I was having dinner with a Professor of Social Sciences in Berkeley and something she said turned my sense of time and progress gears in overdrive.
Aside from being extremely charismatic she has a thing where she says the right thing at the right time constantly. When I mentioned I was feeling a bit too old to be serious about my music and was wondering if I should really create albums, rather than give her opinion she told me that she had asked herself a question when she felt too old to get a degree from a University, “Do I want to be a 45 year old with or without this degree?” She ended up getting the degree and hasn’t looked back since.
What’s cool is that you can mess with the timing as well. In the above example she asked herself as a 43 year old and added the two years it would take to get the degree. It’s also fun to ask yourself while adding a longer time horizon. For instance, a 25 year old can ask, “Do I want to be a 60 year old with or without offspring?,” which is different than the more difficult question like, “Do I want kids?” This person may realize they would love the last 30-40 years actually having kids and grandchildren come visit them.
I used to ask myself this at the end of week about meeting new people and I am glad that I did, as it paid enormous dividends later on.
Find a goal and play with the numbers. As for our first album, we just released it (The Blind Stares) let me know what you think!
Written by Eric Waisman
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