – I’m not actually reading ahead in the story – but I’m just sort of looking to see, “Okay, this character’s name comes up later in the book. They didn’t die off. There’s still more story to go.” And so I know that, even though it’s really, really hard to read right now, there is more.
And I’m wondering if there was a way for us to know that.
A message from the future
This is purely a thought experiment, but what I suggested to them is, “What if you could talk to a version of yourself 20 years from now? What would they want you to know?”
Okay, they can’t tell you what’s happened since then, because there’s rules about time travel and influencing the past, and all that kind of stuff. So you can’t actually know how this turned out – whether it worked out okay or not, whether the other person changed their mind or not, whether something happened to reverse this, or something happened to make it all better a week from now. That version of you in the future can’t tell you those kinds of details.
Whatever it is you’re going through, what can they tell you that will help you right now?
But they can tell you something like, “You’re still going to go through a lot of personal growth. This experience is going to shape you, and it’s going to be painful, and you will make it through, and you will have joy in your life again, and you will be able to laugh again,” and something. There’s going to be something for you, or for this particular situation.
What is it that 20 years from now, you could tell you in the midst of this crisis, or in the midst of this disappointment, in the midst of this pain, in the midst of this confusion – whatever it is you’re going through, what can they tell you that will help you right now?
So that’s just my thought. I don’t know what the answer is for you. I’ve done this a couple of times myself at different points, and I found it to be surprisingly helpful. Again, it didn’t fix the situation, but it helped me be able to deal with getting through it.
Okay, that’s my thought. I hope you have a neurowonderful day.
