I get this question a lot these days, now that I am writing about self-discovery for the entire month. And usually, I wouldn’t have a solid answer to give because it’s such a broad question. What would you do if you could go back in time and give yourself a piece of advice, anyway? How do you even think of something like that when you’re focused on moving on and not letting your past affect you?
Usually, I am a sucker for this cliché where a character in a book or a movie walks up to their younger self in a dream sequence and says something encouraging or tear-jerking. It always gets to me, no matter how many times I’ve come across something similar. But in real life, where the possibility of doing so is zero, I am at a complete loss when I think of what I could possibly tell my younger self.
But since this is the topic I have been given for today, I might as well dig deep and discover an idea of what it is that I would tell myself if I could go back in time, if not exactly what it might be. Of course, everyone has that one thing that they wish they could have done differently, but that’s how life can be sometimes and you know what? It’s completely fine to feel that way sometimes.
If I could tell my younger self something, it would be to never give up on my hopes and dreams because that’s the only thing that will truly ever be mine. Not because someone tells me that it’s the sensible thing to do, not because it’s not the conventional thing to do, not because somebody in the family is against my dreams for how I should live my life. I really feel like I would have realized that writing was the right career for me long back if I wasn’t constantly being plagued by people telling me that ‘It’s not sensible’.
Another thing that I would tell my younger self is to not let what others think of me affect me too much if I know my truth. I feel like I would’ve had a lot more fun in high-school if I had simply ignored the kind of vile, baseless and disgusting rumours that people spread about me; it was bad enough to send me spiralling into depression. It took me a long time to get over something as terrible as that and I really wish I had known better than to try and mop up the mess that my batchmates had made.
I also would’ve told myself to not focus on anything except my future, to be ruthless and unforgiving when it came to paving my path because there have been times when I could’ve easily gotten myself out of messy situations if I had just been cold and indifferent instead. Over time I have realized that being nice 90% of the time is okay as long as I also know how to be indifferent to people for the remaining 10% of the time.
And in spite of what I just said, I would also tell my younger self to send out as much positivity as I can in the world. Because, whether we believe it or not, what we send out comes back to us threefold. I choose to believe that no matter how much bad there is in this world, positivity and love is the way to truly deal with all of it. Because if it weren’t for love and compassion, the world as we know it would have ended a long time back and we wouldn’t be here to see this day.
I’m sure there are a bunch of other random, insignificant things that I would tell my younger self if I ever had the chance. But off the top of my head, this is what I would like to say to her. And even though I’d like to say these things to my younger self, I stand by what I said when I say that I wouldn’t change anything from my past no matter how much I wanted to because it wouldn’t have led me to where I am right now.
Here’s to accepting the past and moving forward anyway.
Cheerio! Xx
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Yours truly,
The Shubhster.
Featured Image by Caleb Frith on Unsplash
The Shubhster Diaries 
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