In today’s world of rapidly changing technology and cultural norms, have you ever had the thought, “Darn, I could have gotten in on that early on, but it wasn’t that important at the time?” Yeah, I have that thought multiple times a week. Here are just a handful of things I wish I could tell my younger self.
- Don’t be intimidated by video cameras.
Back in the early 2000s not everyone had a video camera. Home camcorders were used in all their low quality, shaky glory to record life without editing and the tape (yes, tape) would go into a box in a closet for the next decade or more. So when someone pointed a camera at me, I was nervous and shy, and would think please go record someone else. Nothing to see here. Did I think I would be intentionally pointing a camera at myself years later? Nope.
2. You laugh at people using social media, but just wait, you’ll use it too.
Yes, I thought people who used social media just liked to hear themselves talk, mostly about nothing. I resisted for way too long and it cost me a lot in terms of building an audience. I was there in the beginning of it, but didn’t use it. Now I see the folly of my ways. Social media is used for entertainment, education, shopping, and business. Hard to participate in the world without it.
3. Not everyone has the capacity to experience the full range of human emotion.
For most of my life I truly thought all humans were built similarly on the inside. I have since learned some people are not equipped to feel positive emotion. They can feel sadness, anger, greed, envy, jealousy, rage, and despair, but they can not experience joy, contentment, love, gratitude, humbleness, or compassion. What an eye opener. People don’t choose not to feel these things, it’s just how they are built and they suffer a lot because of it. It explains so much about the cruelty we see in the world. There really are two kinds of humans walking the earth.
4. Consistency over time equals success.
I’ve had many projects I’ve started and never continued with simply because I didn’t see the point. I didn’t realize that bigger things were built by doing the same things again and again and again until enough time has passed. Then something recognizable emerges that looks like it was built in a day. But Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will any single thing worth doing be accomplished overnight. It would have been nice to know that years ago.
5. Don’t buy that photo enlarger!
Seriously. I went to college for film photography. The year I graduated, digital cameras became all the rage and no one used film anymore. All those hours spent learning the intricacies of darkroom techniques rendered useless in months. Why did I buy the photo enlarger that sat in the basement unused for a decade until it got thrown away? I could’ve used that money for a fabulous trip somewhere.
As you can tell, a lot of the above is technology based. I have always felt three steps behind everyone in technology. Part of it is that I like the 3D tangible world more than the virtual one, and part of it is I don’t always understand technology and that can be intimidating. But now I’m older and wiser, and while my 20 year old self could have set my present day self up for success a little earlier, I recognize I can still start doing better today. My 60 year old self will probably thank me.
