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In the film My Old Ass, on a trip to an island with friends and some hallucinogenic mushrooms, Elliott has a unique experience where she gets to meet her older self. This sets the scene for a dialogue where 39-year-old Elliott gets to reflect and impart advice about the things she wishes she had done differently. She does this in the hope that 18-year-old Elliott will think about where her actions might lead.
While it’s unlikely many of us will get the opportunity to actually talk to our younger or older selves, many of us, I’m sure, daydream about what we would say. When we engage in this mental time travel, we do more than just recall the things that have happened or think about the things we know are going to happen; instead, like Elliott, we delve into a world of how things could be different.
Imagination is something we often consider to be unpredictable but it turns out that there are commonalities in the things we bring to mind. Like Elliott, we tend to focus on thoughts of ourselves and of our goals rather than other things going on in the world. There are also similarities in when we engage in this type of thinking – most often when things are not going so well or when doors to opportunities start to close.
Looking back to the past or forward to the future and imagining how things might be different can be useful. We see our lives not just as they are, but in contrast to how things might be different.
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Like Elliott, we typically imagine a world where things are better rather than worse. In doing so, we often latch onto those junctures in time that sent our life in a specific direction. Those junctions are often not the circumstances in which we found ourselves but rather the choices and decisions that sent us down a particular path, a path we now wish was different.
It’s no surprise then that Elliott is having this conversation with her 18-year-old self, it’s a critical juncture in life.
Imagining better outcomes can be useful, providing us with an opportunity to learn from the mistakes we made and to reflect on how we could avoid those mistakes in the future. However, our imaginings do not just influence our learning, but also have an impact on how we feel.
When we imagine how our current lives could have turned out better with “if only …” thinking, these better alternatives may make our world feel pale in comparison and we may tend to be less happy with how things are. Not only that, but by imagining the things that we should or could have done differently, we can bring about feelings of regret and guilt that are hard to shake off.
But in the film, we see that older Elliott has a chance to do something we often wish we could do. With the wisdom of hindsight, she can tell her younger self what to do differently and so for young Elliott things are different. Her future has not yet been travelled and her doors are open. She can see the path her future self has travelled, as well as imagine how her choices may lead to different avenues and outcomes.
She has the chance to learn from her older self but imagining the future does not have the negative emotions that come with wishing the past was different. She has the best of both worlds.
Our understanding of imaginary thinking brings a lesson. We may be tempted in life to go back and talk to our younger selves but it can be a double-edged sword. While we might learn from our mistakes, it is unlikely to have a positive impact on how we feel about our current life.
But imagining a better future may bring both learning and positive feelings. We might not have hallucinogens or the chance to be 18 again, but we can step into younger Elliott’s shoes and imagine instead what our older self might say to us.
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Clare Walsh has received funding from the British Academy for some of her work in this area.
