Future Time Perspective, Creepy Robots, and... aliens?

Originally Posted in August, 2023.

​I am on vacation this week.

Andrew is in Mexico, the kids are with grandparents, and I am in an undisclosed location avoiding any and all social interaction or eye contact with fellow humans. In the past 24 hours of being alone, I’ve gone down some weird rabbit holes, like robot birds - the real kind, not the conspiracy kind, LK99 (google it), a couple wild and unbelievable-but-true government programs, and, of course, UFO’s (or should I say UAP?) and aliens.

Life is weird - and I guess, so am I.

And while life continues to be weird and I continue to find myself getting seemingly weirder by the day, it’s also fantastic. A gift. Every single day we wake up, we can watch the sunset, laugh with loved ones, dance, drink coffee, travel, or play with a pet. And as I increasingly practice gratitude for life and its many rabbit holes, I’m much less concerned with the quantity of life I have left, and much more concerned with quality. I’m of course a work in progress, just like everyone else. I have weight to lose and other issues to work on - but my sight is on living the best life I can for as long as I’m given.

Being relatively young like I am (under 40) can cause another type of problem, however. The longer we think we have to live, the less concerned we are about our health. Researchers in the longevity field have put a name to this common phenomenon: future time perspective. This perspective allows us to feel we can ignore our body’s red flags - daily tiredness, slowly increasing blood pressures, snoring, overweight or obesity, back pain, or joint stiffness - because we have “plenty of time” to address the issues we face.

But future time perspective can be a major problem for those of us young/young-ish people who face higher risk levels of developing chronic illnesses - or, can just set us up for decades of poor and failing health. Eventually, one red flag leads to another, which leads to a medication, which leads to side affects and more red flags and so on. We triage the problems until we ultimately lose. And during those decades of failing health, we suffer and our families suffer.

This isn’t all there is, though; there is something you can do. Put aside your future time perspective and set yourself up for a long, wonderful life. You can’t plan for or prevent everything, but at least start now. Eat more vegetables, get some exercise, decrease your life stressors, and create a more peaceful environment.