27 Jul 2025 6 min read Personal

The only person who tames my rebellion

Austin, from Zilker park

If we want to accomplish our long term goals and lead fulfilling lives we have to suppress our impulses of today in exchange for a greater future. My problem is that I’m often too rebellious to listen to anyone (including myself). I also love distractions/impulses/chaos and I am in general not always a great caretaker for myself.

How can I (and you) create a structure for decision making and goal setting that we respect enough to ignore our impulses and rebellion?

2018 Alex just started getting comfortable with a camera and could have never known where it would take him

WDFAW?

What does future Alex want?

In 10 years from now will the future version of myself be happy or angry about my current day behavior? What about you? Is 10-year-from-now you going to be happy about your choices? Are you setting them up for success emotionally, financially, physically? Are they going to be proud of the courage you had to live life fully?

I started using this framework for decision making recently as I pass the 10 year mark of a few pivotal life changes. It's not enough for me to just say "I want the future to be better than the past", it's extremely helpful for me to think about it as two different people. As I said above I'm not always the best care taker of myself, but I will give all of my soul in service to others - so it's useful to think of future Alex as a different person - someone I want to serve.

The future is going to come, this I know for certain, and in the future I will be able to lie, impress, hide from, or ignore every other human on earth except the one that lives in my brain.

In 10 years future Alex is going to look at the decisions I'm making today and ask "Why did you do this to us?". Will I answer with confidence or shame? At that moment I won't be able to negotiate with him and apologies won't be helpful. He is going to suffer the consequences of my poor actions and he will judge me severely on them, as he should. I desperately want him to be in awe of the life I've given him.

Why now?

I don't know why exactly this idea is hitting me so hard right now. Maybe it's a brain chemistry thing or maybe it's maturity hitting me late in life (like usual..) because it's not new information to me that the future will come and I will have to answer for it. What changed recently is that I didn't design the first 30 years of my life at all, and I have little to show for it, but I did design the last decade and as I reflect I find that I have a lot to show for it, and it's creating this powerful feedback mechanism that I want to double down on.

and I want to give to others, obviously.

How do I make future Alex proud, again?

10 years ago I wasn't yet a reader, a photographer, an investor, a writer, or a world traveler. I had few skills, no money, a lot of arrogance, and I would have to spend a night in handcuffs before I would start taking life seriously.

Today I'm happy to say that almost none of those things are true (I'm still arrogant) which means a lot can happen in a decade just by shear blind effort.

What if I did the next decade with an actual plan?

The first photo I ever took as a "photographer"

I'm sure your life was drastically different 10 years ago too.

What's different? Have you taken stock of the decade? Has it been for the better or for the worse? How has your financial situation changed? How has your health changed? Your relationships? Your hobbies? Has your decade been driven by design or by whim? Did you write goals down and achieve them? Are you proud of your 10 year ago self for the life they created for you?

When I think about what I have to do over the next decade to make future Alex proud I become invigorated with purpose. What behavior will make 2035 Alex look back and express overflowing gratitude for 2025 Alex. I want to give him a life he cherishes, I want him to know I spent our time wisely, I want him to be healthy, financially secure, I want him to feel like we accomplished more than we thought we could while still having tons of opportunity ahead, I want him to have the resources he needs to accomplish his new dreams. Notably I never feel the need to rebel against what future Alex wants me to do. This is the only authority I've ever felt grateful to submit to.

What's next

I don't mean for this to be about me, I just want to share what I'm learning so I can give the valuable parts to you. This is what I'm going to do going with this information:

The last few years I've set aside a day to do guided goal setting, usually in a retreat setting with a group. It's usually a bunch of different workshops including writing my vivid vision and a clean and actionable plan to achieve that vision. This year I'm going to start doing it twice a year because I get distracted quickly. I highly recommend this, and you weirdly get better at it the more you do it.
I have a small group of people (5-7) with similar values and goals that I meet with each week (on zoom) to create accountability. I've been doing this for 6 years, it works, and it's free. I'm probably going to make some changes to my group this year, but I will never stop doing this.
I put my goals in front of my face every day. I have them on my notion board and it's the first thing I look at every day. The hard part is saying "NO" to everything not on the list - that's a work in progress - but it is important.

I look back on the last 10 years as a trial run. I had a daydream that I could radically change my life based on a hope and half a plan - and it still worked -imagine what I can get done in the next decade now that I have this confidence!

Imagine what you can do over the next decade. You are for sure going to meet your future self and you are going to have to answer to them for your behavior - good, bad, or ugly - no one is going to reap the rewards or suffer the consequences more than them. I urge you to serve them the best you can.