Hello and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're getting

a little better at life.

I'm your host, Corey Muscara, and in today's episode we're going to talk about taking

care of your future self.

More to come on that in a moment, first let's settle in together with the sound of the

bells.

Okay, so this is going to be a short episode with a simple practice, and the practice

is in the form of a question when you need to make a decision or try to change a pattern

or behavior.

And the question is, what is the best way I can serve my future self?

What is the best way I can serve my future self?

There's a lot of research showing that people who are attentive to their future self and

trying to take care of their future selves are much better able to navigate adversity

and get out of difficult situations, but also that prospective thinking allows us to

delay gratification to an extent so that we can experience a greater reward down the road.

Now all of this is the balance between how much do we appreciate and indulge in this

moment of our life versus maybe saying, okay, I'm not going to cash in on this just yet

or I'm going to practice maybe not eating this piece of cake in service of feeling better

this evening and over the next year, five years, ten years.

Some of that requires practical wisdom knowing yourself, your own patterns, and is this

a moment where I really just want to let myself really indulge in pleasure.

Or am I looking at more of a moment to moment routine in my life where I actually do want

...