Buy Apple.

[gridlore]

I've seen several friends posting variants of the "my life needs a reset button" comment recently, and one of my favorite Turtledove shorts is the paired time travel stories, 20, Counting Up and 40, Counting Down. Which leads to this question:

Through a quirk in the space-time continuum you are able to communicate with yourself at 13. You can leave three messages, and your younger self will have sufficient evidence to accept that they really are from the older version of themselves. What do you tell yourself? Each message can be fairly detailed, but has to address a single concept.

1. School matters. Don't try to be Craig, don't worry about Craig. Learn to ask for help in class.


2. You have Hodgkin's Lymphoma. It will probably start to develop sometime in your early twenties. Catch it early.


3. Take shop classes and work with your hands. It's what makes you happy. You are never going to be a scientist, you don't have the mindset for anything other than an amateur's depth. But learn to repair an engine, or lay tile, or be an electrician, and you'll be happy and successful.

The drawback is that if I followed my own advice, I would probably never meet Kirsten. Bad trade.

Comments

[mikkop.livejournal.com]

I think I could still meet and marry my current wife, especially if told "marry this girl", but any advice would probably mean that my child wouldn't be the same person.

I'm not sure I could bear erasing the kid. Of course the kid that would spring up, if any, would probably be just as great, but, still, no.

If I could get over that I would probably just tell me to invest on Google (or something else. Apple?) at a proper time, and probably tell myself to go abroad if possible. That'd be three - the wife, invest, go to a different country.