January 2019 – Tool of the Month – “Self-Care” as Future Self-Care
Happy New Year! I hope it is starting off well for you all, and as usual, that you’re getting enough support to deal effectively with all the inevitable, and from the therapeutic perspective, necessary challenges.
In the current tool-of-the-month, I propose a practice of approaching “self-care” as “future-self care,” of practicing making choices based on our future self being a dependent who is subject to our present choices, but has no agency in actually making those choices. It creates an interesting ethical framework for our choices, without getting so entangled in the questions of society ethics and demands, that can help clarify what the actual consequences of our actions are on our self, or rather, on our selves.
“Self-Care” as Future Self-Care
Pretty much no one is going to advocate you not taking care of yourself. Even hedonistic abandon is usually going to be sold as nurturing one’s wild spontaneous side. But how do we select and discern which impulses are self-care? Which ones indicate care for our whole self, which for only part of our self, and which are actually undermining our health?
One very interesting way of approaching self-care is to frame it as action which is in service not of our present self, but of our future self and selves. This may seem like a bit of psychological jury-rigging, but it’s much more literal than it sounds. Our future selves quite literally emerge from and follow on from our present selves; they have basically no agency, but nonetheless have to deal with the good and bad of our present decisions. An easy way to see this is to think of you doing something adolescently ill-considered—maybe driving drunk—as a young person, and going to jail for it. Ten years later, being more matured just by aging, is going to leave you a much different person, yet paying for the sins of your younger self. That’s the gross version. The much more subtle inflictions—think of eating too much cake, and our future self getting none of the sugar high but all of the glurky stomach—are being done all the time.
In popular culture, this is precisely expressed by Homer Simpson (quoted by the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, in 12 Rules for Life, a podium-pounding rouser that I highly recommend) said, while Marge is confronting him about not spending more time with his kids. Digging into a huge jar of mayonnaise mixed with a bottle of vodka, he says, “That’s a problem for future Homer. Man, I don’t envy that guy!”
Like most everything valuable, this is a practice, not a one-shot. But I have found it remarkable helpful, maybe because it marshals the same ethics and morality most of us naturally deploy when dealing with other humans, but for our self. It’s a way of making real the adage to “Treat yourself as you would want to be treated.”
There are two main forms of this practice: good behavior in the present that is approved of and appreciated by our future self, and sacrifice in the present that our future self is grateful we made (essentially for them).
With the first, we make good choices now that also benefit our future self. I’m thinking, for instance: well, if two slices of pizza are really good, then certainly five is going to be all that much better, conveniently ignoring (for the sake of the immediate gratification of fat! and simple carbs!) that we always feel crummy after such indulgence. Instead, we stop at two slices, and also get the side salad and drink enough water. Once the deliciousness wears off, our future self is left with both the pride in good choices, as well as a body that feels good and isn’t going to have to pay for the meal with double cardio.
The other mode of this future-self care is where we make a sacrifice of immediate pleasure in order to do the right thing, as a service to the future self who can’t make the choice. So, we get up a half-hour early to go for that run, which lets our half-hour later self get to feel the pleasure of a body that has gotten worked properly, even though our current self does not (and may never) actually want to go running. But we do it because it’s right, and because it serves our future self, even if our present self has to pay the cost. As with all things in life, someone’s going to pay the cost, and when it’s ours to pay, to push it onto others or onto future self is unethical and irresponsible. Not metaphorically, but actually unethical, and when we act such, we will pay a cost for it as much as we may pretend towards some kind of moral relativism or nihilism.
So, the way to do this practice is when there is anything more than a programmed choice (regular showering, stopping at stop lights), such as meal choice, engaging necessary work, using our blinkers while driving (that’s a pet peeve of mine…), then we check in with our self, and see what the impulse is. Then we compare that with what we know about the results of that decision on our future self, who, again, does not have agency to influence our current choice. “If this was literally another person, my child or partner, who will be directly affected and inheritor to the consequences of my choices, what will I choose?” Then you have to actually listen to the feedback, as much as it may—likely will—constrain your present choices. And then you choose that.
You’ll blow it often, especially in gaming the feedback of that question, but practice always is a sequence of impulse, reflection, choice, and then feedback. So, if you scarfed too much pizza, then use it for learning by paying attention to what you’re subsequently having to deal with. That will strengthen the reality of consequences, and separate that reality from any sense of being punished or controlled by your future self or others. You’ll get better at understanding the physics of your own choices, and submitting, and getting the benefits of that submission.
