Imagine Yourself in 100 Parallel Universes
Who should we take inspiration from?
We grow up seeing the world around us. We take inspiration from a lot of people around us. For a long time, our inspiration has come from our parents. Girls want to be like moms and boys want to be like dads. After we grow to a certain age, at least in our 20s, we realize that our parents were not perfect and we cannot model our whole life based on our parents.
What should I be like? This question haunts us a lot. Though people might look like they have it all figured out and portray an image outside looking like they know everything, they also have deep insecurities. Secretly, they are also modeling other people.
With the recent social media life-showcasing behavior, the problem has been amplified. Everyone showcases parts of their life online, from cricket players to movie stars to startup founders. We often get confused about who we should be like. Sometimes we look at someone, think they are cool and want to become like that.
Later, we also find out that the person that was our inspiration did something wrong, or something bad happened in their life. Many times we also model fictional characters in movies and TV series.
It takes some maturity and time to figure out that we can only be uniquely us, we can’t be anyone else or like anyone else. No matter how much we try to model a specific inspiring personality, we can never exactly become like them. Everyone’s life experience is unique and we are unique. When we are so unique, and we can never become like someone else, should we just give up on inspiration? Who will inspire us? Who will push us forward to be better?
The 100 Parallel Universes Model
I came up with this mental model once when I was riding my bike. Or maybe I did not come up with it, it felt like a message from the beyond.
Once you have decided that you are not going to copy someone else, you get confused about who should inspire you. It is difficult not to have any inspiration at all because you might be at a stage in your life where a lot of things need to be fixed. You need to make more money, buy better stuff, live in a better home, and feel successful.
How will you improve if you do not have a goal? How can you set a goal if you do not see what others have achieved?
So try this thought experiment. Imagine that there are 100 parallel universes where there is a version of you. On one end of the spectrum, you are the worst. Let’s say that’s 1/100. You are the worst version of yourself and absolutely wasted your life. You are not proud of that guy.
On the other end of the spectrum, let’s say the universe 100/100, you are the best possible version of yourself. If you had the option to restart your life like a game, you would want to be that guy from the 100th universe.
Right now you are somewhere in the middle. I would say, personally, in my imagination, I am in the 60th universe. There is a lot of improvement.
Your inspiration should be the guy in the 100th universe that you are proud of. Try to be like him. It’s you, but the version of you who maxed out his potential to his own satisfaction that by the end of this life, you don’t have regrets.
Practically, we cannot be 100% perfect as we would imagine ourselves to be. It might never be possible to live like the guy from the 100th universe. But if you can improve one each year, it’s still good. Don’t become more like the guy from the 1st universe.
For me, in a year, if I get to become like the guy in the 70th universe, I will be happy.
Of course, we cannot write down the parameters of the guys in each of these universes. We don’t need to worry about how the guy’s life will be in the 1st universe. If we are not disciplined, we would gravitate towards our worst automatically.
We just need to visualize how the guy from our own 100th universe will be. Write it down and read it every day to become more like that.
You Can Only Control Your Day
When you write down how you should be, you will realize that you have no control over the output. The only control you will have is over the input. And you can only control inputs one day at a time.
So it all comes down to writing about your day. What would your perfect day look like?
If I have to try that for myself, then the Deepak in the 100th universe would:
Wake up at 4 am every day.
Meditate from 4:30 to 5:30 am
Goes to the gym and swimming pool till 7 am
Comes back and writes at least 1000 words from 7-8 am
Breakfast and refresh until 9 am
Gets to the office before 10 am
Has a clear idea of what to focus on until 12pm.
Reads a book from 12 -1.
Takes a break for lunch and takes a nap till 4pm
Works from 4:30 to 6:30 on his business
Winds up the work day at 7 pm
Reads some fiction till 8pm
Dinner and early to bed before 10pm
I might not be able to follow this every day. Right now, I do not wake up at 4am. But I can make marginal improvements. Maybe I can wake up at 5 am tomorrow morning if not 4 am.
I might have some days where I live the day like the guy from the 100th universe. Some days might be like the guy from the 40th universe. So one day at a time try to push it.
Once you start taking inspiration from the best-imagined version of yourself, a lot of things will fall into place. We cannot change where and to whom we were born. We have no control over our childhood experiences which shape our life today.
So there is really no point in comparing ourselves to others. However, we can take inspiration from ourselves and try to be more like our own best versions without comparing our lives to someone else.
Very insightful 👍