A Letter to My 13-year old Self

Navya Janardhanan
SYBCOM-G 

To my 13-year-old self,

You know that feeling of maturity you get as soon as your 13^th birthday comes around? Yeah, that’s only going to last for all of 2 minutes. Then before you know it, you fall into an endless spiral of questioning all of your life decisions and binge-watching ‘Brooklyn Nine Nine’ all day. Your teenage years are just that – a series of existential crises. But lucky for you, you’ve got someone to guide you through it all. That’s right, you’ve got yourself! I thought that would sound all insightful and inspiring but that just sounds depressing. Maybe I should’ve framed it differently? Anyway, the idea remains the same. Nobody but you can make it better.

To start off, I would like for you to forget everything you’ve read and watched in teen books and movies because absolutely none of it is true. How ‘High School Musical’ ever became a hit will always remain a mystery to me. In real life, there’s no impromptu dancing or boisterous partying and there’s definitely no 25-year-olds passing off as teenagers (hint, hint). What you do have is an assortment of ever-fluctuating mood swings and never-ending responsibilities among other anxiety-ridden issues.

This will, very understandably, be overwhelming at times. Your emotions may start clouding your understanding, which, in turn, will make you feel like the solution you’ve reached at is far from the appropriate one. Here, the best tip I can give you is to always trust your judgement (it’s almost scary how accurate it is) and go ahead with what you think is the best course of action. You might just surprise yourself when things go better than what you had imagined.

Of course, things don’t always turn out the way you want them to and that is completely alright. An unpleasant experience may dampen your spirits, but it will always be an opportunity to get acquainted with and improve yourself. Learning from your mistakes and trying not to repeat them in future is an essential part of growing up. How do you think Naruto became the Seventh Hokage? (Yes, the future you is uncontrollably obsessed with anime.)

Speaking of improving yourself, you really need to stop thinking about others’ opinions. Do you really want to spend the rest of your one and only life trying to fit into others’ perceptions of perfection? No, no you don’t. The truth is, most of the time, people are too busy trying to straighten out their own lives to notice what’s going on in the lives of others. So it makes no sense to tailor your life around expectations which are not even worthy of being fulfilled.

This is quite an earth-shattering revelation for someone who has spent their entire life trying to please others. It will be particularly difficult for you to overcome this mind-set and put your own needs before anybody else’s. I have three words to guide you through this journey – do your research. Figure out your likes and dislikes, what you’re good at and where you could do better, your goals, objectives, morals and anything else you feel is relevant to understand yourself better.

Evidently, this is not a short-term process and it will take years for you to obtain concrete answers to these questions. However, once you do establish these answers, you will know what kind of a person you currently are and what kind of a person you would like to be in future. Accordingly, you will find yourself altering parts of your life to fit into your definitions of perfection rather than someone else’s. Voila! You just created the new and improved version of yourself.

As important as soul searching and finding a new you is, it’s equally important to stay true to your roots. Always be grateful to your family, friends and anybody else who has stayed by your side through thick and thin. At the same time, learn to identify the toxic people in your life and cut them off as soon as possible. Try not to give up on any of your extracurricular activities, because they’re the only thing that will keep you from crossing over the line separating sanity from insanity in your extremely academically focused future.

I cannot deny that there are a lot of hardships awaiting you in the future, but I can confidently say that they are balanced out by countless moments of euphoria and the amazing people making them so. You are truly blessed to have been raised in such an uplifting and supportive environment. I hope you will learn to appreciate everything you have been given and be happy with what you have.

To conclude, I would like to quote one of the wisest people I know, Michael Scott: “And I knew exactly what to do. But in a much more real sense, I had no idea what to do.” But I’m sure we’ll figure it out along the way. I hope this helps, but I’m going to be proud of you no matter what.

Yours sincerely,
Your future self.