Language of money best left to the present

Don't think of your future, older self as a different person, separate to you. If you do, you will probably save less, exercise less and eat more.

Illustration by Gary Clement for The National

Who is more likely to be a smoker, obese and insolvent?
A "futured" language speaker, that's who.
OK, perhaps not insolvent, but less well off.
Your birth language determines a lot about you. It affects the way you think and behave. Including how you deal with money.
The more I explore this, and read about it, the more I believe it to be the case.
When it comes to money, how your mother tongue refers to the passage of time appears to influence how much we are likely to save for our future.
I'll say it again: how we speak about time, how our language forces us to think about time, affects how we behave across time.
We know that a person who closely identifies with their future self will save more for their later life than someone who is detached from their older selves. Getting us to be kinder to our future selves is a challenge. Whether it's eating right, exercising more or just putting a bit extra aside for the coming years.
We know we should, but we don't all do it. So what makes people living in Luxembourg, Japan and Germany do it significantly more than those in the US and UK?
It appears to boil down to how the passage of time is marked.
English, like Arabic, distinguishes between the past, present and future. These are "futured" languages. Unlike the language of the saving nations - which are futureless - where the same phrase describes an event of yesterday, today and tomorrow. An example is rain. "It rain" yesterday, today, tomorrow in futureless languages, vs it rained/ is raining/ will rain in futured language.
Research shows futureless language speakers are 30 per cent more likely to report having saved in any given year than futured language speakers. That is 25 per cent more savings by retirement, if income doesn't change.
I wonder if this means that different areas of the brain light up in futured vs futureless language speakers when they are asked to think of their future selves.
I bring this up because recent research shows that a certain area of the brain is triggered when a person is asked to think of themselves - this is their present "today" self essentially - but a different part of the brain lights up when they think of their future self. The bit that is stimulated is the same part that deals with other people. Their older self is a stranger to them.
This research was done on English - futured language - speakers.
It would be very powerful to know if the brains of futureless language speakers work differently - wouldn't it be amazing if the same point lights up, regardless of which phase of life they're asked to think of?
It would make for a nifty experiment. But how can this be useful? Well, anything that makes our future self more familiar is a good thing. It means we would be kinder to and love that person more - and do a better job at sparing them avoidable pain - like a host of illnesses self-inflicted through poor lifestyle choices, or not having enough money.
And therein lies the point: the languages that force speakers to separate between present and future - to speak of them differently - tend to live much more in the present. It's all about now and enjoying it, with little regard for the future. Not difficult to follow if they see their future self as a stranger. So they party more, eat more, spend more than they need.
Basically they invest less in the future. Even if it is their future. Because not only has it not happened, but a stranger will be living it out. Their future self. A stranger to them.
This is why experiments getting people to see themselves ageing - has the effect of, well I think terrifying them into treating their future self better.
One experiment had participants see an avatar of their older self staring back from a mirror when they put virtual reality goggles on - these people pledged to save twice as much as participants who didn't see their morphed retirement aged selves.
It's a tough one. If you're a futured language speaker, which you are because you are reading this, then I hope you have a futureless one to fall back on - else override your intrinsic wiring and get emotionally attached to your futureless self. Your today is your tomorrow. Say it out loud. Say it again.
Note to self: learn a futureless language as soon as possible.
An easier and quicker way of breaking the barrier to doing right by my older self is having an aged avatar photo of me staring back from my bathroom mirror . she'd better be fit, solvent and skiing.
Nima Abu Wardeh describes herself using three words: Person. Parent. Pupil. Each day she works out which one gets priority, sharing her journey on finding-nima.com.
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