Re: Advice for your long-ago self

On Fri, 4 Jan 2008 15:10:22 -0500, "PJ" <authoressss@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

My favorite song right now is "Letter to Me" by Brad Paisley (who also
happens to be my favorite musician). It's the story of a guy who's now in
his 30s and wishes he could write a letter and send it back in time to
himself when he was 17. He goes through all the different things that he
faced as a teenager, including thinking that the world was going to end
because a relationship with his girlfriend of 7 months is over and he hurts
so bad he feels like there's a knife sticking in his back. Sound familiar?
Teenage angst ... we've all gone through it at one time or another. He nails
it by saying, "I know at 17 it's hard to see past Friday night." And then he
proceeds to give advice such as "hug Aunt Rita every chance you get" (Brad's
Aunt Rita died last year), "be sure to stop completely, don't just tap your
brakes" (at a stop sign where he apparently got a ticket), and "Each and
every time you have a fight, just assume you're wrong and Daddy's right."

The video is really great. It's here if you want to watch it:
http://www.cmt.com/videos/brad-paisley/187138/letter-to-me.jhtml. Brad
filmed it at his old high school in West Virginia and the people featured in
it are actually his classmates. There's also footage of when he was a
student at the school.

So how about it? If you could write a letter to yourself, and send it back
in time so you'd receive it at age 17, what would you say to the younger
you? Would you change the path you followed? Would you do things differently
the second time around? It's interesting to ponder, I think.

I asked some former classmates that once, and they both said the same
thing -- they would have done about the same as they did, but they
would have had more sex. Hard to disagree with that. I also would have
done some things I didn't do because I didn't know about them or
because I was too shy. Except that I'm not sure telling someone he
shouldn't be shy is of any help. I would have done some of my
schoolwork, or at least I say I would have, but, you know, it's easier
to tell yourself to do something when you don't actually have to do
it. I would have practiced my piano lessons. I would definitely tell
myself that the most beautiful girl in my class had a crush on me,
which I didn't learn until 20 years too late. But the things I hated
-- French class, say -- I wouldn't be able to get out of, and the
personal sorrows I couldn't have changed, so there's no potential
benefit there. I'd have to go back to my earliest years to affect
that.

Mostly, I had a good time when I was a teenager. Most people seem to
have had terrible time, and I can point to things that I wouldn't want
to go through again -- applying to college, facing the draft, boring
schoolwork, some of the social ***, some personal things. But the
60's was a blast, I found its values congenial, and so for me the
pressures and downs of adolescence were for me more than compensated
for by the thrills, the passion, the fun, and my wild ugly duckling
morph from despised to BMOC. It all came crashing down, but that was
later . . .

--
Josh

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because
I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony
.