Next Week Kent

I do a lot of counseling in my role as a military chaplain. There are a few themes that have emerged recently. One of them is essentially, "how can I have a better life NOW?"

The short answer is that there are rarely easy answers. But I have shared my unscientific method with some folks and thought I would share it with you.

I have realized that the more I think about "next week Kent" (in about 7 days) the better next week Kent is. I encourage folks to think of their future self and then ask themselves what they can do now to make that future self happy.

Here is an example: I may want a doughnut NOW, but I know next week Kent would not be happy with me for doing that.

So how do you get a better life right now? Ask yourself what kind of life you want next week and start making decisions so that your future self is happy.

Eventually, you will catch up to your future self and last week's decisions are then multiplied and compounded to give you a better life "now" (which was "next week" last week).

Maybe another way to say it is that delayed gratification is a wonderful gift we can give ourselves. Certainly that is one of the messages of Jesus' temptation. The devil was into "do it NOW" and JC was more, "no thanks, I am in it for the long haul and I want to keep next week JC happy."

What do you think?