Realizing narratives render projected futures knowable as real. Projected futures are intrinsic to forming identity and informing motives. Endtime is a future situated at a critical rupture, an ‘end’ of a world as we know it within a culturally expected duration. Some prophetic versions provide realizing narratives of endtime as a context for identity that combines expectation and emotion into powerful motivational accounts for believers. Such religious narratives may suggest different futures for believers and non-believers. A pragmatic narrative illustrated by backcasting from preferred futures to present actions suggests that a normative task for contemporary selves is choosing among realizing narratives. A pragmatic turn offers criteria for making future-implicating choices and fashioning a cosmopolitan identity.