Rules for this hypothetical:
You cannot send specific information about future events, so no winning lottery numbers, future news stories, or anything similar. You cannot choose which day your 16-year-old self will get the message, either; it’ll be on a random day on or after your 16th birthday but before your 17th birthday. Your 16-year-old self will be told by the being orchestrating this that the message is coming from your present-day (future in his/her eyes) self.
What do you send?
For me, probably something along the lines of, “Love worth pursuing, careers not. All jobs a massive waste of life; no time for living with full-time jobs. YOLO. Start investing 75% NOW.”
This is a totally reasonable message, as are a number of things I could think of as well. Problem is, I doubt any of it would make a dent in my 16 year old self. I don’tt think there’s anything I could send in the way of advice that would change my attitude in any significant way.
“Buy the following stocks and hold them: (I’d pick a few like Apple), and Know that you won’t start to feel good about yourself until you can truly think before you speak, and decide to speak only when you can live with what your say or do tomorrow.”
Raising my son I would often rack my brain looking for little words of wisdom I could pass on that he might pay attention to. I think seeing me come home from work everyday covered in dirt and grease and limping was all he needed to know about not going to college. I couldn't have asked for a better son.
This is weird. I think my 16-year old self got this message, and took it to heart. Just up to this point though, nothing about investing. Or maybe he forgot about that bit. It did *not *end well. There must have been some mix-up. Not that I blame you, though. I suppose wires get crossed. Time-traveling text messages haven’t been perfected yet.
I’ll fix it. I’ll send my own message:
“Disregard previous message. Concentrate on school and employment. Pursue enormous amounts of education in the field of IT. First you get the degrees. Then you get the full-time jobs. Then you get the money. They you get the women.”
Good. That’ll set him right. Wait, I’m getting an incoming error message…
"ERROR: MESSAGE TOO LONG. OUTGOING MESSAGE TRUNCATED:
Disregard … school and employment. Pursue enormous amount of… women.
THANK YOU FOR USING TIME TRAVELING TEXT MESSAGING."
I was just thinking about something like this last night.
“Date earlier, save money, no debt, learn Chinese, be more Christian, be social, go into aviation. Most problems in your life are due to lack of self-discipline.”
Introvert != mature
You only think youre special cuz you dont talk to ppl or do anything
Avoid nightclubs and [college name which is 7 letters]
(I actually think the line about “special” is a bit harsh, but given the 140 chars constraint, and the transformation I’d be trying to bring about, it’s necessary)
