Sunday, January 6, 2013

Our future selves, ourselves

The New York Times has a good article on research into self-perception. Psychologist Daniel T. Gilbert:

“Middle-aged people — like me — often look back on our teenage selves with some mixture of amusement and chagrin . . . . What we never seem to realize is that our future selves will look back and think the very same thing about us. At every age we think we’re having the last laugh, and at every age we’re wrong.”

comments: 2

Daughter Number Three said...

They say in design that it's a good sign if you think your current work is your best, and look on your past work as not so great.

The Arthurian said...

I keep reworking my writing until I can read through the whole thing without stopping to fix something. (It often takes about a week.) When finished, I often think it's among the best I've ever done.
I'm doing it again now, for crying out loud.

I always figured it just meant that I had bad judgement.