Future. Tense.

We have an interesting relationship with our future.  When I was young, in my twenties, I mortgaged off my future like it was a house with infinite equity.  I would refinance daily, trading one more beer at night for the risk of feeling somewhat less than par in the morning.  I would refinance weekly, opting to work (or play) excessively, rather than keeping my life balanced with exercise and rest and a proper diet.

In my thirties, I did pretty much the same, except that I started to realize the interest rates were climbing and maybe the equity was not going to last forever.  I started bicycling and exercising more, but basically I still lived like I would live forever and trained myself to be impervious to any ill effects from fatigue, stress, or taking on too much of the world all at once.

In my forties, things started to get cash and carry.  The days of endlessly borrowing from tomorrow were getting less attractive.  My body was starting to feel the strain and my brain was all too aware that I was officially in midlife. No matter how hard I tried, I was not going to get any younger.

Fifties.  Suddenly there's that knock on the door.  The mortgage man is there, demanding that some principal start getting paid.  All those years of putting things off were finally adding up.  I started getting used to feeling a little off, then a little crappy, then pretty much somewhat crappy, all the time. I could no longer drink alcohol without immediately feeling bad.  If I had equity in the bank (a good night's sleep, some yoga, and not too much daily stress), I felt pretty good.  If not, I didn't. 

Then, suddenly: balloon payment.  Which is what the last year was all about.

It strikes me that we don't really truly understand that there is a direct link between present and future until we've squandered a good portion of it.  It is very easy to sell out the self of tomorrow for a little more comfort for the you of today.

I heard an interesting story on NPR awhile back.  It turns out that people of some nationalities generally save more money than people of other nationalities.  For example, the Finnish and Chinese save about 25% of their income, while Americans and the French save about 10% of their income.  And it turns out that if you take the languages of the big savers and compare them to the languages of the little savers, there is one thing that stands out: the language spoken by the people who save more don't have a future tense.

WTF?  That's weird, right? 

Another thing I read the other day.  If you give someone a project in June and say it's due in December, they will get on it faster than if you give someone a project in July and say it's due in January.  Ditto with the days of the week.  If I give you a task and tell you it's due first thing next Monday, chances are you'll put it off longer than if I told you it's due by the end of the day on Friday.  Assuming you don't intend on working over the weekend, it's the same time frame... but Monday feels so far into the future that it matters less to us than Friday does.

The analysts who noticed the savings correlation say that when you have a built in sense of the future, it puts it off to a comfortable distance.  The further away tomorrow feels like it is, the more you can convince yourself to ignore it and play more today.  Our western culture certainly preys on that impulse:  look at credit cards and how they seduce us all with the idea of free money, easily attainable, the conduit of so much immediate gratification.  So what if it comes with a 17.99 rate?  We can worry about that tomorrow.

As I get older, I've moved from hoping that that tomorrow will never come, to hoping and praying that it does.  In our youth, we don't want that day of reckoning to ever catch up with us.  Now as we see our parents aging and start experiencing some of that payback ourselves, tomorrows are good and coveted.  We cherish all the candles on our birthday cakes, because someday we know we are going to run out.  Each one signifies one more victory lap.

So yeah, I'm feeling yesterday's victory laps on the beach today .... but happily so.  Some excesses are positive and healthy, and I was glad to pay the price today.  I am still recovering, and that's fine.  I did more yesterday than I have in a long time, and I will do more tomorrow than I did yesterday.  Someday that will turn around, I guess.  But for now, I want to put as much equity into the account as I can, and borrow it later... if, and when, it becomes necessary.