Most of us think about the future in some way, but there is an obvious split in whether we want the future to be different from the present or not.  A new study from the University of California, Los Angeles explores whether those who think that life will largely remain the same in the coming decade are actually happier than those who think it will change significantly.

The researchers based their study on the belief that when we’re connected to our future selves, it generally results in a number of positive things happening, whether it’s our ability to delay gratification, look after our health or save for the future.  Therefore, they reasoned that how we think about our future self will have an impact on our happiness.

Rather than those who had an optimistic outlook on the way they will change in future being happier however, the reality was somewhat more prosaic.

“The more people initially predicted that they would remain the same — whether predicting less decline or less improvement across a number of core traits — the more satisfied they typically were with their lives ten years later,” the authors explain.

Thinking about the future

The researchers analyzed data over a ten-year period to estimate how our thoughts about the future can impact our life satisfaction a decade down the road.

It transpired that those people who thought they would be significantly better off in ten years had a similarly low level of life satisfaction as those who thought they’d be worse off in ten years.  Consistently, those who thought life would stay much as it is were the happiest in the future.

The researchers believe it’s this ability to relate to our future self that not only allows us to make longer-term decisions and plan better for the future, but leads us to be happier too.

The team plan to further develop their thinking and explore what lies beneath our thinking to see why some are happy to stay the same whilst others would like to change.

“What life events, for example, cause people to shift the way they think about their future selves?” they conclude.