“Did you know that for pretty much the entire history of the human species, the average life span was less than thirty years? You could count on ten years or so of real adulthood, right? There was no planning for retirement. There was no planning for a career. There was no planning. No time for planning. No time for a future. But then lifespans started getting longer, and people began having more and more future. And now life has become the future. Every moment of your life is lived for the future: you go to high school so you can go to college so you can get a good job so you can get a nice house so you can afford to send your kids to college so they can get a good job so they can get a nice house so they can afford to send their kids to college.”
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About this quote
Modern life trains us to live ahead of ourselves: every choice gets folded into a long plan for some later stage. That habit can turn the present into a mere stepping stone, so you miss what you could actually be doing or enjoying now. Try one small experiment: pick one thing you plan for the future and do a version of it today, or drop it for an hour and notice how that feels. You don't have to abandon planning, but take responsibility for how much of your life you spend waiting.
When to use it
- At a college orientation when freshmen only talk about internships and grad school, I point to this line and tell them to try one class just because it interests them now.
- When a coworker obsesses over saving every extra dollar for retirement, I bring this up and ask whether they're saving any money to live a little today.
- At a family dinner where my aunt lists the next five milestones for her kids, I mention the quote to ask who these plans are really for.
- Before a season of intense training, a teammate and I say this to remind each other to keep one day a week for things that aren't just about future wins.