Posts tagged patchworks

Patchworks

So, for four years, I wrote a column for a newspaper in a town I’ve never been to. It was fun, and a great lesson about deadlines. I gave it up when I got married and went to work at Crossroads. I miss it somedays. All of my columns used to be online, but have slowly disappeared it seems. I regret that my blog, in it’s current form, isn’t all that personal. So, in an effort to keep my stuff out there in the electronic ether, and force myself to go a little deeper, I’m going to periodically post old columns.

Like I said, I wrote them for a bunch of people I’d never met, so I wasn’t scared to discuss some of the gory details of my life at the time. These days, with my blog linked to Facebook and whatnot, there’s a lot more chance of someone reading something I wrote about them. So, give me some grace. It was all for the sake of a paycheck and narcissism.

Away we go:

I was reading some posts on an internet forum yesterday that really got me thinking. Someone started a discussion about what kind of advice you’d give your younger self if you were able to travel back in time. Lots of folks joined the conversation and almost every one of them offered their younger selves advice about romantic relationships. It seems that most of us tend to make mistakes in that area when we’re younger.

I’ve been watching my fiance over the past few weeks as she has helped a young male friend of hers navigate the pitfalls and slippery footing of a short-lived dating relationship. She’s given him a lot of advice - stuff she’s gleaned from a few years of similar experiences. Of course he doesn’t listen to most of it. Nobody ever does. I think our brains are hardwired to ignore advice when we’re young. Unlike a lot of the animal kingdon, humans don’t have parents who cast them out into the wild in order to force them to survive. Instead, our parents, in many cases, coddle and protect us from the world and it’s harsh realities.

So sometimes I imagine that into response to this lack or essential skill-building, our brains ignore good advice in order to create situations where we’re destined to get hurt. And through that pain we learn valuable lessons.

So it’s not that teenagers are stupid. Their brains just won’t let them be smart.

In spite of how much everyone probably needs the painful lessons of their youth, I still find myself wishing I could travel back in time and talk to my younger self. Of course I don’t see why a younger me would listen to an older me anymore than he’d listen to anybody else. Especially when he sees what a loser I am.

All that being said, here’s some stuff I’d tell a younger Patrick:

-Have more confidence in high school. Get involved in more things earlier. High school will in no way ever be the best times of your life, but they could be made a lot better by broadening your horizons.

-Thank your parents more for what they do for you. Your parents are awesome and all of your friends love them. Make sure they know that kind of stuff.

-Work to have a closer relationship with your brother, Jeff. Of course, if I’m gonna say that to a younger me, I need to say it to older me too.

-Draw more.

-If you can’t be faithful to your high school girlfriend while you’re away at college, break up with her. Treating her like you are is just stupid and will just lead to more stupidity.

-Pay more attention in college. You have an opportunity to learn things now that you’ll wish you knew someday. Right now your brain is young and elastic, when you’re in your thirties it’ll be hard and rubbery and you’ll have to work twice as hard to retain stuff.

-Don’t cry about that one girl. You barely know her and you look like an idiot for it. Plus, look at how she acted. That is not a girl you’re gonna be happy with long term.

-Spend more time with your nanny.

-Ask for help in Florida. You’re in over your head. This may not ultimately be where you’re supposed to end up, but there’s no reason to fail so spectacularly just because the people around you don’t know how to reach out and help you.

-Write more.

-Stop ignoring the problems. Everybody around you knows where your marriage is headed. And so do you. Sticking your head in the sand isn’t going to make it go away. At least try and come out of this looking like a man.

-Stop talking so damn much.

-Stop using the credit card and start paying down your debt. When you finally put your mind to it, you’ll be out of debt in less than two years. Start now! Start early!

-Take better care of your house. When you’re eventually ready to sell it you’ll have months of work and thousands of dollars in front of you before it’s ready to put on the market. And for goodness sake, hire somebody to put down your tile. You can barely draw a straighline. What makes you think you can lay tile straight?

Man, I could go on and on. And some of this advice is directed to the me of just a few years ago. It seems no matter how old you get, you never stop needing advice. No doubt in a few years I’ll be thinking of things I wish I could tell the me of today. Hopefully these days I’m a little more open to advice now then I was as a teenager, though.

Hopefully.

Cheddah

Wanna know what getting paid for your first batch of books looks like? Here. Here is what it looks like:



I know it’s not a huge check or anything, but it still felt nice.