The Healthy Management of Reality - Stanford University

Changing the Past-Yet-to-BeOne of the exercises we ask the Depression Prevention Course students andour Depression Clinic patients to do is to write down their goals for the next sixmonths, the next five years, and their lifelong goals. We have found that makingexplicit some of our yearnings increases the probability that we will do what isnecessary to fulfill them. (We will discuss this in more detail in Chapter 6.)In the process of doing these exercises, I sometimes think of how helpful itwould have been for our students or patients to have engaged in this process atearlier times during their lives. Often, one finds choices made, or not made, whichhave led one down a path filled with difficulties, or which closed off possibilitiesthat the person would have treasured. On hearing these personal stories, one oftenhas the feeling that correcting a slight detour taken years ago is going to takeconsiderable effort at present. If only we could go back and change the person'spast!There is a type of past that one can change: the past-yet-to-be. To do this,we ask Depression Prevention Course participants to move mentally forward intime for, say, five years. We want them to imagine actually being five years hence,and looking back at the last five years (which, of course, are yet to happen). Thenwe ask them to think about the things they wish they could look back on: what dothey wish they had done? Where? With whom? What kind of things do they wishthey had learned? How do they wish they had spent their time? What kind ofmemories would they like to recall? What kind of memories would they like not tohave for those five years?HMOR.July2005.Muñoz.doc 49