What Would My Younger Self Tell Me?

If you've heard it once, you must have heard it at least a hundred times. If I could tell my 15 year old self something, I'd tell her not to worry and that everything gets better. I'd tell my sixteen year old self that life begins after high school and that the guy I stressing over was not the love of my life.

The assumption is usually that wisdom comes with age, so we wax on with advice and wise counsel for younger people around us, hoping that we can spare them the perils which we were too silly and naïve to avoid. In most cases, this assumption is not wrong. A person who has walked the same road forty times most likely knows the road better than someone who has walked it ten times. There is something to be gained from the experience that comes with age, and it is very noble to want to be a guide to the people who are coming by the way you have been before, to teach them about the potential pitfalls and to show them the higher and better road.

However, there is also wisdom to be learnt from our younger selves. My younger self, although reserved and very introspective, was a more disciplined person than my present self. My younger self sought self-enrichment and development in ways that my present self is too distracted and entertained to do. My younger self was open and curious, always learning, full of wide-eyed wonder at the world around me. My younger self was of the 'how can I help' persuasion and really believed I could make a difference.

Time and experience sometimes make you wiser and better but they also sometimes erode your values and beliefs, and show you just how low you will go in life. There were things that I swore as a younger person that I would never do -and indeed if I ever did find myself in those situations, I am convinced I would have stuck with my convictions to the very end- but my adult self did those things without a second thought and only realised retrospectively that I had violated my own self.

It is not that the core of me has changed or my values have been transformed. With a few exceptions, the things which mattered to me at sixteen matter to me now. The only difference between the 16 year old who 'walked it like she talked it' and the adult who places more importance on convenience than she should is the desensitisation. What do I mean? The more I became exposed to other people, influences and possibilities, the less explorative I was of the world I carried within me. The more I used other people as a reference point, the less aware of myself I was.

The more I allowed other people's experiences to limit me, the less I believed in my own potential.

Perhaps the most dangerous part of this erosion of one's sense of personhood is its subtlety which can either make it go unnoticed, or trick one into underestimating the damage being done while simultaneously overestimating one's ability to recover.

How many of us dreamed of changing the world when we were younger? How many of us as kids would walk the streets and be shocked by the sheer number of homeless people we encountered? (the same homeless people we pass today but don't notice). How many of us could just not wait until we became adults so that we could truly do the things that mattered to our hearts? How many of us boldly declared to anyone interested that we were not born just to acquire a formal education, get married, have children, tick the attendance and then check out? How many of us laid awake at night, flooded with a restless desire for more. How many of us said we would end world hunger? Sponsor medical research? Fundraise for causes dear to our hearts? Travel to remote areas of the world to volunteer our services? Change medical policies in our own countries? How many of us saw ourselves leading the pack in Arts, Business, Science, Cultural research?

I am sure the majority of people spent a considerable part of their younger years burning with a fiery passion to 'be the change' before life got in the way. Failure happened, disappointment happened, people told us we could not, the motions of life happened, we were told to get out of our fantasies and face reality, we got a job like everyone else, a metal ceiling was firmly locked in place over our heads, preventing us from reaching the vast pictures that nevertheless burned in our minds. Time passed, the yearning decreased, we convinced ourselves that we are fulfilled, our dreams wilted within us.

I would like to urge each person to take a walk down history lane and recall the strength of character, the passion and ambition of your younger selves and see what you can learn from them. Ask yourself "Would the 15 year old me be proud of the life I'm living now?" It might not lead you to sell all your material possessions and travel the world. It might lead you to seemingly little things like standing up for the colleague that is picked on by everyone else, taking a moment to smile at the barista at your favourite coffee shop, or deciding that none of the neighbour's kids will ever not have a place to go if they need a 'break' for a few hours.

Remember and ponder on this:

The future is entrusted to you by your younger self; don't betray their trust. Don't let their dreams die.

In conclusion, be the person that your younger self would look up to and be proud of for all the right reasons.

Bon Chance!