This serves as an entry for this contest. You can also consider the post as a sermon to my dear damned past. It’s not that I lived an interesting life worth talking about but the idea that whatever is written on the blockchain remains unless it gets forked or the last node operates.
Each time I make a post I always keep in mind that these posts will be recorded and I’ll spend some time looking back to critique what I’ve become. Who knows? I might end up sharing this to a future life partner or the next generation.
If I were to warn my past self about the future, it’s going to be like this:
“Dear Damned Past,
Look at you. Living in bliss and not knowing where you’re really heading. Bet you got your life planned out on paper and just waiting to pass the time until everything falls into place. That self-confidence of yours is going to take you to places but it’s not enough to keep your head high when you hit a bump in the road.
By now, you’re just working on getting your degree in nursing as a stepping stone to be a physician. Don’t worry about the academic hurdle because you’re going to be a doctor and get your license. Your time studying in grad school is just as you imagined it to be, a breeze because the complicated lesson diffuses from book to head. But you’ll have problems dealing with the people around you as you go along. What they don’t tell you about med school is that it’s a survival game with your winning conditions are passing. The same applies to nursing school.
Be friends with everyone whenever you can and put a lot of effort into being sociable. You’re going to earn a lot of fame at school. It’s inevitable because you tend to challenge your teachers over intellectual problems with them losing face as consequences. You win the logic game but you lose the social game and get more enemies as you go. It will only take you half a school year before everyone in the program knows your name but you don’t know them.
You get elected for a position but you end up being a manager rather than a respected leader. Most of your efforts will end up in failure because the people factor often messes up the plans. You’ll fail a lot in the friendship department because you’re an insensitive prick. Not your fault entirely, you just didn’t have enough emotional maturity to value other people’s feelings. Heck, you don’t even understand your own feelings and settle for a resting silent bitch face all the time. People’ aren’t going to get your sarcasm and realize you can be happy without actually flexing your facial muscle to a smile.
So put some effort smiling when it’s the right social cue to do so. Some people actually put a lot of effort and the best way to reciprocate the gesture is giving a smile. Trust me, someone will tell this to you flat out in a few years and you’re going to have several flash backs on opportunities you’ve missed and you’ll hate yourself even more.
Don’t wait for people to understand you. Make the first move because everyone else is self-absorbed and busy minding their own business. Pay attention to other people’s feelings because that’s the only way people will be convinced of reciprocating the favor unconsciously. Attention is a currency and listening is a tool to make that transaction happen. If you can’t pay it, you’re not going to get any returns. You’re not entitled to people’s attention even if your advices are for their own good. Instead, you’re going to take delight watching them handle the consequences.
You need to do something about your expectations about yourself. I’m writing this telling you to start coming up with a solution soon because this is still prevalent right now. No matter how much you have achieved, you never felt satisfaction or take a moment to enjoy the victory. You’ll slack off a lot and miss being a topnotcher for a board exam. You’re just 1 point away from taking the spot but nope, you just had to spend 60% of your review time playing games like you earned your license.
Despite the self-loathing you do 24/7 and insensitivity, you’re still going to enjoy a miracle in your social life. You’ll have friends that will carry on over the years even if you don’t interact with them often. They will call you their best friend and you will feel like they said the most strangest thing in the world. You never treated anyone “a best friend”, you were civil and tried your best to make up for your social inept and attitude problem. But hearing these words will act like a dopamine and give you a sense of purpose. You’re willing to take bullets for these strangers whom you know really meant it when they considered you their friend.
You’re going to meet a girl that’s going to heighten your dopamine levels. She will build you up inspired and then tear all those feelings down. She’ll replace you. I’m not really sure if I should even advise you to stay away from her at this point. She’s still both a happy memory and a mistake you don’t mind coming back to. But she’ll definitely going to mess up your psyche for more than half a year knowing that she’s fine with another while you’re just grinding your way trying to live your best.
Did I mention your dad will have an accident and cause your family some financial crisis? Just enough o make you leave school a year and seek 3 jobs a day 24/7 to feed your family until you meet a sponsor willing to continue funding your med school. You’re going to juggle with a heart break and life pressure. There’s a gun, poison, rope, and bridge over the water. Guess who lived through those options? Yeah, you’re too smart to kill yourself. Nietzsche’s words will reach you and you have to keep finding more reasons for your suffering.
In your pursuit to become a doctor, you’re going to encounter temptations to steer you away from the path. Money will be a strong motivating factor after the hell you went through trying to live for an entire year carrying your family’s financial problems. You realize that becoming a doctor isn’t going to make you financially stable. But you can’t escape the chains that bind you, you have to pay back the money your sponsors invested in you and you’re not even compelled to do so. They put their good faith in you so finish the program for them and just pursue money afterwards.
You’ll finally be able to apply what you learned about stock trading and other forms of investment vehicles. But one of the greatest highlights yet is discovering crypto which led you to make this post. Buy BTC and hodl it. Learn to trade other altcoins while you’re at it and never stop learning more about money be it fiat or crypto.
You’re going to be a mess, will often have suckiest times, but it’s all worth it. It’s not so bad. You’ll meet good people along the way and you’ll dedicate your time over some projects not because there’s profit but because you just like to believe in the people you’re working with. Not everything you do will be rational, and you have to accept that some choices aren’t going to yield positive results even when you thought it through.
I can tell you one most important thing you can look forward to if you reach me 10 years from now.
You’ll be happier.”