Imagine a mad scientist shows up in your drive way with a time machine, and says, “Hullo, I’m a mad scientist and as you can see I’ve built this here time machine. It will let you travel 10 years back in time and give yourself the best advice you can think of. And I’ll only charge you $30 bucks for it!”
Now before you say, well obviously I would tell myself “Bitcoin peaks in 2021, or who to bet on for all the Super bowls to make a ton of money.” The Mad scientist adds, “Oh yeah, because of the quantum mechanics of the flux capacitator and other sciency mumbo-jumbo, you are not allowed to say anything specific about history. Basically, anything that was mentioned in a newspaper you can’t talk about. You can only give yourself general good advice. If you mention any specific facts of history the time machine will bleep them out.”
So, what general advice and encouragement would the you of now give the you of yesterday? This will vary with your age, but most people would probably take the mad scientist up on the offer (after all what’s $30 these days?). The general advice that you of today would give you of yesterday would simply be to do the things that will have long term benefits for yourself. If you could get the you of yesterday to invest time and energy into smart, healthy habits, instead of dumb destructive ones—that puts you in a better place in the here-and-now.
For example, if you could go back in time and get yourself to invest in a healthy habit like say, daily exercise, or meditation, or putting time and energy into a skill or hobby that you love—you get to reap the benefits of that for years to come. Once you do the hard work of learning how to speak a foreign language, play a musical instrument, or make a good omelet you have that skill ready at hand for the rest of your life.
All of this stuff that we wish our past selves would do a better job of, so that our present self could be in a better spot is essentially what wisdom is. There is the wisdom that is about your health and body. Don’t eat too much junk food, eat lots of plants and veggies, get plenty of exercise and sleep. Take good care of your body for the long haul, is good body wisdom.
Then there is the wisdom of your life path and career. Try to stick to a budget, don’t get overburdened with debt. Save money for the future. If you want to make money you are probably going to have to work for it! Don’t count on luck.
And then there is the wisdom of your connection to others and to your own inner self. Be nice to others. Don’t be a jerk, and avoid hanging out with jerks if you can help it. Treat people with kindness. Listen to your inner self. Know thyself.
It all might sound a little bit trite, like this advice is just the most obvious of common sense. And if you are someone who has managed to do all of those things over the past decade then congratulations! But most of us can probably think of at least one area or two where we feel like our past self could have pushed a little harder and done a better job.
All of this stuff—the sort of advice we would give ourselves in the sci-fi scenario I’ve outlined here is what you could call wisdom. The wisdom of the body, health wisdom, relationship wisdom, career wisdom, and so on. Or just call it good advice for the future. It is the sage advice that holds true no matter what, year after year, decade after decade.
Of course, the challenge, the tough part of being human is that we often sacrifice the quality of life in the future for the experience of the now. It’s the classic marshmallow test, can you forgo a little bit of a reward now in order to get a better reward later? Wisdom is being able to see why holding out for the reward later is often well worth it! The opposite of wisdom, of course, is foolishness. Imagine you have a huge pile of dirty dishes in the sink today. You are faced with a choice — do you clean those dishes or do you lay on the couch, open a bag of potato chips and see what’s new on your phone? The you of today might think the couch sounds appealing, the you of tomorrow will be glad if you do the dishes.
This is a silly, little example, but over time, in life, how we choose to spend our time starts to add up exponentially. A lifetime of laying around lazily on the couch ends up looking not so good. Not only that, but the person who spends their time lazily lolling about will eventually become depressed by it.
An extreme example of what happens when people make poor decisions around sacrificing the future for an immediate payoff is with hard drugs. You see people absolutely wreck their lives, themselves, and their futures for a very damaging but absolutely immediate pay off.
The point of this whole thought experiment is that the idea of wisdom, or even of figuring out what should I do? How should I live? Can often feel confusing and overwhelming. At least it can in the present moment. When we look at our lives with hindsight it can be pretty obvious which path we wish we had taken.
That’s why this little thought experiment can be so clarifying. Try it. Imagine yourself in five or even ten years from now, showing up from the future. What advice do you think future you would give? How will you want yourself to have lived? What are the top few things you think you would say? Take your own advice . . . as long as it’s not trying to predict the outcome of history and is rooted in wisdom (AKA common sense) you are probably on to something!