Future Me makes everything easier.

Not in the whispering-wisdom or even stock-tips sort of way.

Because frankly, she's not very forthcoming.

Occasionally we've been able to connect, and lately I've had some productive sit-downs with Me-Who-Knows, who could be Future Me or Right-Now Me, it's hard to say.

No, I mean Future Me makes it easier to do things to take care of myself.

See, I just reframe things as, 'Future Me will be so much more comfortable if …' Or, 'Future Me will be too tired to do this for herself, so …'

It's kind of like Barrington, except that I don't find that I need an alter ego. I myself have fond feelings for Future Me and sincerely want to make her life more dreamy.

It's so much easier to do nice things for her than for Present-Day Me. Probably because I never have to deal with Future Me in person -- she's always in the future.

Things made automatically easier because I'm doing them for Future Me:

• Washing the coffee pot. Future Me is so happy when she's able to just go ahead and make the coffee without the hassle of washing first thing in the morning.

• Soaking the steel-cut oats overnight. Similar to above. By the way, it was Eileen who made me yearn for oatmeal every morning. I mean Future Me.

• Cooking a whole mess of vegetables at once, instead of to order. (One of those duh-obvious moments, but I got the idea from this.) Sometimes Future Me is too tired to cook beet greens for herself. That's why I cook them for her.

• Obeying the timer app that tells me to stretch every so often.

• Taking care of her dry, dry hands.

• Washing her clothes.

• Figuring out what to wear the night before she travels. Future Me gets harried when she has to catch a plane.

• Setting the alarm early-early the night before a trip. See above. I like the give Future Me a little extra time.

• Going to sleep earlier.

• Packing snacks no matter where she's headed. Always!

• Leaving a sweater and socks next to her bed. Sometimes the cold apartment wakes up Future Me, but not enough to actually get up and get socks out of a drawer. Instead she just dozes and dreams of socks, and then wakes up again. A vicious cycle. It's so much better for Future Me to have real-life socks at hand.

• Writing posts in advance (like this one!). Recent investigations have shown that Future Me gets anxious when she has to write something to post that very day.

• Scheduling a Pause.

• Writing tomorrow's list tonight. Future me likes to wake up knowing there's an agenda already in place, even if she can't remember what's on it.

• Taking more time to prepare mentally and emotionally for travel, all sorts of appointments, teaching -- almost anything, looked-forward-to or dreaded -- and then settling down afterwards.

What about you?

Are there ways, like thinking of Future me, that make it easy to be good to yourself?

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P.S.

Are you missing The Random on Fridays? It picked up and moved to the Facebook page, where it hangs out all week.