A Pointless Letter To My 10 Year-Old Self

Over the years there has been a trend of self development bloggers and Life Coaches writing letters of advice and encouragement to younger versions of  themselves.

As I talked about in this post on ‘awesome blessings’, we often don’t know at the time what is best for us.

Therefore, knowing that things aren’t as bad at we at first think, could be really useful, right?

Losing the job you had set your heart on (as I did in the post I just mentioned) may turn out to be a lucky break with you ending up in a career you love, or job you prefer.

Getting dumped by the partner you think a lot of, could mean you’re on the verge of finding your soul mate, getting married and being blissfully happy.

And beating the shit out of your golf bag with a 5 wood after hitting a poor, albeit tricky, approach shot to the 13th green at Matlock golf course, and subsequently smashing a Tag Hauer watch, may make you realize a calmer approach to competition may be called for.

None Of Us Self Sabotage

Self sabotage is a myth, it only exists in hindsight.

We all make decisions based upon the information we have to hand at the time, coupled with our established patterns of behavior.

And we always make them with the best intentions.

All of the above events seemed at the time, if not devastating, then certainly very dispiriting for me.

Yet I can now see clearly, all had very positive consequences that were not apparent at the time.

With that in mind, I have been giving some serious thought to what I would say to my 10 year-old self to smooth the transition of life.

Here’s what I came up with.

A Letter To Myself

Dear Tim,

Life is tough, but you will have to suck it up.

You are going to fuck up from time to time but that’s ok (and don’t pretend you don’t use the word fuck because I’m you and I know damn well you uttered that word when you were 9 and haven’t stopped using it ever since).

I know that you will take no notice of this letter and rightfully so.

It’s a crock of shit because you actually need to fuck up – a lot.

You need to learn from your mistakes because that’s how your brain is wired up and me trying to help you avoid them is an object in futility and stupidity.

If all that were needed for us not to avoid mistakes was advice from well-meaning parents and adults, then each generation would get progressively smarter and make fewer and fewer mistakes.

From my limited experience, that doesn’t appear to be happening.

I’m not going to tell you to be good, to look after your teeth, to be grateful, not to take drugs, to enjoy every day, to pick better sports teams, not to dick about at school and to never, ever drive around Matlock in your first car with the window down and Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen blaring out.

If I did, you’d ignore me to begin with and then just forget. Because you’re a 10 year-old kid with way bigger things to do than listen to an old fart like me.

The only thing I’m going to tell you is this.

Just figure things out for yourself as you go along and you’ll be ok.

Cheers

Tim

I know a lot of people make very poor decisions, or are the recipients of crushing bad luck that has no long-term benefits.

And of course they would desperately like to have the chance to write that letter to their younger self, and rightly so, but let’s just focus on the majority.

Leaving aside it’s a fantasy anyway until we can come up with time travel (which will probably be very expensive to begin with and I wouldn’t advise volunteering for the beta testing) it almost certainly wouldn’t have any effect.

Your most important learnings will have come from making mistakes and for the most part (and there are exceptions of course)  you needed to make them – not be told about them.

In fact, you will continue to need to make them on a regular basis if you’re to grow as an individual.

Look around you – every single aspect of society from sports to science is built on learning from mistakes.

Mistakes aren’t the problem.

The problem is when we allow them to define or defeat us and/or go to ridiculous lengths in trying to avoid ever putting a foot wrong.

Trust me, you will.

None of us are fuck-ups, but we all fuck up.

What About You?

What was your biggest mistake and more importantly, what did you learn from it?

Image Courtesy of Eli Juicy Jones