Notes to My Future Self (From a Beach in Malaysia)
Because sometimes it takes a sunburn and a beer to rethink your life.
I want to start by apologising. To myself. I promised myself I’d write this weekly. But instead, it’s been a month since I last word-vomited into SubStack. The explanation: I’ve been on holiday.
The holiday was good. What does good mean? For me, it’s a simple question. Was I relaxed to the point of existential crisis? For Malaysia 2025, I can safely say: yes.
By existential crisis, I mean the good kind. The “why don’t we just do this forever?” crisis. The “what are we doing with our lives?” crisis. The “let’s open a beach bar!” crisis.
Christian (boyfriend) and I reached this point around 7 days in, sitting on a beach in the Perhentian Islands. If you don’t have a crisis here, I don’t think you ever will.
Beer in hand, freshly toasted from the sun, we got into the big sh*t. And our beer-fuelled beach plans got bolder with each round.
But beneath these early evening tipsy conversations, there were some deeper questions being posed. Are we happy? Do we want to change anything in our life? And, most importantly (as Christian challenges) - if you died next week, would you have any major regrets? And if so, could you change those today?
This question stuck with me. Would I have regrets if I died next week?
I’m someone who has always been quite risk-averse. I like to take the safe option. Delay gratification. Protect future me even if current me suffers a little. But Christian’s question, and his steadfast resolution that he would not, made me think. Is there anything I’d regret not doing?
I’d like to think that future (sadly, dying) me would be quite forgiving when posed this question. She’d understand the uncertainty that current/past me faced. That no, despite the instagram reels, van life in Portugal probably wasn’t a good idea right now. That 22 year old me probably made the right call when she didn’t stay in Colombia and open a hostel with a man she’d just met. That it was probably a good idea to make some sensible decisions earlier on to [hopefully] give her a bit more freedom later.
But I think there’d be a few notes. On the biggest scale, she might have hoped she’d finally taken that months-long trip with Christian we always talk about. Actually acted upon some of those beer-fuelled beach plans. On a smaller scale, she might have wished she’d quit her job a little earlier. Or just spent a bit more time back at home with her family.
Which probably gets to the questions at the heart of it all. How do we balance the needs of our present and future selves? And how long can we delay gratification before it’s just… not doing it?
I think the problem is you assume you have all the time in the world. But really, life…disappears. Faster and faster every year. We have pipe-dreams. We have fantasies. But we rarely, if ever, do them.
This is understandable if they stop being dreams. Things change. Things that sounded great at 22 don’t sound so great now [no thanks, I don’t need to run a jungle hostel]. But what if it’s just that we never find the courage (or energy) to step out and change something?
I don’t have the answer to this. Nor do I think the solution is to rip up everything you’ve built because of a dream you have. That’s not practical. That’s not the way to long-term happiness (I think).
But I do think there are small steps we can take.
I hate New Year’s Resolutions, but one of the best things we did this year was New Year’s Bingo. We made a bingo card of the bigger (apply to become a German citizen) and smaller (cook a perfect Kra Pao, visit a new country) things we want to achieve this year. What was important is that they were all ‘tickable’ things. They’re either done or they’re not. And they’re not things we were doing already.
We come back to it every so often when we need a push to get us out of the ordinary. Our past selves nudging our current selves to deliver for our future selves. It’s a lot of fun.
Maybe you can do the same thing? You don’t need to quit your job or open a beach bar tomorrow. But maybe you do need a nudge. A reminder from past you to take just one step - for future you.
But if you do want to quit your job - in the words of Nike: just do it.