I wrote this post back in April 2022 and I am not sure why I did not post it. Today, after a long hiatus, I share this from my drafts:
When I was 16, I decided to write a letter to my future self- my 30 year old self. It doesn't seem like it has been long since I wrote that letter but it has actually been 10 friggin years! A decade!
I may have cheated and read the letter a few weeks ago (I promise I will read it again when I turn 30!). Reading that letter took me on a roller coaster of emotions. I had written about wanting to be a "good" person. Looking back, I don't ever remember myself being so kind and giving. It is quite surprising that I had written about wanting to be a giver, to help those around me, wanting to be remembered and to be inspirational to others. It's even more surprising that I don't even remember feeling that way.
What is ironic is that, 10 years later, I am anything but giving. I enjoy being independent and I hate going out of the way doing things for someone else. I don't like when things don't go according to my plans. As selfish as that is, I have not done nor intend to do anything to improve in this area.
I think of the 16 year old Pema. Would she be proud of her (almost) 26 year old self? Should I feel guilty that I couldn't live up to my own expectations? Or did my 16 year old self know how I would turn out to be and feel the need to push her altruistic intentions? Or should I just shake it off as words of a foolish child?
I realise that I am just about 4 years away from 30 now. It's as if the last few years haven't happened and in my mind, I am still a 23 year old. I feel as though I have not become half the person I wished to become. Every day, I am torn between "love yourself the way you are" and "become a better person".
Maybe there is no point in worrying about whether my teenage self would accept me or not. Instead, I decided to write her a letter. I needed to explain myself and the world to her and to let her know that sometimes, it is okay to be selfish. I also needed to let that apprehensive teenager know that everything does work out in the end. And so, in the same journal, I wrote a letter back to the past.
Doing this exercise made the Pema in her mid-20s feel a lot better too. Maybe 10 years later, a 36 year old Pema would be writing to me, telling me that the universe has a way of sorting everything out- and that everything I did is worth it.