Who Will You Be In 3,650 Days?

Imagine if time travel would allow you to make 10 year leaps. Would you take that leap?

Picture a 10 year leap forward to 2031 to see where your future self might be. Travel 10 years in reverse to 2011 and imagine what advice you might have for your past self.

The sage wisdom in business says that any enterprise is either growing or dying. There is no stasis or static middle ground where a business simply maintains some status quo.

Your life is also a dynamic process where you are either progressing or regressing. The only constant is that days are clicking by as the sun rises and sets.

Years are nothing more than the accumulation of our days. 2011 was just 3,650 days ago.

The progression or regression of who you have become since 2011 is a net result of life experiences and choices you made over the last 3,650 days.

Each one of us has three versions of ourselves: the past, present, and future. Your present self is different from your past self. You have become a different person. Your present self has also not yet become who your future self will be.

This is why Gail can say she has had three different husbands all while having only one marriage. My past, present, and future selves probably seem like different people to her. 

Try for a moment to imagine yourself back in 2011 with the futuristic knowledge of who you are today in 2021. 

In 2011, I was 34-years old, had been married for 14 years, had five kids, and was the pastor of a small church in York City, PA.

It would be hard for me to fathom that over the next 10 years I would add baby #6 (“Hi Wesley!”), would suffer the loss of Gail’s Dad in 2013, would become CEO of Logos Academy in 2014, enroll two kids at Messiah University, and would find myself involved in so many exciting community ventures.

“The progression or regression of who you have become since 2011 is the net result of life experiences and choices you made over the last 3,650 days.”

I believe my 34-year old past self would have an appropriate sense of joy and pride at where my trajectory would take me in 2021. I would also be bolstered with the confidence of knowing that God never forsook us even in death’s dark valley.

On reflection over those 3,650 days, I can clearly see the ways I have grown and matured.

There is a simple truth here: my 34-year old past self was more ignorant and immature than my present self. This is not self-deprecation, just truth.

I have grown and am more mature than I was in 2011. My faith is fuller, richer, and stronger. I hope you can see how you have grown as well.

There is a corollary truth: my 54-year old future version of myself will have 3,650 days more experience than my present self. The 54-year old Aaron Anderson will be wiser, more mature, and will have grown substantially (or so Gail hopes).

There is a powerful lesson for my present self: I should live each day with loads of gratitude and humility. 

I can be grateful today for my growth over the past 10 years and even appropriately proud of the progress I have made. 

At the same time, my present self should remain humble and teachable because I have not yet become what I will be in 10 years.

I am a work in progress. You are too.

I have very precious, early memories of learning a little song in Sunday School called “He’s Still Workin’ on Me". I must have been five years old taking in that meaningful song as I sat in the basement of my church. That song says,

He's still working on me

To make me what I ought to be

It took him just a week to make the moon and stars

The sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars

How loving and patient He must be

'Cause He's still workin' on me

You are a work in progress. Give thanks for the progress you have made and even for the experiences you have accumulated over the years. Yes, some of those days felt like you were walking through the fire, but I hope you came out refined as pure gold.

Perhaps you have not made as much progress as you would like. Be patient with yourself. That little song has a line that says, “There really ought to be a sign upon my heart. Don't judge him yet, there's an unfinished part.”

God is not through with you just yet.

You must also resist the arrogance and pride that tells you that you have arrived. You have not arrived. God is not finished with you yet. You have much to learn, ways in which you are still immature. 

Remain humble, teachable, and open to the process of growth.

I hope that right up until my dying day I will continue to grow. The Scriptures tell us that even while we are wasting away on the outside, that we are being renewed internally day by day.

Never stop becoming who you can be. You are either growing or dying, progressing or regressing. 

One way to reinforce this lesson is to have mentoring relationships with both people 10 years younger than you and 10 years your senior. 

You should consider mentoring someone who is 10 years your junior so that you might coach them on the lessons you have learned.

You should also think about being mentored by someone who is 10 years your senior so that they might guide you into your future. 

If you hope to shape who you will become in 2031, you need to pay careful attention to the choices you make every day. You are only 3,650 days away.

Our lives are a beautiful process of becoming. He’s still workin’ on you and me.

I can’t wait to see who we become.