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Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 4:16 pm
by TopHatFox
Oh yeah! I do remember asking that. I think I chose the right thing out of the options I had at the time, geology. Looking back, I think I should've just changed the overarching goal from finance to psych or double-majored in psych, but just didn't realize it at the time.

I do listen to the advice, I just choose which parts to follow and which parts not to. Gotta have my own agency. Besides, I think I'm doing great considering I found free undergrad, free grad, a free major operation, and now working on a free phd. How does one get out of their own way further than that? Anti-depressants & Ritalin?

Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 4:31 pm
by theanimal
Price is not always synchronous with value or personal well being my man.

Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 4:44 pm
by daylen
The INFJ is the ultimate information filtration device. Incoming data streams are either acted upon (eventually) or sucked into a blackhole to never be seen again.

Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 5:35 pm
by TopHatFox
Someone who gets me<3

I’d add a pamphlet that specifically lists out all career paths that one can get and their earnings potential, educational requirements, and so on. Kinda like builds for an MMORPG or something.

Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 7:32 pm
by 2Birds1Stone
TopHatFox wrote:
Wed Sep 11, 2019 4:16 pm
I do listen to the advice, I just choose which parts to follow and which parts not to. Gotta have my own agency. Besides, I think I'm doing great considering I found free undergrad, free grad, a free major operation, and now working on a free phd. How does one get out of their own way further than that? Anti-depressants & Ritalin?
This post is a perfect example of what Jenny is pointing out.

Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 7:49 pm
by take2
I think THF is a good representation of what most (me for sure) people would have done with a book or advice at 17 - choose to only focus on the aspects that seem relevant to you at the time.

There’s really no substitute for life experience for how we view the world. If someone gave me ERE when I was 17 and solely focused on getting laid 24/7 I would see it as a hindrance towards getting what I wanted at the time.

Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2019 4:05 pm
by daylen
I always use to think about this stuff as a kid, but I just quickly diverge to insanity..

Like what if I could actually go back and give myself a book? My younger self would probably be too freaked by the presence of their older self to read anything (except theoretical physics). My younger self would probably go completely crazy trying to figure out what happened to him. He would bury his eyes in books on quantum field theory and travel Asia in search of Kamar-Taj. Eventually, he would come to actually believe that DMT links the mind to alternative dimensions of mechanical elves that abducted his future self as a social experiment on one of their pawn species (humans) to test if they were ready to be integrated into the multiverse civilization. He would start to develop a paranoia that the mech elves were always watching and judging him as a sample of humanity.

This is not even getting into the timeline concerning my present self. How could I go on knowing that somehow I just split a past reality in two? I would obsess over how I did it so I could go back and do something more interesting (like observe the state of fungal evolution a billion years ago, or bring a telescope and hazard suit back four billion years ago).

Another fun one is to imagine that a copy of you just appeared beside you... do you kill it, expose it as a lost twin, or hide it as a double? You could potentially cut the amount of working time in half. It would also be a great way to test genotype-phenotype-environment sensitivity.

Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 6:42 am
by TheWanderingScholar
17 year old me already bough the ERE book, so I would not give him a book.

Instead, I would just be an ear for him to talk to. He was really stupid and too idealistic sometimes, alongside having too much anxiety.

Also tell him college is fun and don't be an idiot and go to trade school even though it makes more sense financially.

Re: If you could go back and give your 17 year old self one book, what would it be?

Posted: Sat Sep 28, 2019 11:34 am
by Jean
If I had a double of myself, one of us will commit a lot of illegal stuff while the other one stays at parties to serve as an alibi.
If I could redo my whole curriculum, i'de start with an apprenticeship as a cheesemaker or peasant, and then go on to study medicine. I was quite sensitive to rational arguments at the time.
If I could only send back a book, it'll be bagatelles pour un massacre, because it was quite hard to find on the old internet and it would have given me some reason to turn to medicine instead of engineering