LETTER TO YOUR FUTURE SELF

Pick a horizon — one year, five, ten — and write a letter to the version of yourself who will read it then. What you want them to know about who you are now. What you fear they'll have forgotten. What you hope they've kept.

The practice surfaces values you don't notice you have. The temptation is to give advice — resist it. The future self has already lived the years between; advice is the wrong frame. What they need is a record of who you were before the years happened.

1. 1.Choose your horizon. Write the date you're writing AND the future date.
2. 2.Open: 'I'm writing this on ___ because I want you to remember ___.'
3. 3.Write what you most want them to have kept from your current life: a relationship, a practice, a question, a kindness, a belief.
4. 4.Write what you fear they'll have given up that you'd grieve.
5. 5.Write what you hope they've finally gotten over.
6. 6.Close with one sentence that's just for them. Seal in an envelope, mark it with the future date, put it somewhere you'll find it.