Tuesday
A Younger You is Calling
If you could go back, and give your “younger self” some advice, what age would you pick and what would you say? That’s the question author Ellyn Spragins, editor at large for Fortune Small Business, asked some influential women in her book, What I Know– Letters to My Younger Self.
Madeline Albright writes to her younger self with advice on getting through her divorce. Maya Angelou gives herself advice at age seventeen when she left her mother’s house with her two-month-old son, and the former Queen of Jordan, Noor Al Hussein, writes to her younger self as a student at Princeton working as a waitress.
Why write a letter when it’s obvious we can’t go back in time to those turbulent teenage years or life transitions we thought we’d never get through? What’s the advantage of writing with the “wisdom of hindsight?”
Before reading the letters in this book I wondered the same, and soon realized (after starting my own letter) that the boyfriends, insecurities, failures, family, love, illness, and fears that we experienced in our younger years are shared by many.
We, as women, have more in common than we acknowledge, and maybe knowing that, we don’t have to go through so much alone in the future.
So, what age would you pick? What would you write?
Here’s my start:
Dear Tracy,
Congratulations on your early college graduation. I know you’re excited to get to work (cramming over 21 credits into last semester to make it happen) but SLOW DOWN! You’re rushing through life.
Madeline Albright writes to her younger self with advice on getting through her divorce. Maya Angelou gives herself advice at age seventeen when she left her mother’s house with her two-month-old son, and the former Queen of Jordan, Noor Al Hussein, writes to her younger self as a student at Princeton working as a waitress.
Why write a letter when it’s obvious we can’t go back in time to those turbulent teenage years or life transitions we thought we’d never get through? What’s the advantage of writing with the “wisdom of hindsight?”
Before reading the letters in this book I wondered the same, and soon realized (after starting my own letter) that the boyfriends, insecurities, failures, family, love, illness, and fears that we experienced in our younger years are shared by many.
We, as women, have more in common than we acknowledge, and maybe knowing that, we don’t have to go through so much alone in the future.
So, what age would you pick? What would you write?
Here’s my start:
Dear Tracy,
Congratulations on your early college graduation. I know you’re excited to get to work (cramming over 21 credits into last semester to make it happen) but SLOW DOWN! You’re rushing through life.
Yes, you had to grow up fast in certain situations, but stop dwelling on that and take some time to enjoy yourself. Take this extra semester and have fun with your friends. Laugh out loud as often as possible, travel without the map for awhile.
I know you’ll worry that just when you’re having fun and feeling relaxed that next bomb will drop, and I’m not saying that it won’t, just try not to think that way. Don’t make yourself worry ahead of time, deal with the crisis when it occurs – you’ll get through it, I promise.
From a content future you,
Tracy
Labels: A Younger You Is Calling
