Decide Which Future to Kill
Why You Can’t Step Into Your Next Chapter While Dragging the Old One Behind You
Principle #6 of 9 in the Art of Encore Living series.
For most of my adult life, I thought I knew my future.
I was going to be a professional musician.
Period.
The work was meaningful, the identity fit, and for decades I built a life around it — the gigs, the practice, the touring, the teaching. Music wasn’t just what I did. It was who I was.
Which is why it surprised me — and terrified me — when I started to feel a quiet tug toward something else.
It didn’t happen all at once.
There was no dramatic moment, no existential crisis, no lightning bolt revelation.
It was slower than that.
Softer.
More honest.
It was the growing awareness that what I was doing for others inside the Akimbo Workshops — coaching — felt more alive, more aligned, and more needed than anything else I was doing.
But here’s the thing:
I didn’t want to admit it.
Because to step fully into coaching meant letting go of a future I’d spent decades building.
A future that everyone associated with me.
A future I thought I would have until the day I died.
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Letting go of that future felt like killing a part of myself.
But eventually, the truth became unavoidable:
The cost of clinging to my old future was becoming greater than the fear of stepping into a new one.
Every time I leaned toward coaching, something inside me lit up.
Every time I retreated back into my musician identity out of habit, something dimmed.
I was living between chapters — and it was exhausting.
Finally, I realized what the moment required.
Not more reflection.
Not more preparation.
Not more certainty.
A decision.
A real one.
The kind that closes one door so another can finally open.
I had to kill the future I’d been carrying — not because it was wrong, but because it was complete.
It had done its work.
It had shaped me.
It had served its purpose.
And now it was time to let it go so something else could live.
This is the heart of the sixth principle:
You can’t become who you’re called to be if you keep trying to become who you used to be.
Encore living requires endings.
Not symbolic ones — real ones.
The futures you imagined when you were thirty cannot guide your life when you’re fifty.
The identities that served you then may not serve you now.
The goals you once pursued with passion may no longer match your values, your strengths, or your season of life.
And yet, most people cling to outdated futures as if letting go would erase their past.
It won’t.
Your past doesn’t disappear when you release an identity.
It becomes part of your story.
It turns into strength, wisdom, and depth — fuel for whatever comes next.
But to access that next chapter, you need to make a choice:
Which future must die so the next one can live?
This isn’t meant to be harsh.
It’s meant to be honest.
As the Bhagavad Gita puts it:
“You should not vacillate.”
The Stoics echo the same truth:
Let go of what you cannot control — including the futures you once imagined.
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The Gita reminds us to let go of attachment to outcomes.
The Stoics remind us to let go of attachment to illusions.
Together, they point to the same lesson:
You are responsible for the work of becoming — not for the future you once believed would follow.
Encore living demands a clear-eyed willingness to let go — not to diminish your past, but to honor your future.
The futures we cling to fall into four categories: