Photo

Letter to younger self


  • Please log in to reply
36 replies to this topic

#21 You Play to Win the Game

You Play to Win the Game

    HOF

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 60,347 posts
  • LocationMaryland

Posted 10 July 2015 - 02:54 PM

It's always a top answer in surveys from folks on their death bed... that they wish they traveled more, worried about work/career less, etc. I've tried to remind myself of that, but it's so hard not to get discouraged sometimes when you're in the thick of it. And again, in our area in particular... it's a real challenge. I know the income is somewhat relative, but not as much as people think, especially for common folk.



#22 Pedro Cerrano

Pedro Cerrano

    I Miss McNulty

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 35,435 posts
  • LocationEllicott City, MD

Posted 10 July 2015 - 02:55 PM

I don't know the details, but in general people (that actually have the money to do so) don't travel enough imo and if savings are an issue, can easily cut back elsewhere and/or travel cheaper.

 

I agree with this.  I think my biggest issue for the longest time (and still is kind of) is that I really never appreciated having a budget.  If I wanted something, I bought it and didn't really think of the consequences.  This led to credit card debt (nothing major) that I was finally able to get out of.

 

On the bright side, I get to see first hand in court on a daily basis the amounts of money that some people owe banks and I know that it could be much much worse.  I couldn't imagine carrying a credit card balance of $20k.


There is baseball, and occasionally there are other things of note

"Now OPS sucks.  Got it."

"Making his own olive brine is peak Mackus."

"I'm too hungover to watch a loss." - McNulty

@bopper33


#23 mweb08

mweb08

    HOF

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 30,295 posts
  • LocationRidgely's Delight

Posted 10 July 2015 - 02:59 PM

It's always a top answer in surveys from folks on their death bed... that they wish they traveled more, worried about work/career less, etc. I've tried to remind myself of that, but it's so hard not to get discouraged sometimes when you're in the thick of it. And again, in our area in particular... it's a real challenge. I know the income is somewhat relative, but not as much as people think, especially for common folk.



Understandable.

I think Kelly and I have plenty of future disagreements about travel spending in our future. But as you guys know, I'm pretty persistent. :D

#24 Pedro Cerrano

Pedro Cerrano

    I Miss McNulty

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 35,435 posts
  • LocationEllicott City, MD

Posted 10 July 2015 - 03:00 PM

You just need to become GM of the Lakers and then you won't have to worry about it.


There is baseball, and occasionally there are other things of note

"Now OPS sucks.  Got it."

"Making his own olive brine is peak Mackus."

"I'm too hungover to watch a loss." - McNulty

@bopper33


#25 mweb08

mweb08

    HOF

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 30,295 posts
  • LocationRidgely's Delight

Posted 10 July 2015 - 03:12 PM

You just need to become GM of the Lakers and then you won't have to worry about it.



Michael Weber ,

Put yourself in a better position to become GM of the Lakers.

Sincerely,

Future You

#26 SportsGuy

SportsGuy

    HOF

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 91,979 posts
  • LocationBaltimore

Posted 10 July 2015 - 03:13 PM

Understandable.

I think Kelly and I have plenty of future disagreements about travel spending in our future. But as you guys know, I'm pretty persistent. :D

Interesting that you use the P word there.  Kelly can do the same thing...and that means she wins.  :D



#27 mweb08

mweb08

    HOF

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 30,295 posts
  • LocationRidgely's Delight

Posted 10 July 2015 - 03:16 PM

Understandable.


I think Kelly and I have plenty of future disagreements about travel spending in our future. But as you guys know, I'm pretty persistent. :D

Interesting that you use the P word there.  Kelly can do the same thing...and that means she wins.  :D


Well, at least I won round one. Shhh, no one tell Kelly. :D

#28 SportsGuy

SportsGuy

    HOF

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 91,979 posts
  • LocationBaltimore

Posted 10 July 2015 - 03:17 PM

Well, at least I won round one. Shhh, no one tell Kelly. :D

She only let you win.  That's the only way you truly win.


  • mweb08 likes this

#29 Oriole85

Oriole85

    HOF

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 26,321 posts
  • LocationNorthern VA

Posted 11 July 2015 - 02:26 AM

It's always a top answer in surveys from folks on their death bed... that they wish they traveled more, worried about work/career less, etc. I've tried to remind myself of that, but it's so hard not to get discouraged sometimes when you're in the thick of it. And again, in our area in particular... it's a real challenge. I know the income is somewhat relative, but not as much as people think, especially for common folk.

My dad is almost 68 and he says he has no regrets about spending money on various things (mostly trips), even if it means he won't exactly get to retire. His reasoning is two-fold: quality of life is better at 30 than 40, 60 than 70, etc. And you might not make it to retirement (it's a taboo subject after all). 

 

He thought his parents should've done more with the money they had instead of saving up in case they lived up be 100 (My grandmother died when she was 80 and my grandfather died 4.5 years later when he was 86).


@levineps

#30 NewMarketSean

NewMarketSean

    HOF

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 23,462 posts

Posted 11 July 2015 - 06:19 AM

Make a career doing something you absolutely love. I sit 40 hrs a week staring at a computer screen and writing the same letters over and over. I've come close to wigging out over it...especially on Fridays. I think that sets you up for happiness the most.
  • Russ likes this
I never had friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?

#31 Russ

Russ

    HOF

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 9,296 posts

Posted 11 July 2015 - 06:27 AM

My dad died at 60, my mother at 64. They both took great care of themselves and sacrificed most of their lives saving money for retirement. I'm going to live life to the fullest, without being stupid, while I can and I'll work until the day I die.

#32 Mike in STL

Mike in STL

    HOF

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 28,346 posts

Posted 11 July 2015 - 11:50 AM

Dear younger aelf,

In the end, it all works out for the best.

You'll date a girl from a different high school as a junior and a senior. Because of this, you will never connected with many people at school and youll miss out on reunions, and other things. Once in a blue moon youll see someone at the bar before an Os game that you recognize from school and chat for a minute. You are a quiet kid who came and went, pretty much unnoticed. Youll play baseball, a slugger who mashes fastballs. But you need to learn to hit a curve ball to make varsity. Learn to hit a curveball.

When you graduate, your girlfriends family moves to Florida. Mom amd Dad cant afford to send you to school and student loans are hell. Youll join the coast guard, in hopes of making it to Florida for her. You get lucky enough to end up in there, 2 hours away from girl. 3 weeks after you get there, she breaks it off. You'll feel so stupid, used, and home sick. But youre now a single man on a Florida beach during the best years of ones life. Without following her down there, you wont meet a bunch of amazing people that I keep in touch with to this day. One of whom will be the best man at your wedding. So thank her for that.

Years later when you come back home , youll put your GI Bill to work and go to broadcasting school, since you love sports and childhood dreams of playing 1st base for the O's are long gone. Upon finishing broadcasting school, you are faced with a tough choice. Move to middle of nowhere North Dakota, or Nebraska, to break into the business, making $19K a year, give or take, living in a studio apartment, eating ramen noodles three meals a day. Or figure out something else. One of your friends and classmates will do just that, and you'll become jealous because you wish you had the guts to leave home again and do that. Hes moved up from West Virginia, to Reading PA, to the Carolinas now as a sports reporter. Living the dream. Got to drive a NASCAR for a story when the races were there. Getting married to the smoking hot weather girl at his station. Covering all the sports teams. Its what you always wanted to do.

Instead, you'll apply to the fire department because as you are maturing, you will realize the importance of health benefits and retirement. There will be this fad called "blogging" where anyone can write about anything on this other thing called "the internet". You'll write about sports in the hopes your work would peak some peoples interests and try to break down the notion that you need a journalism degree, or need to get your feet wet in Utah for five years before you become somebody.

You'll be a groomsmen in a friends wedding in the year 2010. You'll have a date, a girl you like, but shes just a friend. She will stand you up and not show up there, and aviod your calls because being a date to a wedding is too serious at that point. Sounds shitty, i know. But at that wedding, you will meet a beautiful woman who will cook you breakfast the next morning instead of kicking you out, and she'll become your loving wife one day. You'll be happily married, become a homeowner, and get the wonderful opportunity to write for a sports blog covering the local football team. The Ravens (Baltimore gets a team around your 11th birthday.) The blog will get you a press pass to cover a practice at Ravens stadium. For one night, you'll be doing the real work pros in the media do. Holding a tape recorder up to John Harbaugh at midfield post practice. Hang out in the locker room getting sound bytes, taking the info back and writing about it.

Had you taken that job In Nebraska, you never would have met your wife, or had a stable job, with a schedule that lets you do other things, like writing, and beertend part time a stones throw away from Oriole Park, chatting about baseball with other fans.

While things never go the way you intended, everything ends up great.

So take life as it comes. The only thing I have to tell you, younger self, is please learn to eat fruits and vegetables. I dont eat them because they are gross and its why I have 50 year old man problems at 30. High blood pressure, gout, had a kidney stone a couple years ago. You dont have a problem laying off sweets, which is good or else you would be diabetic too.

Eat your vegetables, and hit curveballs.

Sincerely, future you
  • DJ MC, RShack, DuffMan and 2 others like this
@BSLMikeRandall

#33 BSLMikeLowe

BSLMikeLowe

    CFB Analyst

  • Moderators
  • 19,278 posts
  • LocationPortland, Oregon

Posted 11 July 2015 - 01:39 PM

The things I'd tell myself 20-25 years ago:

 

- Invest more into relationships I had with the people who enriched my life, and less with those who ultimately detracted from it.

- Spend a lot less on material things, 90% of which I probably no longer even have today, and more on traveling.

- Don't be so obsessed over the destination that you fail to enjoy the journey

 

I've done a lot more of all those things in recent years....but I sure wish it didn't take reaching my 40s to start.



#34 McNulty

McNulty

    la cerveza está muy fría

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 8,667 posts
  • LocationBS

Posted 11 July 2015 - 03:46 PM

I always think about what my life would be life if I would've stuck it out in college and became a pharmacist.  But then I most likely wouldn't have moved away from home at all.  I'd be like every friend I have from high school, and that is completely unacceptable to me.

 

As much as I dislike my job sometimes, I'm really glad its forced me to move around, work with people from all sorts of backgrounds, etc.  Its made me a much more well rounded person.

 

I'd tell myself to go to college in California, and all you have to do with women is make them laugh. 


@fuzydunlop


#35 Mashed Potatoes

Mashed Potatoes

    Advanced Member

  • Members
  • PipPipPip
  • 1,996 posts

Posted 11 July 2015 - 03:48 PM

Though you can't actually send a letter to your younger self, you can write one to your children! Can't wait to read Ta-Nehisi Coates' letter to his son, "Between the World and Me"

 

http://www.newrepubl...e-black-america


@DaKittenz

#36 BSLChrisStoner

BSLChrisStoner

    Owner

  • Administrators
  • 155,717 posts

Posted 11 July 2015 - 04:14 PM

Stop paying for non-existent premium content at OH.

That was a joke (of course there is humor in truth).

True answer is that there are a million regrets like anyone else....but I refuse to live in regret. You live once. Mistakes made shape who you are today. If there are things I want changed (and they are), have to keep working for them. That is what makes life worth living.
  • You Play to Win the Game, BSLMikeLowe and DuffMan like this

#37 Chris B

Chris B

    Moderator

  • Moderators
  • 22,229 posts
  • LocationBaltimore, MD

Posted 11 July 2015 - 06:14 PM

Bahahahaha Stoner so true




0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users


Our Sponsors


 width=