The ‘End of History’ Illusion
“Although we recognise that we’ve evolved from who we once were to who we are now, we fail to see that we will continue to change in the future.”
Change is scary. There’s an inherent comfort that we find in the habits and beliefs of the person we currently are, and the thought of that being disrupted can be a little overwhelming. However, no matter who you are or where you come from, you’ve changed a lot in your life. And you’re still alive.
As stated above, the ‘End of History’ illusion, refers to peoples’ acknowledgment that they’ve gone through a great deal of change in the past, but their simultaneous inability to see how much they could change in the future. Most of us fall victim to this, and it’s pretty easy to identify as well.
As a simple demonstration, envision the person you were in middle school. For me (and probably a lot of others), that was an extremely nervous, awkward, and unimpressive individual. For all three years of middle school, the sound of my phone alarm was the opening guitar riff of ‘Heartbreaker’ by Led Zeppelin. I would wake up to that, and spend most of the morning hyping myself for how charismatic and cool I was gonna be that day. The second I stepped foot outside, all of that disappeared, and the day crept by in a slow haze of paranoia, as I talked to as few people as humanly possible. As soon as I got home, I would sit my ass in front of the TV and play hours of video games (the Witcher 3 and Assassins Creed were my personal favorites), all while averaging an intake of approximately 4-6 strawberry pop tarts per hour. That’s who I was in middle school.
I’m happy I evolved out of that, but I’m still grateful for the time I spent as that person. Those habits fit me well for that specific time in my life, and they helped lead me to decisions that sparked positive change later down the road. I hope you feel the same way, but even if you don’t that’s cool, too. The important thing is that you recognize the massive difference between yourself now, versus who you were in middle school. That’s just one example, but it can be applied endlessly. Throughout your life, you’ve changed in a lot of different ways over a lot of different time frames.
Now, on the flip side of that, try to imagine yourself 10 years from now. That’s a lot more difficult, right? If you’re like me, your brain might immediately jump to negative conclusions. “Oh my god I’m gonna lose my hair, I’ll probably have kids so I won’t have time to run races anymore, and I’ll be out of the physical prime of my life!”
Sometimes we have to take what our brains say with a grain of salt. We’re perfectly in control of whether the change in our future will be good or bad, it all comes down to our attitude and our willingness to make healthy decisions. The uncertainty of it is intimidating, but contrary to popular belief, our hands are not tied. We are the biggest determinant of how our future self will look, feel, and act. But if we don’t live with that in mind, then we just leave it up to luck and circumstances.
If we don’t put ourselves in the driver’s seat of our fitness and lifestyle choices, then we make a conscious decision to relinquish control of the change that is inevitably coming our way. We can’t determine everything (although that would be very fun), but establishing healthy routines will dramatically increase our odds of feeling happier, more content, and more energized. Flip the ‘End of History’ illusion on its head.
If you’ve been capable of positive change in the past, then you are 100% capable of positive change right now.
