Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change
the world. Today, I am wise so I am changing myself. –Rumi-
You are a work in progress
Most people underestimate how much they change
as life goes on.
Dan Gilbert, in many studies, has found out
that people would pay on the average $129 to see their favorite music group.
Asked if that would be the same in 10 years, they said yes. Yet, when asked how
much they’d pay to see their favorite group of 10 years previously, they
offered only about $80.
I’m always amazed when people declare
themselves unchangeable. “I am what I am. Can’t change that.”
Well, thank goodness we can and do change. Some
of us work really hard to become the future selves we envision today. Getting
“better” can be a difficult job but can be infinitely satisfying at the same
time. I have never talked to a single ex-smoker who was grumpy that he
succeeded in stopping! Or to a person on the verge of diabetes who was sorry to have lost weight.
The fight between the present-self and the
future-self
If you set goals for yourself and you're like a
lot of other people, you probably realize it's not that your goals are
physically impossible that's keeping you from achieving them, it's that you
lack the self-discipline to stick to them. It's physically possible to lose
weight. It's physically possible to exercise more. But resisting temptation is
hard.
It seems that only few people have a good
contact to their future-self and are committed to doing what is neccessary now
to ensure the well-being of their future-self. You are connected to, and
legally tied to, this future-self.
The new virtual reality uses software to “age”
a subject based on a current picture. Seeing this picture helps the subject
build up a relationship with the older version of himself. Behavioral Economist
Daniel Goldstein is working on a cool commitment device that ages people’s
faces to show what they’ll look like decades later. The fancy version shows the
future self going from frown to smile when the present self saves more. (Meanwhile,
the present self goes from smile to frown.)
How
about the topic of saving? Saving
is a classic two selves problem.
The present self does not want to save at all.
It wants to consume and I was a terrific
example of this. Whereas
the future self wants the present self to save.
We
look at the savings rate and
it has been declining since the 1950s.
At the same time, the Retirement Risk Index,
the chance of not being able to meet your needs
in retirement, has
been increasing. And
we're at a situation now where
for every three baby boomers, the
McKinsey Global Institute predicts
that two will not be able to meet their needs while
they're in retirement.
The Behavioral Time Machine, currently in
development, seeks to bolster savings rates by connecting individuals with
their future selves. Using age-progression software, this tool allows people to
see images of themselves 30 years in the future and has been proven in studies
to be effective at increasing savings rates.
Showing people what type of apartment they can
afford at different levels of retirement savings really helps. People are shown what particular apartments that
they can afford if they're retiring on 3,000, 2,500, 2,000
dollars per month and so on. As they move down the ladder of apartments, the
subjects see that the living quarters get worse and worse. And
as they get to the very bottom, they're faced with the unfortunate reality that
if they don't save anything/enough for retirement, they
won't be able to afford any housing at all. At a certain rate of
retirement savings, the subjects see an attractive living environment. The
worst-case scenario is a tent on the street.
The Behavioral time machine is important
because it give us an image of our future selves. Because most of us can’t
really imagine our future-selves, let alone take care of him/her in the “now”.
Who is going to stick up for your future-self?
At any given moment, you have the power to say:
“This is not how the story is going to end”.
– C.Miller –
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