Delight Chilegide Olumati

She likes to tell me to live the type of life that my future self wouldn’t have to worry about. She asks questions like, “Do you ever sit and wonder what will happen to this past you are creating when your future comes?” Does it bother you enough that what you do today will either secure you the present you badly crave in your future or not? “Does your now suit the type of then you’d like for your later?”

These questions sum up the plan she’s taught me, and they are:

1. Care for it: The best way to have the best future is to care enough for your present. Understand the life you wish to be a part of and care for the one you have now. Nurture it. Love it. Own it. Don’t be apart from it and if it isn’t what it should be then change it. Be soft with it. Hold your hand and teach yourself the life you believe in; the life you’ll like to keep in touch with even after 10 years.
2. Be aware of it: Self-awareness and growth are the best part of planning the best past, at this point, question yourself; your truth, belief, strength and weaknesses. At this point, outline what you wouldn’t want your future self to be called. If your present is so bad, be aware of it. Work towards making it into what shouldn’t be called tomorrow’s present. 
3. Always remember that the internet doesn’t forget: While you may want to do whatever you may want to do or be a part of whatever you may want to be a part of, understand that the comments you make under those posts are backed up somewhere in the system and the internet doesn’t forget it. It brings it back to you when you wish to be your best self, and so to plan this perfect past the words you tell the internet stick, so constantly ask yourself if it’s something you’ll like to answer to in future or not.
4. Keep the right friends: Remember how they say you are a reflection of the friends you keep around you? Well, that counts too. It is part of the plan towards creating our perfect past. For whatever reason you decide to keep who you wouldn’t want to be a part of your future, you should be set to dance to the consequences of that. Do you honestly understand what peer pressure is? Or how your friends are stakeholders in your life? For whatever reason you decide to keep who you wouldn’t to be a part of your “years ago” story, I hope it doesn’t spoil this journey of creating your perfect past.

For her, these are the honest steps towards planning the Perfect Past. I hope for the sake of her love for me and everything in between I get to come out with the future she’d smile hard at.