originally posted March 31, 2007
May 2021: reformatted; revised text as noted
A not-well-heard-of website came to my attention today, thanks to this story on National Public Radio. The site, FutureMe.org, is intended to enable a person to write and e-mail a message that will be delivered anytime between thirty days from the time of creation and fifty years into the future. In the past four years, more than 400,000 people have sent messages for a variety of reasons.
Granted, most people address letters to themselves, like a personal time capsule, but a use that would be more pertinent to our areas of interest, is to write letters to others in our lives, letters that will surprise their receivers in the future, just as lost letters and missing postcards have surprised some of us in years gone by. From their website:
Thinking about and writing to the future—your future—is a powerful exercise . . . take some time to reflect on what you think . . . [what you] want the future to bring in a year, five years, ten years, more . . . imagine your dreams . . . or make a prediction about your life, or the world at large . . . maybe write a resolution for a new year . . . even write a letter to your future self as a form of therapy! [Regardless,] . . . what’s better than writing a letter to the future? Getting a surprise letter from the past.
The site does not have a limit yet on the number of letters that can be sent, though abusers who use the site as a simple reminder service are allegedly dealt with . . . Oh, and in case you’re worried about “moving” (changing e-mail addresses), FutureMe has implemented a management system that allows updating of addresses—no fair, though, changing or updating those messages! Time to get started?
UPDATE: While you can still start sending letters for free, FutureMe now requests a paid upgrade after using the service for longer than three years or after writing twenty letters (whichever comes first); users are allowed to choose a price they think is fair based on where they live, how old they are, and how much value they get from use. In addition, FutureMe can now be used as a writing experience with students and can be implemented as a branded experience for commercial entities. Check out their FAQ page if you still have questions.
image information: Featured image, via FutureMe.org.
