Write Your Future, Decide Your Destiny

Do you believe in writing your future?

Do you believe in creating your own miracles and destiny, paving your own path?

Or would you think life has been set for us from the day we were born?

If you could write your own future, to your own happiness and success and find out that you are actually living it out the next time you read it, would you spend fifteen minutes now to write that letter?

Some of us are pretty skeptical when it comes to even thinking about our future, what more defining our own paths. Some think that our future is already written or pre-determined in our destiny from the day we were born; whatever we do or whichever way we choose to go, we will end up the same.

While others believe that they can actually write their own life story.

From your younger days to your adulthood, how much have you changed as a person? You may have made considerable achievement, but how much have you as an individual changed in terms of your behaviour, beliefs and persona? And, how much have your character or personality reinforced itself within you, making you more of the person you are today than who you were back then?

I was someone who used to believe that no matter what I choose or which way I go, my path was already set from the day I was born. As the Chinese saying goes, ‘三歲定八十’ (three years old fixes eighty) meaning you can see a person’s character and personality from the way they act when they were three years old.

For a long time, I see myself as a selfish, stubborn, not street smart, not savvy or not emotionally intelligent person despite my other strengths (e.g. being good in my studies, having relatively good friendships and being an independent person). Of course, no factor is inter-dependent on each other, but rather each factors complement who we are more. The negative traits I see of myself stemmed from what others labelled and said of me when I was younger which I took for sure to be who I was because really, some of them watched me grow up! For a long time, I’ve not thought otherwise about myself nor did I try to challenge how much do others know about me for I took for granted they know me so well.

The Change

However, one day I came across this article on Liao-Fan’s Four Lessons, a story about the life of Yuan Liaofan who wrote these lessons for his son, Yuan Tian-Chi. Originally, Liaofan was told by a monk that his lifespan was limited and he would have no son. Though he did no believe, the monk’s words were so accurate in that he would only achieve certain positions in life and could not move up the rank. And he went on to re-write his destiny, to eventually have a son and lived beyond the predicted age.

Though it seemed nonsensical to me initially and felt like a lot of hard work from the story, I came to realize that we can change who we are; we can change our life story, our destiny, but we need to put in the hard work!

Writing Your Future

Coincidentally, I came across a life coach on Personal Excellence, Celestine Chua whom I can say, changed my life permanently in so many ways. She wrote a number of articles at length on various life topics, from inspirations to routine habits to the practical goal setting and achieving methods. Through her, I learned about creating our own life handbook, setting our visions, living our values, being excited doing annual reviews, changing myself for the better and most of all, writing my own future. In her words, it’s call writing a letter to your future self.

Basically, we write a letter with the vision of who we will be and where we want to be in the next one, three, five or ten years. After writing that letter, we seal it and stash it somewhere until the date in the future arrives. And when the time comes, we open it and read how much of what we wrote back then materializes into what we achieved and who we are today.

I handwritten myself such a three-year-later letter back in ~2010 for the first time. It took roughly 15–30 minutes. It wasn’t even fanciful and it doesn’t need to be. The content is more important than the design. I wrote mine in a fullscape paper (test pad), folded it without an envelope and taped the ends together with caps “DO NOT OPEN UNTIL [DATE]”

When I opened it, I was in awe, because after reading the entire few pages, I realized that I had achieved more than 70% of what I wanted to achieve back then.

And yesterday, I received another letter (via email) which I wrote to myself on 03 April 2011, five years ago.

In retrospect, it was not that long, but I have to say, I have accomplished most of what I wished on paper back then, and have even surpassed some of what I wrote back.

Here are some of the content

Dear

How have you been? It has been five years since you wrote this letter to yourself. At this point of time in your life, while you were writing this, you were in a mess. Not in those kind of junkie mess but in the sort of mess that you are lost and alone, fearing and dunno what to do with your life, no purpose, not aware of your future at all.

The past you when writing this letter, have a job that you don’t like, away from your family where you have been away for the past nine years, in a relationship… for a year plus already but still not a stable one, yet to find what drives you and you lived with tiredness everyday.

Today, five years later…. I know you are a better person than who you were five years ago. You have sorted your life out, found out what you wanted and lived your best ever since. Today you live with zest and energy, doing things that fill you with passion and you love everything that you do.

You still keep in constant touch with your family. You call mum and dad every week and communicate with your sister (who is happily married now), and your brother who is in university pursuing his course with high flying colours.

You work in a renowned firm and are now a marketing manager who deals with issues and projects with zeal and high drive daily. If not for that day when you went for that interview, you would not have achieved so much knowledge and improved, and gained so much opportunities to prove yourself. You are loving this experience and the opportunities that your company gives you. You lead and set good examples. You work with great ethics and gain a lot of satisfaction from your achievements. Now you are holding a pay of at least $8k per month.

Your relationship with (bf) has improved since. You have grown matured over the years and you both have talked things out, worked things out and walked through the past five years. You both have been together for the 7th year running now. You love each other very much and are connected to each other deeply. You both have gained understanding from each other. (You) have talked about settling down with you within the next year. You are able to live comfortably and enjoy life every weekend with (bf).
[2016: We got married]

[I also talked about my other family members which our relationships have improved though not as ideal as I wrote].
Mum and dad has also accepted your relationship with (bf) because they know it is your happiness. Mum and dad have told you that they respected your decisions, including the fact that you will be settling down in Singapore.

Your health is in great form. You exercise almost everyday with (bf). Both of you just cleared your annual medical checkup with flying colour recently. On some weekday nights, you go out and mingle with colleagues and friends to chill and relax. You are more open and extrovert these days, and you have made a number of good friends through these years. You do not forget to love yourself while loving (bf). Sometimes you go for drinks, sometimes to spa, beauty saloon for facials, pedi and mani, sometimes you go shop, sometimes you relax at some parks, other times you visit temple to seek and improve on inner peace so that you recharge faster. You have also gained more understanding on life theories. You have learned to see beyond your own thoughts, learned to take things easy and let go, learned to accept differences and to live everyday with purpose. You have never regretted your choice of living and loving the past five years.

Every morning when you wake up, you feel happiness and warmth, contented … Then you will start your meditation exercise. You have breakfast with the family after that before leaving for work.
[2016: I have not started meditation or wake up early to prepare breakfast because I love to sleep in. Eek!]

After work, you drive home to help (out at home) and some nights you go out with your own friends to relax. Other nights, you go on dates with (bf) to share and communicate alone, some alone time. During your free time, you do volunteer work with a few selected organisations. You have found passion in this and felt happy to be able to help and care for others.

At nights, you do some yoga to improve your flexibility, you can do much harder positions now. Then, before u retire and hug each other in your sleep, you tell each other that how much you love, appreciate and cherish each other.

You have just celebrated your thirtieth birthday early this year with your loved ones, mum and dad, Sis and bro even came over to celebrate Chinese New Year along with b’day in Singapore with (bf) family.

Life has never been so good.

Today, as you know, I have my purpose and I know which direction I want to head in my life. I am living my life the way I want it and I have the support of my loved ones to do what I love; and that is to keep L3Hub alive and going. Most days, I even find that there is not enough time to do what I want and I feel like I am making up for lost time every single day doing the works I love. I volunteer most of my free time nowadays.

I value health, family, learning, exploring and development. I eat healthier (gone vegetarian) and I jog / run regularly. I have my loved ones by my side and I’m enjoying every second of my waking and non-working moments with them. I love to travel and do it whenever I can because it helps me grow as a person.

Though I am still away from home, I managed to spend a full year back at home with my family in the last two years. Today, I keep close contact with my family especially my sister (considering we seldom keep in touch back then), but that’s also thanks to the advancement of technology~

I am working in a renowned firm, but I am not exactly holding a marketing position, though I do assist in that function. Plus, I am marketing L3Hub to reach out to more young girls and women everyday! =) At the same time, my work requires a lot of zeal and drive!

In the letter, I mentioned a lot about my then-bf because we were really struggling back then. However, looking at the 8th paragraph, I also brought out my wish to love myself better and do things for myself while loving others, and celebrate my inner spiritual growth and my intention to widen my views.

Five years is a long time. (I didn’t know if I’d change my email back then, but I didn’t!)

Who knows how our lives would have changed. Unless you don’t wish to improve or be a better version of yourself, one way or another you would change either based on your own initiatives or being forced to change.

You would get out of that hurtful relationship you are in. You would want to get rid the pain you are feeling today. You would want to be richer, healthier, happier or more successful. You would be a better friend. You would be a better daughter or sister, or a better wife or mother to your child. You would be more experienced and more skillful at your job than you are today. Wouldn’t you?

We might retrograde or improve, depending on which ways we choose.

When you write your story, you are unknowingly setting yourself up for success or failure because in preparing for the letter, you’d have thought about the idea of it, you’d have written it down making it feel real and you have read it after you wrote it to ingrain in your heart and mind what you desire.

Even if you keep the letter tucked away in one corner, your heart and mind has already been exposed to what you have just written and they would register what you want at the back of your mind. As you go on with your life, you will be unknowingly directed to where you want to be, unless your preference and life views change over time which is not impossible.

At the time of writing your letter, you only knew as much as you know now. Five years down the road, you will definitely know more and in the midst of chasing your life goals, you would be exposed to more situations, challenges and experiences in life which will change your perspectives in one way or another.

In my letter, I didn’t specify how and what routes I want to take of which days but things just happened. When you have set the end goal in mind, you automatically find ways to reach them. Sometimes opportunities even head towards you without you even realizing it. For instance, I wrote that ‘if not for that day when you went for that interview,’ I hadn’t even known which company I was going to apply to, what position or when, but it happened. I was later on headhunted for my current position.

Try It.

Trust me, it is worth that 15 or 30 minutes of your life.

If, when you open the letter three or five years later, what you wrote didn’t come true at all, you can take it as a writing expressions exercise.

But why I want to share this with you is that this is really an experience that will change your life.

The moment when you open that letter which you wrote ages ago, is interesting if not amazing. When what you wrote and what you have achieved in reality becomes apparent, you feel the awesomeness and pride in yourself dispersing from within you.

And, you are tempted to do another letter again and again because you see the positive side of writing and creating your own future!

I still have my old handwritten letter which is so precious to me because it is hard evidence that I can write my own future. It almost feels like a trophy to me for believing in myself and my destiny, even if I didn’t believe in myself back then.

If you want to do the email version, you can head over to futureme.org

I wish you all the best in your 1/3/5/10/20 years journey ahead.

If you find this article useful and worth sharing, do share!

Originally published at l3hub.org.