Advice To My High School Self

Photo by Andrik Langfield (@andriklangfield) on Unsplash

If I could be granted, through some miracle or scientific breakthrough, the opportunity to travel back to the mid 1980’s to meet my high school self and give him one piece of advice, I would have to consider carefully what that advice may be. What is the one thing I could tell the younger me that would make the most difference? 

Like most reasonable people, I have given this question hours of thought.  Here are some of the top options.

1.     Buy apple. Not the stock. Actual apples. If I ate more of them and fewer Little Debbie products, I’d be healthier now, and would have had many more days in which doctors would have been kept away. 

2.     Do not marry Juice Newton. She may seem like an angel in the morning, but ultimately you will learn that the joker is, indeed, not the only fool.

3.     Don’t buy a laserdisc player. It’s a dumb technology that will only last a few years. And then you are stuck with a giant copy of Fletch.

4.     Write a musical about Alexander Hamilton. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but trust me on this.

5.     Whatever you do, just follow your dreams. Not the spooky ones, though. You do not want to be chased by ghosts.

6.     Just have a whole room of your house dedicated to storing toilet paper and various disinfectants. This will pay off big in 2020.

7.     There’s a thing called social media coming. You must find a way to stop it.

8.     You can be anything you want to be. Within reason. I mean, come on dude, you’ve got some real limitations. But, you know, accomplish some goals that are realistic.

9.     That rich guy in New York who was in that one Home Alone movie? He’s going to be President, and the entire case of Predator will be governors. Except, for some reason, Carl Weathers. Anyway, just mentally prepare yourself for all that.

10.  There’s going to be this deal where everyone is really into focaccia bread. You won’t like it at first, and you won’t be wrong. Stick to your guns on this.

11.  People are going to start going crazy over expensive coffee. Don’t fall into this trap. Stick with garbage instant coffee and invest your savings in a dirigible on which you can go on adventures. An adventurigible if you will.

12.  Uriah Heap is not going to make a comeback. Let it go.

13.  In the future, you will have all the tools to do the fun creative projects you want to do now but can’t due to technical limitations. But you won’t have time to do them, because life is cruel, and steals not only your time but your will to create. But, on the other hand you will have 24-hour access to shows about people trying to buy houses, so it works out.

14.  Take more time to spend with loved ones…friends and family. In the end, they are all that really matter. I tell you this, because video games are about to get a whole lot cooler, and this advice won’t seem correct. But, trust me, relationships are more important than Halo. Well, Halo 5 at least. Or those weird Halo spinoff games where you built bases and stuff. What was that all about?   

15.  Don’t invest time watching Dexter. That ending, man.

An audio version of this article is available on Dispatches of Note.