Most people treat the future as a blank canvas — a space where better versions of themselves will finally show up and do the things they keep postponing. The medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides noticed something sharper: in his 'Mishneh Torah' (c. 1180), he argued that the self you imagine inhabiting tomorrow is, in a crucial sense, a stranger. You cannot make binding commitments on a stranger's behalf. This isn't pessimism — it's a precise diagnosis of why 'future me will handle it' is structurally different from procrastination. It's a failure of temporal identification, the quiet assumption that the person who will live through your future hours shares your current values and energy. The practical move Maimonides recommended was front-loading moral and practical effort — not because tomorrow is uncertain in the calendar sense, but because the self who arrives there will be shaped by different pressures, moods, and competing loyalties. Today's version of you is the one with the clearest access to today's intentions. Act from that.

What are you currently delegating to a future self who has never agreed to take it on?

Drawing from Medieval Jewish Philosophy — Maimonides ('Mishneh Torah', c. 1180 CE)