Is the Grass Equally Green?

Most people have a tendency to project either into the future or into the past. Future projection looks something like “once I get there, I’ll be happy”. Past projection looks something like “if only I had done things differently, I would be happy”.

These are two faces of the same thought pattern. The exercise in this lesson can be applied to either of these types of projection.

Exercise

• Pick one of your big happiness projection stories. One that often comes up in your mind and really bothers you.
• Now, imagine that you can step through a portal and meet another version of yourself.
  • Either a future version of yourself who has accomplished the thing you project your happiness on.
  • Or an alternate version of yourself who made the different life choice you wish you had made in the past.
• Get to know this version of yourself in a realistic (not idealized) way.
  • You can do this either in the form of free flow writing or in the form of a dialogue, where you write out a conversation between yourself and the other version of you.