One of the things – in the last decade or so, I don’t know – that’s become really popular is asking people what advice would you give to your younger self.
I’ve never understood that question, and furthermore, I’ve grown to hate it. Like seriously, why are you giving advice to someone you will never be again? Now that I’m writing this, it just dawned on me that perhaps that question’s not meant to benefit you, but the people who are currently the age of the self you’re giving advice to. Maybe the concept was derived from a therapist trying to help their patient make peace with a turbulent time in their past?
Like I said I don’t know.
Every time that ridiculous question (at least I think it’s ridiculous) is asked of me, I always have the same simple answer: nothing. Everything I like about myself today, I consciously cultivated when I was 17. So I like my younger self, flaws and all.
If anything my younger self needs to be givin’ advice to the current me.
My younger self would believe more in my writing. She would fight harder for my dreams. She would be bolder and more fearless. She would take more risks like it ain’t no thing. She had faith that’d make an atheist believe Jesus is King (she wouldn’t worry about whether or not people will recognize that with that last line I took creative liberties).
But as I’ve gotten older and my loss column seems to have outnumbered my wins, no matter how many wins I rack up, slowly but surely, I’ve managed to lock her up. Her voice silenced by a series of life’s disappointments, further imprisoned by my own complacency.
Yet sometimes when I reminisce on how awesome she was, I’m reminded that she is me.
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