Imagine if it were only possible to imagine two days into the future.
No matter what else was going on, whenever somebody started referencing more than two days out, their voice would sound like garbled nonsense.
If you read anything that referred to anything more than two days out, it would shift into unintelligible scribbles.
If your boss told you to about a meeting next week, it would seem like he was speaking Martian.
On the other hand, if he told you about a meeting tomorrow morning, it would make perfect sense.
Actually, you wouldn’t go to work unless you got paid every other day.
If boss said anything like, “work here for a week or two and then we’ll pay you,” it would sound like, “work here for blah blah blah blah….” and you wouldn’t take the job.
Imagine if all the food you had went bad after two days.
It just disappeared or something.
Obviously, life would be horrible. You’d have to be committed to a nuthouse, since taking care of yourself under those conditions while living in a modern world would be impossible.
This goofy metaphor DOES, however, point out a very necessary ingredient in being able to live a successful life.
The more you can FEEL the results of your actions today FAR out into the future, the more likely you’ll succeed.
Imagine something as simple as weight loss.
If ALL you could tell was how the food tasted RIGHT NOW, it would be tough to eat healthy.
On the other hand, what if every bite of junk food you took came with a VERY REAL image of the results in two, three, five or even ten years.
For example, imagine each time you took a bite of a Big Mac you had a vision of having a heart attack, along with the actual chest pains.
And each time you took a bit of something healthy, you got a vision of yourself with a chiseled body in mirror, along with actually hearing the voice of sexy people whispering, “Nice body, baby!” in your ear.
You might even say that when it comes to building a successful life, the ability to weigh the impact of your actions you consider today ON your distant future is the most important.
They say that this was the shift that made ancient humans shift from hunting to gathering.
After all, hunting is very dangerous. Farming not so much.
But if you’re a hunter, you can kill and eat something TODAY.
If you’re a farmer, it takes a LONG TIME to get going.
Luckily, building in this skill, of developing a LONG VISION, to help you choose the best actions to take, is easy.
And like any other skill, the more you practice, the better you’ll get.
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