When I was 12 years old, I fractured my foot playing soccer. I didn't tell my parents
when I got home that night, because the next day,
my dad was taking me to see a movie, a soccer movie. I worried that if I told
my parents about the foot, they would take me to see a doctor. I didn't want to see a doctor, I wanted to see the movie. The next morning, my dad goes, "It's nice out. Why don't we walk
to the theater." (Laughter) It was a mile away. As we go, he says, "Why are you limping?" I tell him I have something in my shoe. The movie was spectacular. It told the story of some
of soccer's greatest stars, great Brazilian players. I was ecstatic. At the end of the movie,
I told my dad about the foot; he took me to see an orthopedic doctor, who put my foot in a cast for three weeks. I tell you the story today,
because four decades later, I don't really consider myself
a soccer fan anymore. Today, my sports fandom
is tuned to another kind of football. Now my 12-year-old self
wouldn't just find this incomprehensible. My 12-year-old self
would see this as a betrayal. Now you might say we all change
from the time we are 12, so let me fast-forward a decade. When I was 22, I was a freshly minted
electronics engineer in southern India. I had no idea that three decades later,
I would be living in the United States, that I would be a journalist, and that I would be the host
of a podcast called "Hidden Brain." It's a show about human behavior and how to apply
psychological science to our lives. Now we didn’t have podcasts
when I graduated from college. We didn’t walk around
with smartphones in our pockets. So my future was not just unknown; it was unknowable. All of us have seen what this is like
in the last three years, as we slowly try and emerge
from the COVID pandemic. If we think about the people we used to be
three years ago, before the pandemic, we can see how we have changed. We can see how anxiety and isolation and upheavals in our lives
and livelihoods, how this has changed us,
changed our outlook, changed our perspective. But there is a paradox here, and the paradox is when we look backwards, we can see enormous changes
in who we have become. But when we look forwards, we tend to imagine that we're going to be
the same people in the future. Now sure, we imagine the world
is going to be different. We know what AI and climate change is going to mean
for a very different world. But we don't imagine that we ourselves
will have different perspectives, different views, different
preferences in the future. I call this the illusion of continuity. And I think one reason this happens
is that when we look backwards, the contrast with our prior selves
to who we are today is so clear. We can see it so clearly
that we have become different people. When we look forward, we can imagine
ourselves being a little older, a little grayer, but we don't imagine, fundamentally, that we're going to have
a different outlook or perspective, that we're going to be different people. And so those changes seem more amorphous. I want to make the case to you today that this illusion
has profound consequences not just for whether we become
soccer players or podcast hosts, but for matters involving life and death. Let me introduce you
to John and Stephanie Rinka. We did a story about them
for "Hidden Brain" some years ago. This photograph was taken in 1971,
on their wedding day. John and Stephanie had just eloped, and gotten married at Cambridge
City Hall in Massachusetts. He was 22, she was 19. John told me that after they got married, they traveled to different parts
of the country. They eventually settled in North Carolina. John became a high school
basketball coach, Stephanie became a nurse. And because they lived
in a rural part of the state, she would often make
house visits to patients. Many of the patients
she saw were very sick. They had terminal illnesses,
very low quality of life. And when Stephanie
came home from these visits, she was often shaken. And she would tell John, "John, if I ever get a terminal illness, please do nothing to prolong my suffering. I care more about quality of life
than quantity of life. In her more dramatic
moments, she would say, "John, if I ever get
that sick, just shoot me. Just shoot me." And John Rinka would look
lovingly at his wife, his healthy wife, and he would say, "OK, Steph. OK." Fast-forward a couple of decades. In her late fifties,
Stephanie begins to slur her words. She goes to see a doctor,
who runs some tests, and he diagnoses her with ALS,
Lou Gehrig's disease. He tells her it's fatal. It's incurable. And he tells her that a day
is going to come when she is no longer able
to breathe on her own. Stephanie, being Stephanie, decides to extract as much joy
and pleasure from life as she can, she spends time with friends and family. As she gets sicker, she and John spend some time
on a beautiful beach that they both love. But there comes a day when Stephanie,
in fact, is no longer able to breathe. She's gasping for air,
and John takes her to the hospital. And a nurse at the hospital
asked Stephanie, "Mrs. Rinka, would you like us
to put you on a ventilator?" And Stephanie says yes. John is flabbergasted. They've been having
this conversation for 30 years. Surely that's not what Stephanie wants. He doesn't say anything. The next morning, he says, "Steph, when the nurse asked you yesterday
if you wanted to go on a ventilator, and you said yes, is that really what you want?" And Stephanie Rinka said yes. Now, you might argue that if Stephanie
had written out an advance directive, if Stephanie had come
into the hospital unconscious, if the nurse had asked John,
"What is it your wife would want?" John, without hesitation, would have said, "Of course she does not want
to go on a ventilator. We should figure out a way to keep her
as comfortable as possible so that she can die with dignity." But of course, this only solves
the legal conundrum. It doesn't solve the ethical problem here. And the ethical problem is that Stephanie,
at age 39, as she was healthy, had no real conception
of what Stephanie at age 59, with a terminal illness, gasping for air, would really want. For the older Stephanie, her younger self might as well
have been a stranger. A stranger who was trying to make
life and death decisions for her. Philosophers have talked for many years
about a thought experiment; it’s sometimes called
the “ship of Theseus”. The great warrior Theseus
returned from his exploits, his ship was stationed
in the harbor as a memorial. And over the decades, parts of the ship
began to rot and decay, and as this happened,
planks were replaced by new planks. Until, eventually,
every part of the ship of Theseus was built from something new. And philosophers, starting with Plato, have asked the question "If every part
of the ship of Theseus is new, is this still the ship of Theseus?" You and I are walking examples
of the ship of Theseus. Our cells turn over all the time. The people you were 10 years ago
are not the people you are today. Biologically, you have become
a different person. But I believe something much more profound
happens at a psychological level. Because you could argue a ship
is not just a collection of planks, a body is not just a collection of cells. It's the organization of the planks
that makes the ship. It's the organization of the cells
that make the body. If you preserve the organization, even if you swap planks
or cells in and out, you still have the ship,
you still have the same body. But at a psychological level, each new layer that's put down is not identical
to the one that came before it. The famous plasticity of the brain
that we've all heard so much about means that, on an ongoing basis, you are constantly becoming a new person. This has profound consequences
for so many aspects of our lives. You know, I have the illusion
that 12-year-old Shankar who wanted to be a soccer star, and 52-year-old Shankar
who is the podcast host and 82-year-old Shankar, who will hopefully be living one day
on a beautiful beach, that these are all the same person. Is that really true? Let's set aside the philosophical
questions for another day, and let me tell you
about some of the practical challenges of this problem. When we make promises to other people, when we promise to love someone
till death do us part, we are making a promise
that a stranger is going to have to keep. Our future selves might not share
our views, our perspectives, our hopes. When we lock people up
and throw away the key, it's not just that the people we imprison
are going to be different in 30 years. We are going to be different
30 years from now. Our need for retribution, for vengeance,
might not be what it is today. (Applause) When we pass laws, we often do so with an intent
of making a better country, improving our country. But any country that's been around
for a few decades has numerous laws on the books that made perfect sense
when they were crafted -- in fact, that were seen as enlightened
when they were crafted -- and today, they seem antiquated
or absurd, or even unconscionable. And all of these examples
stem from the same problem, which is that we imagine
that we represent the end of history. That the future is only
going to be more of the same. I have three pieces of advice on how to wrestle
with this wicked problem. And it is a wicked problem, because all of us spend
so much of our lives trying to make our future selves happy. We don't stop to ask, "Is it possible that in 20 or 30 years, our future selves
are going to look back at us with bewilderment, with resentment. That our future selves will ask us, "What made you possibly think
that that is what I would want?" The first piece of advice I have is if you accept the idea
that you're going to be a different person in 30 years' time, you should play an active role crafting
the person you are going to become. You should be the curator
of your future self. You should be the architect
of your future self. But what does that mean? Spend time with people
who are not just your friends and family. Spend time on avocations
and professional pursuits that are not just what you do regularly. Expand your horizons, because you're going to become
someone different, you might as well be in charge of deciding
who that person is going to be. So the first piece of advice
is to stay curious. Second, as we make pronouncements
on social media or in political forums, or at dinner parties, let's bear in mind that among the people
who might disagree with us are our own future selves. (Laughter) So when we express views
with great certitude and confidence, let's remember to add a touch of humility. This is true, by the way,
not just at an individual level -- it's also true at an organizational level. I was speaking, some time ago,
with this young, wonderful woman. She had just reached a position
of authority at her organization, and she had many idealistic ideas of how she wanted to change
her organization. And she asked me,
"How do we make these changes so that in the future, no one's going to come along and undo
the changes that I have made?" And it's a very human impulse,
but it stems from the same belief, that our perspective on history
is the final word. And quite simply, this is wrong. Three. I've given you a number of ways in which our future selves are going to be
weaker and frailer than we are today. And that is true,
that is part of the story. But it is only a part of the story. Our future selves are also going to have
capacities and strengths and wisdom that we do not possess today. So when we confront opportunities
and we hesitate, when I tell myself,
"I don't think I have it in me to quit my job and start my own company," or I tell myself I don't have it in me
to learn a musical instrument at the age of 52. Or I tell myself I don't have it in me
to look after a disabled child. What we really should be saying is "I don't have the capacity
to do those things today. That doesn’t mean I won’t have
the capacity to do those things tomorrow.” So lesson number three is to be brave. I believe if you can do
these three things, if you can stay curious, you can practice humility
and you can be brave, then your future self
will look back at you in 20 or 30 years -- will look back, not with resentment or bewilderment, but will look back at you and say: "Thank you." (Applause)
A great talk, and spot on. Stay curious, practice humility, be brave folks.
Love this! Always keeping an open mind about all perspectives and opportunities