Be careful what you wish for

We can’t know what our future selves wants

4,303,383 views | Shankar Vedantam | TED • April 2022

“You are constantly becoming a new person,” says journalist Shankar Vedantam. In a talk full of beautiful storytelling, he explains the profound impact of something he calls the “illusion of continuity” — the belief that our future selves will share the same views, perspectives and hopes as our current selves — and shows how we can more proactively craft the people we are to become.

The psychology of your future self

7,325,960 views | Dan Gilbert | TED • March 2014

“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.” Dan Gilbert shares recent research on a phenomenon he calls the “end of history illusion,” where we somehow imagine that the person we are right now is the person we’ll be for the rest of time. Hint: that’s not the case.

Culture | Psychology | Humanity | Personality