How to Think About the Future Again
And why making plans feels so good
We are all everyday time travelers. The human brain is wired to function in the moment and deal with daily life, while simultaneously sorting through the past and imagining the future. This process isn’t just cool—it’s fundamental to understanding ourselves and forming identity.
The pandemic upended our normal sense of time. For me, this winter seemed to stretch on forever in a string of formless, sludgy days that felt endless, and frustratingly unproductive. But then one week this spring, I realized that I felt energetic and hopeful. That I had accomplished a lot in a single day. That the future felt real again.
Traumatic events often change our perception of time. “When trauma hits…this continuity from past, into present, into future that holds us up, is shattered for many people,” says Alison Holman, a researcher at the University of California, Irvine, who studies the effects of trauma and stress on health. Returning to what psychologists call “future orientation” feels amazing because it is part of the recovery process of healing from the trauma of the pandemic. It’s why imagining what I’ll be doing, and what I hope to have accomplished a year from now, feels like the most luxurious and hopeful thing in the world.
