If you could go back in time and visit your younger self...

[raysachs]

I’m tempted to say I’d go back to my very early 20’s, maybe even late teens, and tell myself to treat “the one who got away” differently than I did. But I wouldn’t actually want anything like that to have happened, because then I never would have met my wife, who I’ve been happier with for 40 years than I ever could have hoped for, and my kids wouldn’t be who they are and I can’t imagine a world without them in it. So, no, like somebody else said earlier, I wouldn’t change anything in the past that could have led to a different present, because the present is as good as it could possibly be.

-Ray

 

[Filmosound 621]

I'd like to go back in time and introduce my younger self to music,

as I didn't listen to any before the age of maybe 10 or 11.

 

[4pickupguy]

20

this sucks but you won't die, and you'll be telling this story to wide-eyed people for the next 25 years

and Steve will survive, too, but you won't ever see him or the rest of the crew again, and won't even remember their last names, so relax

Ok, I gots to know!! Let’s hear the story!!

 

[burntfrijoles]

It reminds me of Shawshank's Parole scene, which is a great metaphor for the regrets or missteps of our younger lives.
"I look back at the way I was then, a young stupid kid. I wanna talk to him. I wanna try to talk some sense into him, tell him the way things are, but I can't. That kid is long gone."

 

[ChicknPickn]

1) What age of your younger self would you visit?
2) What would you tell your younger self, knowing what you know now?
3) What is the chance your younger self would listen, and do things differently?

Just wondering.

1) 14

2) There's a line you cross with drugs and alcohol. The problem is that you won't see it. And once you cross it, you can't go back. You'll hear this from people and will question it. Try to believe it.

3) It has to come from the right messenger. The "future me" could be pretty convincing.

 

[catdaddy]

I'd tell my 18 year old self: Less beer, more guitar.

 

[985plowboy]

1) around age 13
2) leave alcohol alone. Life will be sooo much easier if you just don’t
3) hopefully, but I have always been hard headed.

 

[Festofish]

13
You have chronic depression and anxiety so life is better than it looks.
Buy a Jaguar and play the hell out of it.
Keep the Jubilee, Custom, Artist, DC125 and Dan Armstrong.
Believe in yourself.

 

[omahaaudio]

I;d tell my 18 year old me, who would listen:

1) Don't waste your time going out with "her"
2) Get a job in the music industry after college like you thought of doing
3) Stay in the UK, learn French, travel around Europe more
4) Play guitar earlier and practice a lot more
5) Don't spend your money on alcohol

 

[pypa]

I’d go back to being a young parent. I’d skip all the enrichment activities, pressure them less, not give them a phone until 16, but make them get a customer service job, and hug them and tell them every day how amazingly wonderful they are.

 

[burtonfan]

A good knock on the skull would be the first order of business...

 

[Weazel]

My early 20's know-it-all age. I would tell myself "Relax, It is totally OK to not have an answer or an opinion for everything."

 

[telleutelleme]

Don't worry, you are going to make more good choices than bad ones.

 

[Chester P Squier]

Here's a twist on the idea that "improving" the past would ruin the great things of the present, such as wife, kids, and grandkids.

I'd tell my 17-year-old self to attend the college my wife attended. I could track her down, meet her, go out with her, and get to know her sooner. My wife attended college in the SE part of the state. I attended college in the north part of the state. Our universities were 260 miles apart.

But,
A. My parents would never allow it.
B. The girl would have reported a stalker.

 

[Gnometowner]

At age 14
Save all that oilfield roustabout and farm wages I was making,
Invest in land in Colorado
Do Not have sex with Brenda

I probably would not have listened
Brenda had a big tatas rockin hot body.....
But not a lick common sense about birth control.

 

[HootOwlDude]

1) What age of your younger self would you visit?
2) What would you tell your younger self, knowing what you know now?
3) What is the chance your younger self would listen, and do things differently?

Just wondering.

I’d probably try sitting myself down and explaining one or two key things explicitly, but when my younger self would start interjecting endlessly, as I/he surely would, I’d be forced to to punch myself squarely in the nose. I’d grow up wondering why myself would do such a thing to me. So, in short, things would probably pan out just the same.

 

[chulaivet1966]

1) What age of your younger self would you visit?
2) What would you tell your younger self, knowing what you know now?
3) What is the chance your younger self would listen, and do things differently?

Just wondering.

Howdy cometazzi....
Interesting topic.
Just crossing the threshold to 76 years on Orb Earth. I've pondered this question on occasion too.

1) As long as it would only be a 'visit'.....probably at about 22....right after I got out of the military.

2) In this context....I wrote two songs in the last year in which I'm talking to my mini-me self. (collabs with klasaine)
Maybe some here can relate.



3) That, I don't know.

Have a great weekend everyone....

 

[marc88]

Interesting…. I’d go back as far as I can remember, maybe 3 years old; I’ve had lifelong issues with depression and anxiety. I’d give that kid a hug and tell him it’s going to be ok. And to never worry about what people will think; be yourself and be proud. Be gentle to yourself, cuz the opposite doesn’t solve a damn thing.
I’d also tell him to start playing guitar a lot earlier (didn’t start til I was like 19) and to leave the cigarettes, booze, and drugs alone. Again, they don’t help and they make it all worse.
If I could get that far back, I’d like to think he’d listen, but who knows. Life gets hard. Can’t change it know, but at least I’m telling myself these things now. I’ll tell you in a few years if present day me listens….

 

[Mjark]

I wouldn’t listen.

 

[ndcaster]

Ok, I gots to know!! Let’s hear the story!!

ok I think this was '84-85, I was working summers in the BOP of a steel mill as general labor, pushing brooms and shovels, cleaning billet rails, etc, on staggered shifts, making a ton of money, with a bunch of guys older than me

one morning in the trailer the foreman says #1 mixer has been taken offline for cleaning, and we're the cleaning crew

understand, a mixer is like a gigantic multi-story barrel lying on its side, lined with refractory bricks, and it gets filled with ingredients to make steel. IIRC, the mixer gets heated up to like 2300F, everything melts, then the good stuff is poured off into ladles and carted to the furnaces where oxygen lances are stuck in to blow the pig iron into steel

problem is, the stuff in the mixer throws sediment, slag, and other stuff that accumulates in the mixer, reducing the volume of pig iron it can produce -- so mixers need to be cleaned out periodically, which means taking them off-line, which means losing money in that interval

there's only one way into a mixer, and that's through the spout, which is about three stories off the ground

to cool a 2300F mixer down enough for men to get into it, you have to pour it out completely, blow ambient air through it, and let the thing sit for a while, but like I said, you lose money the longer it sits

you might see where I'm going with this ...

our job (and the shifts that preceded and followed us) was to suit up in greens, cover all exposed skin, and clean out the mixer by climbing a ladder , crossing over another ladder into the spout, and entering the chamber of the mixer for exactly 30 seconds in order to fill up steel buckets with the precipitate/debris inside and take them out the spout again, dumping the buckets, and climbing back down the ladder -- and then doing this over and over until the inside of the mixer was clean, which took a couple shifts/days

I watched a college kid named Steve come down the ladder the first time he went in (he freaked out and was in for like 40 seconds) and watched him take off his mask and bandana:

he was the color, I kid you not, of grape chewing gum

his body had begun to cook like a sausage on the grill. we sat his a** down, pumped him full of Gatorade (delivered by the pallet-full), and listened to him as he rambled. needless to say, Steve didn't go back in

but the rest of us did

I never knew the ambient temperature inside the mixer, but it was well about 500 degrees, some said 700, but who knows -- the main thing is that it's like going underwater: everything in your visual field swims in the waves of heat, the heat surrounds you like hot plastic, and after the initial shock, you'd best start counting to thirty. the surface temp was fine because the refractory brick dust was insulating and the air horns that moved cool air through the mixer (inside, it's like being in an ancient brick-lined vault) moved the heat from one side out the other, otherwise you'd cook until you were dead pretty fast

thirty seconds, boys

I was a high school rising senior and graduating senior those summers I worked in the BOP, and it was a great experience

honestly the more dangerous moment was when a ladle carrying steel had a tiny hole in it, letting molten steel run out in a very tiny but constant stream, like a laser -- this was graveyard shift, the crane operator didn't see or sound an alarm, and it kept getting closer to us as we cleaned the billet rails beneath its path. finally someone noticed and started screaming into a telephone. the line of molten steel would've cut us in half.

fun stuff, glad I was part of it for a while