Your 1000-Day Journey Towards Your FutureMe
E158: "God Writes In Crooked Lines"
I have a challenge for you.
Imagine you are the driver on a journey into your future. The road ahead is filled with twists, turns, and unexpected detours. Your task is to navigate this path, making decisions based on the signals and traffic snarls you encounter along the way.
Write Yourself a Letter
Using Futureme.org1 write yourself a letter that will land in your inbox in approximately 1000 days (around mid-late June 2027).
The letter, written in the past and present tense, could cover the landscape of your personal and professional life three years into the future and include2. As a suggestion, answer these questions:
How has YOUR world changed since September 2024?
How has the world changed in the past 1000 days?
How have YOU changed in the past 1000 days & what surprised you?
Focus on 2-3 broad areas of your personal life and 2-3 technical (AI?) or societal areas of interest (politics? climate?). Create some detours! Explore two topics at the periphery of your interests where you may have intentionally or unintentionally been watching signals for a while: Mine will likely be the changing appetite for, and design of, higher education; and the rising acceptance of Korean food and culture into Western society. Be bold and challenge yourself with one wild prediction e.g., project the future of space tourism, a different model for the economy, or the average price of petrol/gas, milk or houses in San Francisco or Manila.
Last week’s edition E157: One Thousand Days Ago I Started a Newsletter
borrowed ideas from a post a year earlier E107: The Building Blocks For Everything That Could Occur In The Next 1000 Days Exists Today
What signals should I be watching?
After you have completed the task of writing your letter ask yourself:
How do I make this FutureMe come true?
Is there something I can do to make my preferred world more possible?
What signals should I be watching for?
What building blocks are already in place? Which can I put in place?
How can I remain open to unexpected opportunities that align with my goals?
When we look to our future, we can't always predict the exact route to take. However, we tune our attention to the signals around us, creating conditions that make our desired future more feasible. By staying alert to these signals, we may discover alternate paths or opportunities we hadn't considered before to get to our FutureMe. We take chances.
This is the thinking behind Tilt the Future in Your Favour.
Here is a true story:
A young teen planned a career as an Environmental Engineer. After reverse-engineering his ideal role on LinkedIn, he targeted a particular degree at Stanford as his first choice. It stung when Stanford’s rejection landed. With his 5-year goal in mind, however, he decided to explore alternate paths. He took a chance. Over the past 1,000 days of high school, he had carefully collected all the requisite building blocks: the volunteer projects that were the material for his essays; the relationships that became reference letters; the hours of practice and attention that showed in his grade-point and SAT scores. He still had all that. And on the very last Common App deadline date in December, he decided to repurpose these blocks and apply to Princeton, Yale, Columbia and a list of other universities. The only school that accepted him was Harvard. The odds were long. His was one of 1,962 first-year seats offered that year, out of 42,749 ED & RD applicants.
“God writes in crooked lines” my Mother would often say. We set our destination, but not necessarily the path.
Who am I now? Where am I enough and where do I need to change?
What do I want for my future?
What can/will I change going forward?
Do you recognize some of these concepts in Sahil Bloom and Paul Millerd’s work?
We may not have complete control over our future, but we do have agency. By paying attention to signals and remaining flexible, we can navigate the crooked lines of our lives. Each step, each decision, is an opportunity to tilt the future in our favour.
When you are done with your assignment, circle back and share. I’m curious - what did you notice? What did you discover?
A related read:
HIStory written backwards
Welcome to all the new members of Tribe Tilt!
You join a wonderful group that believes we can make a difference to the people and places that are precious to us, and that we have fun, hope and agency in our lives. We believe that the best ideas can come from anyone, anywhere, at any time. Please join in our conversations.
Stay healthy. From there all else becomes possible.
Until next week …
Karena
If you are struggling to get started, follow the pattern in my recent E157 edition. Then make it your own.
such a wonderful idea Karena. i like this 1000 day timeline too. its long enough to make a major shift and short enough to still seem doable.
I'll raise a glass to the crooked lines anytime!! Loved the story. : )