Can you see yourself 20 years from today and picture what you have become? It's hard to imagine what it would be like and truthfully, I'd rather be taken by surprise rather than witness my destiny. Although I still believe in fate and that everything happens for a reason, I'd rather explore it day by day and progress until I get there. The only good thing about knowing the future is for me to determine the things that I can change and avoid unnecessary mistakes that I will possibly make. Although no one likes to make mistakes, mistakes teaches us to be a better individual and strengthen us towards life's upcoming challenges.
Using the same logic and re-writing it with a different question, what advice can you give to a 20 years younger you? A friend brought up this question once to me and has been stuck in my head ever since. The main idea behind this question is--have you actually done a decent or more so a great job at this stage of your life? Every day, month, year presents new opportunity for growth and achievement; and one fact stays true however--and that is, time is constant. While we can't certainly change or slow down time, we have total control of our life's outcome and destiny. If you can talk to your younger self and actually proud of what you've made out of yourself into, then that's great. I think that there should be no reason to be disappointed or to doubt our capabilities regardless of how we're currently doing in life. The best thing to do now is to look forward and find different ways to further enhance our life for the better and not settle for anything less than great. But if for some reason that you've decided to settle for ordinary instead of extraordinary, then you must learn to accept later on in life that this is the path that you've chosen for yourself and there shouldn't be any disappointments in your part.
I have heard an astounding amount of disappointments that were voiced by different individuals and I've learned how to integrate them in mine and not make the same mistakes that they did. I've heard, "I wish I would have done this..." or "I wish I would have never done this..." probably hundreds of times. My biggest fear in life is neither death nor a deadly snake, but rather seeing myself ending up as a failure in life. While failing is good for experience's sake, I wouldn't want to let myself fail and surrender without a fight. While being young can be an excuse to live life freely, being smart and making the right choices at this stage sure gives you the upper hand in living prosperously years later compared to others within the same age group. If we are not going to make any changes in bettering ourselves now, then when is the time? 10...or even 20 years?
Live life to the fullest,
- Dennis