Waiyan - Week#1 : This Was Going to be About Time-Travel, But You Didn't Like it

If you were given the chance to go back in time and tell one thing to your past self, what would you say?

TARDIS(Doctor Who)

We’ve all seen those movies where the main character makes some life altering change to their youth

and the entire world turns into this dystopian mess and then they realize the value of family and friends

and blah blah blah. So then lets try to think about the next best thing, maybe something simpler that

won’t change the entire fate of the world.

Have you ever had that one awkward phase in your life that you really wished you could have skipped

over? Maybe you did or said some questionable things and may not have been the most pleasant person

to be around. 

What if we could avoid all of that by telling the little pr*ck to stop being a big loser and to grow up for

once. All you have to do is reveal some deep and dark personal secrets to convince them you’re from the

future and huzzah, no more embarrassing memories at night! Surely there's no possible way this could

go wrong, right?

I mean it's such a simple change that there's no way it has any world-altering effects(probably). But what

qualifies not being a loser and growing up? Currently, my idea of cool is not being afraid to express who

you are as a person, but this new me could think the exact opposite. For all I know young me could end

up thinking that “cool” is doing a bunch of drugs and vaping for the bathroom. Or even worse, I become

even cringier than I was before… scary thought I know.

Ok, so clearly any life altering changes or suggestions aren’t doing the trick, so what about something

even simpler. Maybe I could just go back and change one bad test grade so I could be a little less stressed

out for finals? But then I wouldn’t have gained the valuable lesson that screwing around with my time has

consequences. How about that one time I had a really awkward interaction with a stranger? Then I

wouldn’t have learned how to act that way in public. What about last week where I got scolded by my mom for not doing my chores?

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

The point of this long and convoluted hypothetical is to show that who we are as a person is the

culmination of past experiences. There’s always that one part of ourselves that we feel we would be better

without, but the truth is without those flaws we also lose the valuable lessons we learned with them.

This isn’t to say that change isn’t a bad thing, just that you shouldn’t ignore every single bad experience

you had. So whenever you’re up in bed and remember that one cringey experience you had in middle

school, be glad you had it, it's why you’re the way you are today.