Advice You Would Give to Your 12 Year-Old Self?

urbazewski asks: "If you could send a message back to your nerdy unpopular 12 year old self, what would you say? I've been asking this one for several years, and the replies sound suspiciously like the lame advice I got from adults at that age ('just be yourself, dear'). The most creative answer was from an American-born Buddhist monk, who didn't think his 12 year old self would listen to a message along the lines of 'Hey, what you're doing is kind of making things suck for me right now' --- he would send a message to himself by adding extra lyrics to a song he really liked when he was in junior high school. I got the best replies from a large class at UC Santa Cruz. The modal answer was 'Buy Microsoft.' About 7% of the class said 'Enjoy yourself in high school because college is really hard.' Another 7% said "Study harder in high school because college is really hard.' (The best variant on that theme: 'Try to figure out what "studying" is'). In the hindsight-is-20/20 dept. there was a girl who said 'Do not date the following people...' and then listed six names and a guy who said 'You know how you're thinking about trying to drive your dad's car? Don't!.' My personal favorite: 'You're a dork now, but don't worry, you'll be cool when you're in college.'"

hrm..

Drugs are bad...mmmkay

Re:hrm..

Wear sunscreen.

Re:hrm..

Avoid links that inlcude the word 'goat' in them.

Dear Self

Dear Self,

You are 12 years old now and are starting to feel deeply your own inner voice... listen to it! Your creativity is beginning is beginning to flourish so do anything, everything you can to express yourself. Take chances. Don't do it for anyone else, do it for yourself. And if someone happens to critisize you for having your head in the clouds, or being weird, don't listen to them! Follow this inner muse and you will be richly rewarded with a happy life and lots of money.

Your parents mean well, so try to understand that at least their heart is in the right place. If you strongly disagree with them, I suggest at the vert least you keep reserve that strength for yourself and not for battling your parents. It will only cause both you and them needless amounts of grief. Experiment and get away with what you can, and if you get caught, do your best to at least play the part of the "good son". They don't need to know everything you're up to, because you are a life long quest of exploration and adventure and the fun is only getting started.

Good luck, and may you reach the stars before I do.

You older self,

Paul

Planet P Blog [planetp.cc]

Re:hrm..

It's called a tension sheet. Get a patent on it.

Tell yourself in the past to ....

send a message to yourself in the past by the time you reach a certain age (i.e. 24).

advice

register slashdot.org

Re:advice

What, for a $100 buyout?

Cocacola.com would get you millions.

nike.com

reebok.com

Disney.com

just run down the Fortune 500 list back in 1991 and squat like a pro. Remember to put a "fan page" on each of them so the courts can't yank it.

"This si my coca Cola page! I LOVE COKE!
Herei s a pic of me drnking coke!!"

Re:advice

"Herer is a pikture of me smoking coke."

Re:advice = Paradox

I would tell myself to not register slashdot.org as doing so would mean there is no slashdot to ask this question and thus I couldn't have made the initial change thus causing a paradox.

Oh... and stay away from the airport ( especially the guy with the blonde wig and sunglasses )

Re:advice = Paradox

I'd tell the 12-year old me the same thing that the 30-year old me told me when I was 12.

no no..

goatse.cx .. Please young version of me, register that domain and save me from having an image imprinted on my mind forever.

register? Domain name? WTF?

register slashdot.org

To which 12yr old me would say:
What the hell does register mean, and what is slashdot.org?

33yroldme: It is a website
12yroldme: What the hell is a website?
33yroldme: You know the internet.
12yroldme: What the hell is the internet?
33yroldme: A bunch of computers hooked up together to share information.
12yroldme: What the hell is a computer?
33yroldme: You know, a personal computer.
12yroldme: No, I have no idea what you are talking about.
33yroldme: It is a screen, like a TV, and you can do all kinds of things on it, like playing games.
12yroldme: Oh, in your house, like an Atari?
33yroldme: Yeah, sort of, but they are all over the world too.
12yroldme: Oh, you mean in the arcade like a Pac-Man machine? And that new game, Pole Position? That game is cool. It is so realistic! Or Joust, that game is fun because two people can play at once. I have only played it a couple of times because it is brand new. There is always a line for it.
33yroldme: Dude, nevermind. Have fun.

Re:register? Domain name? WTF?

Hey asshead, this guy was 12 in 1982. The only people who had computers in 82 were rich geeky college kids and big companies. Just because you were 12 in 1998 doesn't mean everyone was.

No need to call someone an asshead. There are many instances of folks who owned computers back then and they were not rich or part of a big company. I mowed lawns for two years and purchased my first computer, an Apple ][+ in 1981. At the time, we were definately not well to do. That computer got me my first job ( at age 12 in 1982) at our local school of medicine as the tech support guy (before that was a title) for all the MD's and PhD's running Visicalc and such on their Apples and TRS-80's.

Re:register? Domain name? WTF?

12yroldme: What the hell is the internet?
30yearoldme: It's kind of like a giant BBS, with unlimited porn.
12yearoldme: Mind if I take notes?

Advice to 12 year old self

"You know what, just forget it, you won't listen to anything i say anyway..."

or...

..."Stop masturbating so much. My eyesight is terrible 10 years from now.."

My advice to my 12-yr-old self?

Kill Yourself Now.

Yeah, that's right, kill yourself, you heard me.

I want to find out if a fundamental paradox really causes the universe to end! I mean, suicide is not my bag, but if I had the chance to take all of you with me...

Re:My advice to my 12-yr-old self?

Keep your fingerprints off their files! Blow HS and learn Hydroponics. Learn Spanish. Your history teacher is lying.

P.S. All that stuff you think about when you're high, patent it.

Re:My advice to my 12-yr-old self?

Nah, the universe is fractal in nature, every choice branching off into multiple realities, ad infinitum.
The you at age 12 would still exist, as one single event of a miltiple of you before you contacted yourself, none of which would be contacted.
If you did take your own advice (and...would you? I mean I'd tell myself to go fuck myself, personally) then, the you after the point just before you contacted yourself would be wiped out, quite possibly, but the you before you were contacted would still exist, and without the you from the future of that line in time, to pass the fututre message, you wouldn't do it.
In other words, you'd wipe out everything in one possible universe from the point of contact if you did commit suicide, but not before it, and it would still continue from the point where your message fails to appear as if nothing had happened, which of course is true unless you make the same decisions exactly as you did the first time round from that point onward, in that timeline, leading to you contacting yourself in the past, which is not guaranteed not least of which because of a universal cognisance of the event which took place leaving a dissonance in it's wake, spreading backward and outward, so that at least at some point you'd not comply, realising the stupidity of your behaviour and eventually boring yourself/ves of the repetition of the fundementally self-destructive non-beneficial act and get on with doing something more positive instead, tike putting the telly on or something.

Possibly.

Re:My advice to my 12-yr-old self?

Thank you, sir.

I didn't think it was possible, but my brain has tied itself into several knots, and is now leaking out my nose.

Re:My advice to my 12-yr-old self?

I mean I'd tell myself to go fuck myself, personally

Which you could, literally.

My Message to 12-year old self:

Train your left hand for next year.

Re:My Message to 12-year old self:

...than lern ta spel gooder.

Re:My Message to 12-year old self:

"Remember that new fangled tip your older brother told you about...pulling out. *USE* it! It really works!"

• No it doesn't ... Why do you think your older brother is in this world?

Re:My Message to 12-year old self:

or rather... why do you think your older brother just got married? ;)

Easy!

Don't let Christy Wilson go :)

Advice for my 12 year old self

Never turn down a chance to get laid.

Oh, and buy Cisco stock in 1998 and sell it in Jan 2000.

Period.

THIS IS AMERICA, HOME OF THE LITIGIOUS!

You should SUE girl A for not breaking up with you sooner!

Re:Advice for my 12 year old self

Ha! I can't tell you how many times I regret having sex with someone. The problem is that when I do turn it down (or not take the opportunity) I always regret that.

Now that's a paradox for you

Re:Advice for my 12 year old self

> Oh, and buy Cisco stock in 1998 and sell it in Jan 2000.
>Period.

I tried that and I'm still broke.

So I went back and told my 13-year-old self it was OK to put the Cisco proceeds into something called "Enron", but that he had to sell the Enron in 2001.

And I'm still broke.

Now I gotta go back in time again and tell my 14-year-old self not use the Enron proceeds to buy airline stocks.

I tell ya, ever since Goldman Sachs left the brokerage business and went into temporal mechanics, my life's been a living hell!

Hi..

"Self, in 4 years you're going to meet a really nice girl at a party. This time guy some fucking condoms!"

Hmmm...

As opposed to what other kind of condom?

Slashdot

never visit slashdot.org... hardest addiction to break

easy

don't waste your time reading slashdot; do something useful instead.

My favorite

Mark Twain's quote [brainyquote.com]:

I've never let my school interfere with my education.

get laid

don't pass up the best years of your life. get laid, over and over and over again. there will be time enough for slashdot/computers/programming when you're older and impotent.

err, wait, not that this has happened to me....

Save!

Start saving. Now. Put 15-20% of every penny your earn in the bank (or IRA, or other investments). You'll be debt free and have enough to retire on by the time you're 45.

Sadly, I don't have a time machine, so I'm on the "work until I'm 65" route.

-S

Pennies? Stop shaving pennies!

"Put 15-20% of every penny your earn in the bank"

Maybe so you you don't have to shave/cut your pennies and nickels, you could put 15-20% of every dollar you earn in the bank. I'd hate to deal with all those pennies...

Re:Save!

(::sigh:: the whole modding up vs replying decision.)

I'm trying to give this advice to all my friends who just got their first jobs out of college. Stop buying the new flashy toys, and start putting money away while you can (no real bills to eat up their paycheck). They'll have a lot more freedom later on.

Re:Save!

Saving is good, but living in the future is not living. The now is NOT a means to an end. There is no future, only the present moment.

advice to all 12 year olds

if anybody even looks at you crosseyed, stick a knife in them right away, or word will get around that you're a patsy and it will take you a whole lifetime to live it down.

Advise to myself as a 12 year old...

You're dumb, but that shouldn't be too surprising since you're 12. When you get the chance to enter a running start program as a sophomore, do it. With high school comes stupid heartache, and an early exit will save you lots of heartache.

But, in order to accomplish that, you must ignore your evil best friend, Adam. He will bring you Warcraft II, which will consume an inordinate amount of your time and eventually lead you to Diablo and Starcraft. Which is like heroin to you.

In summary: Get away from high school and addictive Blizzard products.

Watch your links

Never, ever, ever click a goatse.cx link. That image will forever be burned on my retina...shudder....

Re:Watch your links

And even more importantly, NEVER EVER go to Rotten.com. No matter how curious you may be. Don't do it. There are things in the world that you just don't want to see.