If you could go back in time and give your younger self advice, what would it be?
There are multiple things that I could say to my younger self at different points in my life. “Don’t attempt to be dismissive of something as a defense mechanism against taking a risk,” “Be more effectively pro-active,” “Go out into the world and try to dive in while also attempting to know what you are doing, because you’re less likely to have the experiences and resources that you’d need for your true goals if you do not do this,” “Seek assistance to overcome your psychological barriers, like the perfectionism paralysis,” etc.
I’ll probably stick with two separate pieces of advice, which I could offer to myself in my early 20’s. “Don’t dismiss your attempts at identity exploration and don’t underestimate your ability to do a good job at expressing this exploration,” and “Don’t underestimate your ability to become a commissioned officer in the US military; commissioned officer recruiters are a lot less dismissive than modern HR in that they will actually work with you to get you into a program, and DO NOT rely on enlistment as a method to eventually become a commissioned officer.” That might technically be four pieces of advice, but the first two and second two are more like of a compound pieces of advice.
The first compound piece of advice is to nudge a younger version of myself into things like gender exploration, possibly for an earlier transition. The second compound piece of advice is to give myself a jumpstart at living the life that I’d prefer to live. By about my late 20’s or so, both compound pieces of advice could work out. Commissioned officer wouldn’t have even needed to have been a permanent career choice, or even a career choice that ended at the 20-year retirement mark for federal employment.
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