Friday open thread: advice to your younger self

[dolorosa_12]

I think I've finally managed to get on top of all the comments I've received on various posts (and I have to say, having so much activity on Dreamwidth that I'm on the verge of being overwhelmed by comments is a nice problem to have), just in time for this week's open thread.

Today's question comes from likeadeuce: give a piece of advice to your younger self.



It's a bit of a cliché, but I truly wish I'd been able to tell my younger self not to fixate so much on what people thought of her, or to at least have a sense of perspective about it. I wish I had been able to make myself understand that every single other teenager in my life at the time was as self-absorbed as I was, and that they were completely oblivious to all the things I felt they were noticing and judging me for. Sadly, I fear that teenage!me would not have believed this advice, and I'm sure I got it from the adults in my life at the time, and didn't believe them. It didn't help that as well as being very self-absorbed, I was a hyper vigilant and hyperaware teeanger who did observe the people around her (and definitely judged them), and just assumed everyone was the same.

So I wish I had been able to give myself that advice, but I'm dubious as to whether it would have been effective. Learning that for the most part people are too wrapped up in their own selves to notice all the things you're embarrassed and fearful about is just one of those lessons that you have to learn the hard way.

What are your answers?

Comments

[nyctanthes]

Advice to my college-age self:

1) Don't give up on writing fiction.

2) Keep up with the quantitative work.

3) Become fluent in Spanish.

If I had to sum it up as one piece of advice, it would be: hone the skills that will serve you well throughout life, in both the public and private senses of the word. :)

[falena]

Travel more before having kids.

It's nothing very deep, but it's all I can manage tonight.

[bruttimabuoni]

Oh... weirdly, my first thought was "You do, in fact, like men. Stop stressing."

Which is a very un-2020, un-ally thought to have. But I wasted so much of the late 80s/90s, homophobic/Section 28-ish years wondering why I didn't respond to boys the way my friends do. (The answer is: they were immature assholes, like I thought. I like grown ups.)

I guess the version of it I'd prefer to have thought is "You do in fact like men and women, and both those things are okay. But know that you're really picky, and stop stressing about wny you don't pinball between crushes like other people do. The spectrum of healthy, normal, positive and happy is so much broader than you know yet." Let's pretend it came out that way first time.

Oh, and: get a real summer job when you're 16. I know you have a handy in with your mum's firm for summer cash but that's not a real job. Do the boring hard customer service stuff when it doesn't matter; it will prepare you so much better for the rest of your life.

[lirazel]

It didn't help that as well as being very self-absorbed, I was a hyper vigilant and hyperaware teeanger who did observe the people around her (and definitely judged them), and just assumed everyone was the same.

Goodness, that is truly relatable.

[trepkos]

Don't stop doing science just because you have it in your head that you are artistic as a result of horoscope bullshit you read when you were 10.

If someone bigger than you collides with you in football, don't try to stay on your feet. (I could have avoided a snapped ACL.)

Demand more from your doctor, and complain more about your health problems, or you won't get taken seriously enough.

Take more photos of people you make friends with when you are on holiday.

[likeadeuce]

To my significantly younger self: you're not an introvert or a loner, you have anxiety. Get some counseling, get tested for ADHD, realize that making friends and being a friend is a skill and that listening and being kind are more important than being right all the time.

To my 12 years ago self: go ahead and volunteer for Obama, you will meet great people and discover a lot of stuff that you are good at. (Yesterday was my 4 year anniversary of the first time I volunteered for Clinton/Kaine and all of the reasons that I had given myself for not doing the same thing 8 years ago turned out to be nonsense!)

[dolorosa_12]

hone the skills that will serve you well throughout life, in both the public and private senses of the word.

Oh, yes, this is very, very good advice.

[dolorosa_12]

*hugs*

I think the thing about being a parent (and I say this as someone who doesn't have children) is that nothing can prepare you for it until you do it, and you really do not know what it's going to be like until you're a parent. Reading parenting books, and talking to other parents, and so on can help, but you won't truly know what it will be like, because no one else is the world has your temperament and experiences, and your partner's temperament and experiences, and no one else in the world has the same child(ren) as you. (I mean 'you' in a general sense, not you personally.)

(I know you're stretched really thin and exhausted at the moment, so please don't feel any pressure to respond unless you want to.)

[dolorosa_12]

Those are definitely good pieces of advice, and regarding your first one, I would probably give teenage!me a version of that advice as well.

I had a weekend job since I was fifteen, and in fact the only time in my life that I haven't had a job since was the nine months when I was doing my MPhil and my visa prevented me from working. When I was growing up in Australia in the 1990s and early 2000s, the legal age when people could start working was fourteen and nine months, and in Canberra, where I grew up, it was considered kind of shameful — even in the upper middle class milieu that I came from — not to have a weekend job by the time you were fifteen or sixteen, like you were childishly relying on your parents for money. My first job was in an organic/health food shop, and after that I worked in a Swiss bakery/chocolate shop for the next two years. Most of my friends worked in cafes, restaurants, supermarkets, fast food outlets, or doing tutoring via agencies.

I definitely agree with you that doing this kind of work is a really good thing to do, especially at a young age. It increases your confidence and resilience (dealing with vindictive, ignorant, or just plain obnoxious customers isn't pleasant, but it is instructive), and I also feel that having a consistent employment history, and people who can provide references for you when you're attempting to get your first 'real' job is just really useful from a practical perspective. It wasn't really until I came to Cambridge that I met people who were in their mid-twenties who hadn't had any paid employment (and even in that context they weren't the norm), and I always felt a bit worried about them, especially since many were graduating into a recession.

[dolorosa_12]

I suspect there are a lot of us who felt this way, but I also am pretty sure that we were very much in the minority.

I still remember that my group of friends when I was around fourteen — we were a group of four girls who were friendly with people in other groups but sort of kept to ourselves for the most part — made a tentative decision to change where we normally sat during lunchtime, so that we were sitting out on the oval ('oval'=Australian for the grassed sportsground area of the the school), where the popular boys in our year played soccer, and we spent the entire lunch having a massive, convoluted panic about it, because we were so intensely worried that people would notice that we had moved and think ... I don't even know what we were worried they would think. The idea that anyone else would have even noticed we were there (or noticed where we normally sat and think anything other than, 'they must have wanted to sit somewhere else') is just hysterically laughable, but that's what we were like!

[dolorosa_12]

Oh, the benefit of hindsight!

Demand more from your doctor, and complain more about your health problems, or you won't get taken seriously enough.

This is such a depressingly common situation. Good GPs are excellent, but so many of them — and other healthcare professionals — are such dreadful communicators, and terrible listeners.

[dolorosa_12]

realize that making friends and being a friend is a skill

Oh yes, this is so important, and really hard to learn.

To my 12 years ago self: go ahead and volunteer for Obama, you will meet great people and discover a lot of stuff that you are good at. (Yesterday was my 4 year anniversary of the first time I volunteered for Clinton/Kaine and all of the reasons that I had given myself for not doing the same thing 8 years ago turned out to be nonsense!)

I think I've told you before how much I admire you for doing this — after singing karaoke, doorknocking and speaking to people who might be hostile to what I have to say is pretty much my worst nightmare, so I really, really value people who have talents in this area and are prepared to do the work.