1. Welcome age. You’ll love 27 more than 17, and 37 more than 27. You’ll always have a restless soul, but time will settle you into yourself.
2. High school is so… high school. Morrissey, melodrama and teenage angst. There are great bits in this little universe too, but just wait, it gets so much better (and freer) after this.
3. Maintain your French. Of all the useless things you think you’re learning at this age: a third language will in fact prove useful. Calculus.. not so much.
4. At university: study what you love, not what you like. That one academic direction seems more likely to earn you a good living in a field you like is irrelevant. Study what you love because you will find a way to make a living at it sooner or later. At the risk of spoiling the surprise: you can and will work with design (& structure) but not in a way you can fathom right now. Your field doesn’t even exist yet.. (there you go, a little mystery in lieu of surprise).
5. It’s ok to change direction. You’ll change direction a few times in the course of the next 10 years before you find what fits – and be better off for having tried the things you’ve tried. There’s time, so just relax (and be glad you do not become the city planner you go to university to be).
6. Grades do not equal self-worth (hello Lisa Simpson). And I hate to say this – but no employer (or anyone for that matter) will ever look at your university transcript or care about your GPA. I know – the horror. Being a little anal about doing your best will not however, hurt you in future.
7. Never go back to an old love. It’s like a book you’ve already read. You know how it will end. When you meet the right one, you’ll know it – because there won’t be any bullshit.
8. Trust your intuition. Always.
9. You look nice today. Your freckles are not the enemy and no, you are not fat. Stop wasting time worrying about your appearance and take advantage of the fact that you can get away with eating almost anything, wearing almost anything and dying your hair almost any colour you like. Again (because I know you don’t believe me): you are not fat.
10. Your parents are not out to make your life difficult. Believe it or not you will come to take it as a huge compliment when anyone says you’re just like them. Yes.. it.. is.. true. In fact, you’ll realize that you can dare to take a lot of the risks you do because you have the backing of two pretty amazing people. Knowing this, and that you’ll never be without food, a roof over your head, a good piece of advice and people that love you – you know (even now) that it’d be an insult to their efforts not to do everything you can to live your life fully.
11. It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be worth the effort. You’ll go through periods of barely earning enough to cover rent and a cup of noodles for dinner (and be too proud to ask for help). You’ll face obstacles (in school, work, freelance, life) on your way to your goals. Appreciate them. They give you an intense appreciation for how great it feels to work your ass off for something and getting there on your own rather than having things handed to you.
12. Less stuff more life. Learn this sooner. You will travel a lot in the next 20 years and live in 4 different countries, but your 37 year old self is wondering whether some of that crap you spent your money on (when you finally started to earn a decent living) couldn’t have been better used to squeeze in an extra trip or two instead. The free time grows a little shorter but the list grows longer. Live light, see more.
13. Buy real estate. This might sound contrary to point 12, but in a few years time, when your father offers to loan you the downpayment for an apartment in Vancouver – take him up on it. Screw your fear of being tied down – it would have earned you 6 times the original purchase price. Oh the joy that is 20/20 hindsight.
14. Learn to dance. Ballet as a kid and that break dance class you took in 8th grade do not count. Dancing at night clubs the next few years isn’t what I mean either. Learn to dance with a partner so that you don’t step on your granddad’s toes when you dance with him on his 90th birthday. He’ll smile all the way through it but it’s very likely he’ll need an ice pack afterwards.
15. Take more photos of people. Next year you’ll backpack around Europe. Out of 3000 photos, only 20 of them will be of the people you met and travelled with. Those are the one’s you’ll come to value the most. The architecture is the same when you see it again 10, 15, 20 years later. To be honest, you’ll be reminding yourself of this a few times yet (and as recently as last week).
16. You are an introvert. This does not mean that you can’t speak to strangers, give a convincing presentation, or put yourself out there. So get over it and move on. There is a quiet confidence that comes from dropping the desire to be what you are not: an extrovert.
17. You don’t know anything. At 37, you will know even less.
{Jan’s comment to this post when he asked what I was writing about today: “What would you make a list like that for? It’s not like you can buy a time machine and go back and change anything.” The obviousness of this made me smile and realise that there isn’t really very much I would change anyways: everything, in one way or another, has lead to where I want to be.}
{A week later.. and someone still asks to borrow my time machine when he forgets to pick up milk}
What would you tell your younger self?
I am unexpectedly home alone this long weekend. And I am a bit out of practice with what to do with all this… time. It’s an opportunity to catch up on so many things. It’s an opportunity to just be me (who?) yes me. I’m not sure I even remember how to do nothing. So I probably won’t do nothing, because who am I kidding, I can’t do nothing.
