Dear Itu
I know that you are excited and terrified about the year ahead, it is to be expected. You have closed one chapter in your life and you are about to open a new one. Don’t think that the experience that one gets from university is specific and therefore evident, it does not matter where you go or what you do, you learn what you choose to.
I have now been here for sometime and I can honestly say that most of the things that I have learned have not come from text books or lectures. I remember first arriving here and having strangers tell me “just chill”, I should have listened. I instead devoted all my time to my studies and what do I have to show for it, I’m still a high school student only in a different location. In terms of studying I can only give you one advice, take your head out of the books and look around, maybe then you’ll learn something that can actually be helpful to a normal person like yourself. Remember when just before leaving dad said “Your life is about to change,” and you said “Agh please, I have been in hostel since I was twelve”, well it’s not the same thing. You need to grow and the only way to do that is to live, not just to exist.
When you arrive hear you will be bombarded with posters and leaflets about what to do and which societies to join. Take one and join something. The best way to find out what you like is by exploring and discovering what you don’t like. The university is truly filled with many societies, some not as productive as others, but at least by the end of your first year you will know what you want and what you don’t. So I wish you good luck for the upcoming year and remember, you can not always learn by observing, sometimes you need to do.
With the utmost sincerity
Your Future Self
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Letter to a younger me
Dearest Delusion
I know that you are prone to be humble. I know that you are open to advice and suggestion and so I beseech you to pay careful attention:
The change that occurs along with enlightenment may be more pressing than what you have heard. Please, oh deluded one, please don’t judge what you have not encountered, for appearance as you may well already know can easily throw you off course. You might think you have witnessed it all and yet I know that everything you’ve been exposed to was embraced within the comfort of what steadfast alliances allowed for easy living. This lifestyle is different simply because the people you will meet are not what you are accustomed to surrounding yourself with. The choice to embrace what you don’t immediately understand with the mindset of an inexperienced voyager might be the best choice for you to make. Don’t hesitate when new, seemingly foolish, opportunities arise. The chances to act the fool are not ever going to be as fulfilling as when you’re not the only fool enjoying yourself. Be cautious of expectations, they are never what you pictured and even if they turn out to be better than what you pictured, the present is never reliable- get things said, done and printed yesterday already.
Above all, don’t be afraid to acknowledge the change you will begin to recognise within yourself. Those who haven’t known you your whole life will not know how much you actually have changed as a person and you should take full advantage of exploring ‘a new life’. Eventually you will see how that judgement that you will not adhere to is somehow ingrained in the heart of this place.
Best of luck,
Post-deluded.
I know that you are prone to be humble. I know that you are open to advice and suggestion and so I beseech you to pay careful attention:
The change that occurs along with enlightenment may be more pressing than what you have heard. Please, oh deluded one, please don’t judge what you have not encountered, for appearance as you may well already know can easily throw you off course. You might think you have witnessed it all and yet I know that everything you’ve been exposed to was embraced within the comfort of what steadfast alliances allowed for easy living. This lifestyle is different simply because the people you will meet are not what you are accustomed to surrounding yourself with. The choice to embrace what you don’t immediately understand with the mindset of an inexperienced voyager might be the best choice for you to make. Don’t hesitate when new, seemingly foolish, opportunities arise. The chances to act the fool are not ever going to be as fulfilling as when you’re not the only fool enjoying yourself. Be cautious of expectations, they are never what you pictured and even if they turn out to be better than what you pictured, the present is never reliable- get things said, done and printed yesterday already.
Above all, don’t be afraid to acknowledge the change you will begin to recognise within yourself. Those who haven’t known you your whole life will not know how much you actually have changed as a person and you should take full advantage of exploring ‘a new life’. Eventually you will see how that judgement that you will not adhere to is somehow ingrained in the heart of this place.
Best of luck,
Post-deluded.
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