I recently stumbled upon this exercise of writing a letter to your younger self. I found it intriguing and so have decided to try it here.

Dear Young Eric,

I write to you from a very different world you’ll grow up in. Countries worldwide are groaning under the weight of inequalities and a viral pandemic is keeping whole nations indoors. Just yesterday, an explosion in Beirut, Lebanon added greater chaos to a city already fighting political unrest, famine and an economic crisis. The more we experience the world, the more we realise how little we understand it.

Regardless, I offer this letter to you with three ideas that may serve you well over time. Please keep whatever you find useful and brutally disregard the rest: never, ever take anything for granted.

1. Choose your hat carefully.
People will throw hats on you to define you. You’ll quickly be given the Asian hat, soon followed by the skinny hat, and then before you know it, you’ve got a collection of hats in your wardrobe labelled the nerd, the Christian, the marathoner, the influencer and the medical student. You’ll often feel pressured to wear all these headpieces simultaneously to please the people around you. But that’s silly, isn’t it? You only need to wear one hat at a time.

What I’m about to say is clichéd but clichés often exist because of some underlying truth. Don’t let others define you. If you’re wondering how to create yourself, here are some tips.

• Be open to new ideas.
• Prioritise uncertainty over comfort.
• Never think you’ve got it all figured out – that is a very dangerous place to be. Even now, I’m only pretending to know what I’m writing about. And that’s okay.

At the end of the day, the only hat that really matters is the one you give yourself. So choose wisely!

2. Reading will change your life. Writing will save it.
Never underestimate the power of a book to shatter your worldview or reveal an insight you didn’t know you needed. You’ll rarely meet the mentors behind the pages – many of them are dead or fictional – but the lessons they share travel across time and space.

Always put a problem on paper when you can. Ideas are always more intimidating and volatile in your head. Plus, it’s always fun to look back on your earlier reflections, either for some nostalgia or cringe-worthy throwbacks.

You’ll start a journal. Defend this practice at all costs. Each day is far too precious to pass by without some examination. Take your experiences and lessons and share them. Your story, just like everyone’s, contains something worth sharing. One day, you’ll write a letter to yourself and share it with the world. You’ll write it partially to encourage others to do so, but mostly to remember where you’ve come from.

3. Choose life.
The world will often seem absurd, unfair and pointless. Do your best to accept it and create an antidote, knowing that there may well not be one.

In your darkest moments, you’ll encounter a being called Suicide. She will knock on your door late at night in your darkest, most terrifying times and invite you to tango. These dances usually last a short while until Hope throws her out of the room and soothes you to sleep. But occasionally, Hope never arrives. Your tango with Suicide will then escalate into a dangerous and exciting whirlwind where she will seem irresistible. In these moments, Suicide will lean in for an alluring kiss.   

If there’s only one thing you remember from this letter: never accept the kiss.

Just remember, you can end your life at any time. That seems dark but it’s really quite liberating. Death is walking towards us all and you have the option to run to her. So you might as well and experience the great things life has to offer before you give up on it. There are quite a few, and I hope you’ll experience many in full.

Take care my friend,

Eric