conversations with your younger self
Jul. 5th, 2004 02:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioI swiped this idea from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
khaosworks, who introduced it here.
Take your life as it is now.
Imagine yourself, oh, some 15-18 years ago, if you're old enough to remember that far back.
What would the you of that time think if you could go back and talk about what you're doing now? Would your younger self believe you? Be happy? Or want to avert this future?
Are you where you thought you were going to be?
This isn't the old "Give your younger self advice" chestnut. It's a variation - you're telling yourself that this is the future to come... what would be your younger self's reaction?
khaosworks, who introduced it here.Take your life as it is now.
Imagine yourself, oh, some 15-18 years ago, if you're old enough to remember that far back.
What would the you of that time think if you could go back and talk about what you're doing now? Would your younger self believe you? Be happy? Or want to avert this future?
Are you where you thought you were going to be?
This isn't the old "Give your younger self advice" chestnut. It's a variation - you're telling yourself that this is the future to come... what would be your younger self's reaction?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-05 12:05 pm (UTC)15 years ago I was 20 and still in college. Career/hobby: The younger me would have been glad to know that I'd eventually work for Microsoft, and somewhat skeptical about getting burned out ("aw, that won't happen to me...").
My younger self would have been extremely surprised to find out that I eventually became an avid runner/weight trainer and even more surprised about becoming a personal trainer (I remember someone in high school who chose to study Exercise Science and my response was "Ew, how boring. Whatever for?"). (Though maybe telling my younger self that might spur me to get the exercise bug sooner, especially once she found out how fat I was for so long *before* I got the bug. but if we can't change the intervening years... I don't know.)
Marriage to B.: great. Having a daughter: great.
Right now I am in a much better, very different, place than I feared back then that I would be. But I guess if I had to go through everything I went through to get here...
I think the most difficult part of the conversation is if I told my younger self about what would eventually happen to Dad, and how I am sure that if somehow he could start exercising even a little bit *before* he got a heart attack and became so ill, that he would not have such a nasty end. I was extremely angry with him back then for a variety of reasons and I don't think my younger self would be willing to try to talk to him about it, or to believe that eventually I would reconcile myself with him and become friendlier. I think my younger self would have said that it would serve him right.
I think I/she wouldn't have been willing to drop the feud with Dad's mom, even to get back in touch with all the relatives who dropped me like a rock for reasons I will probably never find out. But I/she might have been willing to make more of an effort to contact those relatives individually. If she had time.