Weekend Engagement - What Would I Tell My Younger Self?

If you could go back in time to when you were fifteen years old, what warning and what advice would you give yourself and why?

Fifteen years old for me is slightly more than 20 years ago.

If I had only three seconds, I would tell myself to BUY BITCOIN and hold it all the way, or at least until 2025.

And just like that, that's the end of my post. Hahaha.

On a more serious note, I feel that we are actually all shaped by our life experiences. The ups and the downs shaped us in a unique way. Maybe we lost a loved one early in our lives, and this made us treasure our loved ones more dearly. Maybe we got betrayed by a close friend, and that made us trust people around us lesser. It's not something that can be learnt from someone's warning or advice.

So what do I mean? I feel that, even if I could go back in time to tell my fifteen year old self what to do, he probably wouldn't believe and take them too seriously. As a similar comparison, when we were young, our parents also gave us a lot of warnings and advice as well. How many of us actually took them seriously and acted upon them?

Maybe I am just overthinking.

So, assuming I am not supposed to divulge any sort of get-rich-quick schemes like lottery numbers to my younger self, I would tell him that it's okay to walk your own path, and there's no need to fit into the society's expectations. At least in my society, there's this "expectation" that we are supposed to study hard when we are young, get good grades, get into a good university, find a good job, earn a stable pay, find a partner and get married by a certain age, have (maybe two or three) kids, work till 60 and then retire, and enjoy our remaining years.

But in reality, how many people actually ticked all the checkboxes? Not everyone had the financial means to go to the university, some choose to be single, some got married but choose not to have kids, or perhaps some divorced and re-married, some people managed to retire ahead of 60 because they didn't want to spend their lives working, and the list goes on.

At the age of fifteen, where most of the time is spent in school and with parents, I think I probably wouldn't be mature enough to think so critically about these things. If I am being taught that we should be doing this and that, I would likely follow the teachings from parents and teachers obediently.

I think one thing that I kinda realised in the recent years was to find one's passion. So I would tell my fifteen year old that he should find his passion in life. I used to be skeptical about all those talk about finding one's passion because the hard reality is not all passions can bring food to the table. I was always focused on how to work hard at my job, how to earn more income, and be financially secure, because we need money to buy many things in life, from our daily needs to even occasional splurges to treat ourselves. I mean, this was important for sure, but over the recent years, I discovered my passion and it really brought so much meaning to me in my life. Suddenly, my life was not just going to work in the day and coming home at night, and then repeat the same cycle. My passion was my new hobby! Something I can do during my pockets of free time, and the funny thing is, I didn't realise until it just clicked one day. There was a period I was spending a lot of hours to hone my skills and even though it was past midnight, I was still excited and I didn't feel like calling it a day yet. And that was when I realised it was something I really enjoyed doing!

So without sounding too naggy, I would just leave my fifteen year old with these two thoughts to ponder. And of course, wishing him all the best as well. Hehe. That's all I have! Ending off with a photo of one of the many gelatos that I had during my recent trip to Europe, because weekends are the best time for desserts!