Dear 16-Year-Old Me

3 months ago, I turned 21, and recently I’ve been thinking about how much my life has changed in the previous 5 years. So, I’ve decided to write this blog post as a letter to my 16-year-old self.

Dear 16-Year-Old Me,

It’s Charlie. I’m 21 now and have five years of life experience on you, so I thought I’d give you some advice and guidance to help you out, the kind of things that I wish I’d known at your age. First things first, you turn out pretty ok. You probably don’t think you will, but you do. Your acne will go, your grades will be decent and your confidence issues… well, whilst I’m not the most confident person in the world, I don’t think you’d recognise yourself if you saw me in a room of strangers. I don’t hide behind that mop fringe anymore, I can actually talk to people – incredible, I know! By the way, get a haircut – it doesn’t make you look cool, it just makes you look like you haven’t showered.

Come on Charlie

The main piece of advice I have for you is this: stop hanging out with your so-called ‘friends’. Those guys don’t like you, you don’t like them and that is not the basis of a healthy school life. You’ll realise this pretty soon, but the sooner you branch out and meet other people – who will teach you the meaning of having friends and you will fucking love them for it – the better.

Stop obsessing over any girl who has ever looked at you, it’s weird. I know you’re at an all-boys school, I know you don’t have much female contact, and I know that you’re at a hormonal age where you have almost animalistic urges. But it’s weird. Stick it out man, you’re going to meet Chloe and you’re going to be great together; and I know you don’t like her right now and she probably thinks you’re a freak, but trust me, she’s great and she loves you now so all’s good in the hood.

Save some goddamn money! You don’t need so many Playstation games, at the end of the day you only play about three of them so why keep buying more? That money would be so much better served in my pockets now, or in the till at Falmer Bar whilst I stumble home drunk so don’t be so selfish.

For that matter, give up on your dream of becoming a Games Designer. For one thing, you don’t understand anything about computer code, and you never will. So why not apply yourself into applying for a Politics degree rather than just accepting anyone that will have you after a last minute change of heart? Saying that, you’ve made some great friends at Sussex so maybe your path was the right one, even if the degree is full of philosophical bollocks that I just couldn’t care less about.

Imagine this, but even more rockstar

Keep playing your guitar! Your guitar teacher is a wanker, sure, but when you give up lessons please please please carry on your practicing because being in a band is really fun and you’d much rather be doing kickass guitar solos instead of plodding basslines. Also, it will stop Matt and John mocking your musical ability and that’s definitely something you want.

Keep running as well! Your metabolism will slow down and you’ll need to exercise to stay skinny. You’re so freaking fit right now, it makes me sad when I think of how far I have to go in order to reach the kind of stamina that you have now. If you keep running in your routine I can’t even imagine how productive your time at university would be, maybe you’ll come out with a first after getting up early enough to run (except hangover days, they’re for lie-ins and domino’s).

This is actually one of my proudest achievements

Take more overtime at Sainsbury’s. It’s a very easy job and it’s very well paid. Sure it’s boring, but the dollar is worth it and I would really appreciate it right now. In addition, listen to mum whenever she suggests a job for you. The ones you’ve done have almost universally been highly enjoyable and extremely well paid – so I can only imagine what the ones I didn’t go for would have been like.

But above all, just go out there and enjoy yourself. Take opportunities with both hands. Experience things that I haven’t. But seriously, don’t get on that rollercoaster in Chicago. You haven’t outgrown your fear of them, don’t even try and pretend you have.

Love from 21-Year-Old You

PS Muse get better again. Trust me.