If I Had A Time Machine: Advice for my Younger Self

Time travel isn’t possible yet. We don’t yet have that technology. But what if we did? What if you could go back in time and give your younger self advice? What would you say? I’ve given a lot of thought to this question, and I can’t help but think of a great many things I would tell my past self—if I could resist the urge to slap him first, of course. Come along and take this journey with me, and perhaps you will ponder your past and what you’d do differently.

Blogging Platforms Exist, And They’re Right In Front Of You

Blogger

I graduated from high school in 2007. I had no direction in life. I did not know what I was going to do or where I was going to do it. I can still hear the haunting sound of the speaker’s voice at my graduation referring to me as “undecided” when it came to plans after graduation. Deep down, I think I always knew I wanted to write. I just didn’t know how I was going to accomplish that. You can imagine my surprise, and instant regret to boot, when I found out the Blogger platform, which is built into Google, has existed since 2006 and would have afforded me the perfect opportunity to get my writing out there and just have a place to write and potentially build an audience. I always had something to say, and perhaps this would have been a more constructive way of doing it than what 2007 me ended up doing. Who knows, I have a following by now. When I was researching for this article, I was dumbfounded when I found how many other blogging platforms I’d missed over that same time period.

Wix

Wix was the first blogging platform I used when I started a blog in November 2022. I liked the look of the website design options, and there were a lot of opportunities to market products and write content. Unbeknownst to high school senior Greg, this platform also existed when I graduated. The difference between it and the Blogger platform, a difference I stumbled upon much too late, is that Blogger is a free platform. Wix, however, is not. I’m not taking anything away from Wix. It’s a great platform and well worth the money I paid while using it. As time went on, however, I discovered Wix was more geared toward online stores rather than an exclusive blog. I will be the first to admit that I’m a horrible salesman, so online stores are not for me. Throughout my research, I discovered that this and Blogger were not the only platforms I missed during my more formative years.

Medium

Medium, as I discovered more recently than I care to admit, is basically YouTube for bloggers. There is an optional monthly membership which allows you to read more articles, read pay walled articles, and make money with your own content. To this point, I have not delved too far into this platform, but knowing it has existed since I was in my early twenties makes me wish I would have. I am a big fan of YouTube and its accessibility, and Medium is the same type of platform except you’re writing articles instead of creating videos. I hate taking pictures and being in front of the camera. I also can’t stand the sound of my voice. These two factors alone would have made Medium the perfect platform for me when I was first thinking about doing freelance and other online work. Medium is a great platform for writers, and I think it will be in my future. If you’re a writer looking for a start, it should be in yours too.

Tumblr

I admit it, at first I spat on Tumblr like a major league batter would spit on a curveball in the dirt. I saw a lot of things about it when it first came out, but it didn’t appeal to me. Seeing all the people who have developed a following on this platform over the years would definitely have me telling my former self about it, hoping he would take the advice. Tumblr offers many opportunities for self-expression through microblogging, video sharing, and as a social network. This would have been an outlet my former self, had he possessed a little more foresight, would have relished in. The friends he would have gained through this and other platforms may have changed the way he looked at the social landscape he was in.

Not All Your Fellow Students Are Not Your Friends

The 2007 version of me was very shortsighted, a trait that only rears its ugly head once in a blue moon in the man I am now. To that point, I’d been focused on what other people thought of me and how many friends I had. Such blind focus on something so trivial makes me sick today, especially since allowing my grades to slip in favor of more friends and better social standing didn’t do me any good anyway. I was still an outcast with few friends. Thankfully, some of those friends have stuck with me to this day. But I was hyper focused on trying to get people to like me, and in the process losing focus on the future. That’s a mistake I’m still paying for to this day. 

I remember well the summer before my freshman year of high school. My parents had a plan to send me to a smaller school district that was also close to where we lived, figuring it would give me a better chance at succeeding. Being the impulsive and shortsighted 14-year-old kid I was at the time, I wanted no part of this. How dare they send me to a new school to start high school? I was already going to be a freshman. Why would I want to compound it by being such at a brand new school? To my surprise, instead of imposing their will as was their right, my parents relented when I protested and I went to high school in the district in which I’d grown up. Hindsight being the cruel mirror it is, I have wished every day of my adult life—which I don’t believe began until I turned 30—that I’d gone to the smaller school. Being new and having a lack of friends may have helped me. Being in a school with everyone I knew would be my academic undoing.

School is Important, Especially in My Situation

I went to college briefly after high school. I didn’t finish, mostly because I chose the wrong classes. I didn’t know what I really wanted, but I suppose if I had the chance, I would tell my younger self what we wanted. I didn’t go back even after I figured out what I wanted to do. Whether I regret that is up for debate. I regret it in the sense of not having the piece of paper most jobs require nowadays. On the other side, I don’t regret it because I could stay true to my values without having to worry about resistance from others. I am a libertarian and a staunch capitalist, both traits would put me at odds with some college students. That being said, the degree I could have gotten by staying to myself as I do now could have changed the trajectory of my life completely.

I’ve never been one for accepting money, or anything else, that I didn’t earn. My parents taught me that. You can probably imagine my surprise when I mentioned venturing out on my own, thus relieving them of the burden I felt I put on them, and they mentioned the need for government help to make that happen. It enraged me then. Now, I understand it. The fact is, I would have never made it on my own then, and the future attempts at doing so that landed me where I am now further prove that point.

Close Friends Don’t Always Make Good Roommates

I will be the first to admit I was impulsive in leaving my parents’ house the first time—and every subsequent time, for that matter. I added to the impulsivity in my choice of roommates. They all had one thing in common; they were all close friends before we moved in together. My advice, don’t do it. I was desperate to get out of my parents’ house, but I knew I couldn’t survive by myself on the income I was making at the time. That in mind, the obvious answer my twenty-one year old self came up with was to move in with a couple of friends. This was yet another lesson I would learn the hard way.

I will not assign blame for the things that happened. The fact is, I had no business in any of the situations in which I found myself after 2011. I had just as much of a hand in the downfall of these arrangements as anyone else involved. I hold no animosity towards any of my former roommates that may read this, even if they hold something toward me. It’s probably deserved for what happened then, but I am a different man now and the omnipresent mirror that is hindsight tells me I shouldn’t have done some things I did, and I apologize to anyone I may have hurt. Moral of the story, don’t move in with your friends if you want them to stay that way.

Don’t, Under Any Circumstances, Choose a Significant Other Over a Friend

This one hits home and it hits hard. I made this mistake more times than I care to admit, but one time in particular haunts me to this day. Never forsake a friendship for a significant other. You can’t do that and I learned that the hard way. You never know what is going to happen and you don’t ever know if you can trust that person who you meet and think is the one. I wake up every day and go to sleep every night wishing I’d learned that lesson sooner.

I’ll get right to it, no fancy lead up, no smoke in mirrors, just what’s on my mind. My best friend passed away after a short battle with illness in August 2020. That may seem like a normal grievable life event on the surface, and for most it is. It’s a little more difficult when you haven’t seen your best friend in 3 years for reasons that were well within your control only to find out he’s in the hospital fighting for his life. It’s even worse when you get the dreaded call informing you he’s lost that fight. That’s a call, or rather a message in this case, that I’ll never forget.

It was 7AM on August 3rd, 2020. I had just learned that my best friend had passed away after a short battle with illness. Losing your best friend would cause anyone with a heart to break down, but for me it was a little different. I had the initial shock of knowing my best friend, the man who was my sounding board, my left-hand man—yes I know the proper phrase, but if you know, you know—was gone. There was more to it for me, though. There was the part below the surface that nobody else saw. 

I rarely cry, even more rarely do I do so in front of anyone, family or not. I did that day. I cried for my best friend, for a life that was cut tragically short. Most of all, I cried for the mistakes I made that led to a long estranged period. If only I’d known that day in 2018 would be the last time I’d see him, perhaps I would have done something different, not left things unsaid, or even taken the advice he gave me. If I had, I’d have no reason to write this part of the article.

I’m doing my best to keep names out of this article for the sake of those involved. My ex girlfriend was someone I thought was the one. We got along well, she was very attentive (to a point, but I’ll get to that later) and we enjoyed a lot of the same things. All that notwithstanding, it was not worth what I ended up going through.

I did not know, but the woman in question and my best friend not only had a bit of a thing before he met the girl he was dating before he died, the two women were best friends at one time and had a falling out over God knows what. I didn’t think their issues would affect me, but unfortunately they did and it was not worth it. As much as I wanted to think what I head was just smoke in mirrors, I would learn the hard way everything had a basis, and everything was fact. By the time I could accept what was right in front of me, my best friend was dead and I was left with nothing but regrets and what ifs. Don’t allow yourself to be put in that position. Make good decisions when deciding between friends and significant others. 

Final Thoughts

We all have moments in which wish we had a time machine, an opportunity to do something over again. Whether its a missed opportunity, poor choice in a friend, roommate, or significant other, or a squandered education, we all have things we wish we could take back. As much as we’d like to, we can’t take any of these things back. All we can do is work toward a better future.

I wish I’d known about this platform twenty years ago. I would have been writing, posting, and building an audience the whole time. It would have made my high school years easier because I would have had an outlet, an escape that didn’t involve fake friends and getting into trouble just for the sake of rebellion. The pen has always been my escape, and I would give anything to tell my former self about the many opportunities to write and share my writing with people. I would have had trouble at first, just like I did when I did it in the present, but there would have been more time to get over the metaphorical stage fright. I also would have spent less money had I known a free platform like this one existed, both in 2007 and now. My past self would have thought me to be crazy, but if he listened, he’d thank me. 

My desperate desire for acceptance was what we would call a toxic trait today. If I’d adhered to all the old movies when they say, “You’re never going to see them again,” I’d be in a better place today and I probably would never see any of them again. It would have saved me years of grief. The butterfly effect is something I believe in wholeheartedly, so there is good and bad to this time machine and advice to your former self business. Despite what people might say about what they’d do if they were able to change the past, we’d do well to embrace what we have and where we are. We’re here for a reason, after all. It’s our job to find out what that reason is, and we all do it in our own time.