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Dear friends,

My life update is included below in today's story.

I'm trying something new. Further below, you can sign up for my new email series: How to be the hero of your own life.

Today's article might become part of that series.

Cheers,
Scott

Notes to our future selves

Recently, I visited my parents’ home and was going through some sentimental items that I had hidden in their basement to keep them safe during my vagabonding years. I found a note to myself:

I hereby declare I will swim the English Channel!

I had forgotten all about it. I had written it years ago—back when my dreams were bigger than my confidence, and my body didn’t yet argue with me. A promise to myself—a challenge to see how far I could go, both in body and in spirit.

When I made this declaration, none of my college roommates believed in me. In my youthful arrogance, I made them all sign my note, promising me $100 when I actually accomplished the feat.

As I held the note in my hand, waves of regret washed over me: I never swam the English Channel; I never even seriously trained for it; life happened. Other adventures took its place. But as I stared at that faded note, another wave of emotion washed over me, not disappointment, but a recognition, a confirmation, a sense of pride. That note was proof of something important: I have an adventurous spirit.

Admittedly, despite having ridden a bicycle around the world, I sometimes — often really — I doubt myself. Especially when, like now, I sit in front of the computer writing about life rather than living life.

But the note was a noteworthy reminder that I once believed anything was possible—that I could set off into unknown waters, literally and metaphorically, and find my way across.

I think we all have these little reminders tucked away—old journal entries, photos, half-finished projects, or quiet dreams written in the margins of life (marginalia). They’re not failures; they’re fossils of our spirit, evidence that we once dared to imagine more for ourselves.

It’s strange how life speaks to you if you listen. Weeks later, I had forgotten the note again, when the above photograph popped into my feed about the first woman to swim the English Channel, Gertrude Ederle, who is often pictured slathered in a strange mixture of grease (lanolin, olive oil, lard, and petroleum jelly) to ward off the cold and jellyfish stings. This was before the invention of wetsuits. Another week passed, and I forgot the note yet again. Then I had dinner with my friend Niall, who accomplished another dream of mine, what I like to call the Escape from Alcatraz Swim, some people call it the Shark Race. It’s a cold water open-ocean swim near one of the densest populations of great white sharks in the world. Here is the super strange thing: Niall swam that race, a race which we talked about doing together, but somehow I let the opportunity slip. (Damn Past Scott!) Niall swam the Alcatraz swim, the same day I was rooting around my parents’ basement in Wisconsin and found that note!

How is that for life slapping you in the face!?

The English Channel may no longer be in my future. My body might have other ideas. But that doesn’t mean the adventure is over. The real journey isn’t about swimming across oceans; it’s about refusing to let your spirit stagnate. In other words, there is an irony to safety. Safe means consistency or sameness. But sameness does not provide joy. Sameness does not provide change. And without change, I cannot grow.

I am not sure what the future will bring, but I can still test the waters, try something that scares me a little, and keep saying “yes” to the unknown. Embrace the differentness. (I thought I was making up that word, but turns out “differentness” is a real word.) More irony: if you prefer safety, it seems a safe rule of life: Do something different.

Sorry, I digressed into my philosophical musings… But the note to myself wasn’t an intellectual musing or a reminder of what I didn’t do—it was an invitation to keep living like the person who once wrote it.

Challenge

Write a note to your future self. I have been doing this for years. I stash them in secret places like a squirrel. I even like to mail them to myself so they are stamped with a time and place.

A birthday is a good event to both write yourself a letter and open the one from the previous year. But any day will do. I recommend getting started today before you forget, or before it becomes lost in the sea of priorities and medicorities and posteriorities.

If it seems too much for you, just write one sentence. Here, I’ll give you half of it: In one year from today, I will be proud of myself for __________.

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How to be the hero of your own life

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What does it mean to be a hero? Does the world need to be saved? If so, who will get the job? I feel that I was born with a special purpose, and most people I talk to feel the same way. This series explores whether life is a game of king of the mountain, or if we are all gifted in our own way.

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