If you could email your future self, what would you say?

1 Feb 2016

Whatever age you are right now, you’ve likely thought at some stage that you wish you could have known what you know now many years ago, so, what if you could send an email to your future self?

We’ve all thought about sending an email to our future self, whether it be simply as a reminder to buy milk when a simple note will not suffice, or even just to remind you that your previous self said they would never date that person again.

Well, now there’s a website called Futureme.org designed to simplify the future emailing process.

There’s very little else to understand from the concept, really, as all you have to do is write your email, the date you want to send it and the email address you want to send to and, hey presto, your future self will get an email from you.

There’s also a cool little feature where the Future Me crowd have published anonymous, non-traceable letters people have sent to themselves that have been delivered so far.

50 years and counting

While most are meant to be inspirational to hang in there and whatnot, there are a few gems, which include: “Dear FutureMe, Did l look good lol”. Marvellous.

Explaining their decision to set up the site, the creators said: “Usually, it’s the future that will reflect back on the present. We decided to flip that around.

“So send your future self some words of inspiration. Or maybe a swift kick in the pants. Or just share some thoughts on where you’ll be or what you’ll be up to in a year, three years … more? And then we’ll do some time travel magic and deliver the letter to you. FutureYou, that is.”

As for me, well, I’ve emailed myself in the year 2066 simply saying: “Dear FutureMe, don’t forget to feed the hovercat”.

For the sake of that, let’s hope that emails as we know them just don’t exist then.

Future self confused receiving a nonsensical email image via Shutterstock

Gigglebit is Siliconrepublic.com’s daily dose of the funny and fantastic in science and tech, to help start your day on a lighter note.

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

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