Here’s my advice: you should treat your future self in accordance with the Golden Rule.
Most of us don’t do that most of the time.
We consistently burden the poor soul with everything we don’t feel like doing: the dishes, our taxes, those ten pounds we’d like to lose. We expect who we are tomorrow to take care of all the things who we are today would rather put off.
Is that fair?
If we treated our future self the way we’d like to be treated, we'd never procrastinate; we’d never leave dirty pots and pans in the sink, and we’d certainly never drink to excess the night before tomorrow. But instead, we routinely expect the future version of ourselves to clean up after our messes. The lack of respect for that person by this person is not just inconsiderate, it’s downright immoral.
Our future self has every right to consider our present self to be a jerk, a selfish asshole who’s only interested in their own comfort and convenience. If I were them (and, of course, I will be eventually), I’d entirely disown me and want to have nothing to do this creep anymore, ever.
Unfortunately for our future self, there’s no escaping the present version of who we are—except via death. The only way to avoid being encumbered by actions and non-actions of who we are now is to no longer be at all—a drastic option to be sure.
Still, our future self might make that threat to our present self: if you don’t shape up and start treating me better, I’ll check out altogether. Then see who’ll pick up after you!
Maybe this would put the fear of God (or, at least nothingness) into our present self. Maybe then, we’d treat our future self with more respect, as we should.
But probably not. Our present self would just blame our past self. They should have taken care of this years ago, right?
