The Future Costs the Present
# ©2026 Luster Chauncey
Sometimes I feel like I make choices that sacrifice a future me to satisfy the present me. And I don’t panic about that, because it aligns with what I actually believe.
I believe the present me determines the experience of the future me.
Money is the easiest place to see this. I’ve watched someone do everything “right.” She saved. She made smart money choices. She owns her home. She has long-term health care insurance. Financially, she is set. She does not have to worry about money in the ways most people do, especially at her age.
But the trade-off is hard to ignore.
She had very few exciting life experiences. She lived modestly, cautiously. She saved, but she didn’t really live. By her early seventies, her mental and physical health had been declining for years. No intentional exercise. Poor eating habits. A mostly sedentary life. She saved, and she needed every bit of the coverage she had planned for.
That’s not a failure of planning. It’s a different kind of success. One that just doesn’t inspire me.
I am determined that if I stay around long enough, I will be in a mental, physical, and spiritual state where I won’t need all of those coverages. Not because I’m reckless, and not because I think I’m exempt from aging, but because I took care of the present me. And if I do need them, then fine. But I don’t want my future security to exist at the cost of my current aliveness.
I continue to choose experiences. I continue to move my body. I continue to eat in ways that support me. I continue to find joy where I can and value in my presence. Those things inspire me to strengthen each step ahead of me. That’s the road. I’m not waiting to find a yellow brick road somewhere in the distance. I’m laying it down as I walk.
We pay for the future with the present. There’s no other currency.
This isn’t an argument against saving. It’s an argument against outsourcing life to later. People talk about balance, and maybe that’s the word, but I’m not even sure I believe in balance the way it’s usually sold. What I believe is intention. I believe in being awake to today.
Because if I take care of today, really take care of it, I trust the future will be secure one way or another. Not perfect. Not guaranteed. But honest. And lived.