Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Future as Past

I often write about my future as if it is my past.  Is that weird?

I've done it for almost as long as I can remember.

It is a way for me to organize my thoughts, goals and priorities.  It is very much a journaling exercise and therefore private.  Only, it is (almost) never actually in a journal.  I prefer loose-leaf, white paper and a comfortable pen.

One time, I wrote a speech for my college reunion about the businesses I had lead.  It included the achievements I had made and the life I was proud to call mine.  Of course, I was still a college student at the time.

I neglected to put my future-past-tense speech away and left it with my homework.  My room mate found it, read it and was mad at me.

I don't remember why she would have been mad about it, but it was the first time I thought maybe everyone doesn't do this.

Since then I have made a lot of those achievements.  I have not been to a college reunion (or high school for that matter) so I have not actually made the speech.  I don't necessarily want to make the speech.  It was just a tool for me to organize my future self.

Do you have any useful ways to organize your self?  How do you set your priorities and goals?  I'd love to know... whether they're weird or not.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hmm. I don't do this, but I think it's a fantastic idea, and I don't think it's weird in the least. In fact, I might try it tonight.

Kathryn Ray said...

Oh cool, Jaimie. I'd love to hear what you think.

AllyB said...

I used to visualize the way I wanted things to be, tried to find hard images if I could and post them up someplace where I could see them. However, now that I'm 54 and more settled inside I don't really feel the need to do so quite as often. My children are grown and productive and my car is paid for, I'm perfectly happy with internet access and enough fiber to hold me through the next Snowmagedden...I think I've "gone round the bend" as my Grama used to say.

Kathryn Ray said...

@AllyB - I've done some visualization as well. I'm not very good at it, but I keep practicing.