Dear Simon...
I’m the last person you’re going to listen to. The ultimate in hindsight; your future writing to criticise its past, bristling with lessons learned, self-righteous with knowing-it-all, as convinced now as I was that I’m right. Having got it wrong so often, I’ve no credibility for telling you what to do.
Although I appear arrogant, I value doubt – as John Donne says, Doubt wisely. When most certain, I have often been wrong. But the value of hindsight is being able to see things in a wider context and all the motivations that go into a bad decision. It doesn’t mean getting it right next time, though. Consider all possibilities and honestly choose the most likely, with the proviso that the balance of probabilities is just that, not a certainty.
Learn to recognise what truly gives joy, what actually is enjoyable, not simply exciting or pleasant or what you are told you should enjoy. Be honest. The difference between innocence and experience is that the freshness of innocence is irrecoverable – oh, I really enjoyed that, but didn’t appreciate it until it was over - as opposed to – I enjoyed this last time and will get the same thrill again. It is the second-helping fallacy: having enjoyed your first helping, you take more, hoping to recover that initial flush of joy, but you start to search for what you felt in that first fine rapture and are inevitably disappointed that second time falls short. Try to cultivate a state of neutrality, as in forms of spiritual practice, when you identify the sensations you experience without judgement or enquiry. Recognise your own bias and prejudices.
But you won’t reach that level of detachment for a long time. Let me give you an example. You probably have a slightly scruffy summer jacket – you know the one: you bought it in a charity shop and altered it to make it fit – it’s a compromise. It’s already scruffy, but it will soon become too scruffy. So, you will wander the shops of central Edinburgh looking for a replacement. What you have in mind is the sort of classic unlined linen jacket of the kind you remember English teachers at school used to wear with flannels and heavy shoes. What was the norm but never fashionable from the 1930s to the 1970s. What you find does not fit the bill: it is lined, has only two buttons and is a cotton/linen mix. Besides, it’s not quite the right size. So why will you buy it? There’s an acronym used in the early years of the new millennium – yes, you will live that long: FOMO. You are driven by fear of missing out. Somehow there’s a kind of terrible compulsion that drives you on to purchase this item that’s not quite right, to make your craven compromise. It’s partly impatience, partly desire to fit your image of what you wish to be. It does. You get many years of use from it, but you never really respect it or feel really comfortable in it until it is too scruffy to be worn to work and the collar is wearing through. It doesn’t last much longer.
I do too much of this – compromising unnecessarily. Making the best of the best you can manage instead of holding firm. It happens with jobs, with cars, with so many things, driven by the fear you have always felt, of not being in the group, of somehow falling short of the social ease of people whose judgement you don’t respect, but whose social cachet you envy.
I don’t really care now. If people don’t like me, well, I don’t mind. Sometimes I’ll even wait to see if others show any interest. If they don’t, I’ll simply go away – but it’s never actually happened yet.
So, be yourself. Stick to your principles. Consider the full context before making a decision. Avoid making the mistakes I’ve made. But the trouble is, you’ll ignore all the good advice that I ignored, and make all the gauche and unwise decisions I made because, alas for you, you are me.
Written to his 24 year old self by Simon, Monmouth u3a
Back to Write a Letter to Your Younger Self