A Letter to My Ten-Year-Younger Self

By John Passaro on August 20, 2019 • ( 4 Comments )

August, 2019

John,

I’m watching you about to sit down on that couch, this is hard.

Even for me, and I’ve been through it.

That foreboding feeling that has been gnawing at your soul for some time now is actually my indecisiveness about whether I should tell you or not.

I am in conflict; you know something is wrong, but you don’t know what.

Let me back up a bit and introduce myself.

I am you.

Just ten years further in life.

I am here to guide you.

We share the same soul, and it is through our souls that I sometimes send you advice and information.

Many believe that the internal advice and information we hear within ourselves is intuition.

That is partly true.

The part that most don’t know is where that intuition comes from.

It comes from me, which is you, further on down the line in life.

Since we share the same soul, I can, when needed, send you what you need to know to get you through hard times and help you make the right decisions.

That’s how it all works.

Now, getting back to what I said above,

about you having that foreboding feeling,

that is me.

I have been uncertain what to do.

I am in conflict.

Every life has a “Before and After” line, where your life is one thing until you reach a specific event, and then it suddenly becomes something totally different.

You are approaching your line today,

And I am uncertain what to do.

Once you cross over into “The After,” you will never see “The Before” again.

That is okay.

“The After,” although much more difficult, has just as much to see and experience as “The Before.”

And you will be much more aware, more present, and every one of your experiences in “The After” will be more acute due to your newfound perspective.

Your “Before and After” line is fast approaching; you will reach it by the end of the day today, your time, not mine.

Tonight you will sit down on your couch to watch the movie “Serendipity.”

And your world is going to explode.

Life, as you knew it for forty-four years, will become unrecognizable to you by tomorrow.

After much internal debate, I have decided to write this letter to you to share one piece of information and one piece of advice before you cross over.

No, I’m not going to tell you the specifics of what is about to happen to you in your life. I don’t think knowing that would be healthy for you at this time.

I believe it would be too much for you.

Rather, I’ve decided to write you this letter to offer one piece of information and one piece of advice, both intended to guide you.

I know you are expecting the information part of this letter to be that you are going to be okay.

It isn’t.

I can’t say you will be okay.

At least not yet.

Not from the timeframe from which I now sit.

But I still hold out hope that maybe you will be in the time ahead of me.

So should you.

The valuable piece of information I am going to reveal to you, one I want you to hold onto and fall back on in your darkest moments, is this,

You are going to get here.

Where is here, you ask?

Here is where I am writing this letter to you.

Ten years in the future.

Here is a good place.

I know you are thinking that this doesn’t seem like such valuable information to you right now,

But it will.

Soon, “whether you make it”, “whether you can get through this,” “I wonder what is going to happen to me?” will become your controlling thoughts; they will attempt to dominate you.

I am here to alleviate those worries from you, so they don’t.

I want you to concentrate all your efforts without distractions on your recovery.

Always remember,

You get here.

Battered, bruised, and barely recognizable with casualties because you are in a war, but

You get here.

How do you get here?

I’ll leave that up to you.

Now, on to the one piece of advice portion of the letter.

My one piece of advice to you is this,

“When the enemy attacks and people you love are caught behind enemy lines, always go back and get them.”

No matter what.