Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Postcards to yourself

If you were sending your younger self a postcard, what would you say to you? At this moment in your life, what would you want yourself at 10, or 15, or 25, or even 35, to know about who you are and where you are in life now?

Considering postcards don't allow for a lot of commentary, what could you ... would you ... want to say in that short captive space that might help that younger you to navigate life better? And would giving insight on the choices you made at that point in life be your message? Would altering your life, steering yourself away from some bad decisions, be your intent? Or would your note be more like "Having so much fun and can't wait till you get here" ... a more cryptic, but still settling, kind of message?

If you could send your younger self a postcard, would you even dare to do so? Would you be concerned and wonder what effect your comments, instruction, hints about life might have upon that past you, and, what it would then mean about what you're doing in this "present" and who you are now?

Since it's not possible to send ourselves a postcard to the long ago from the right now, the only thing we can do is send ourselves a message today. We have the power and capacity to send a literal or figurative postcard to our now-present-soon-to-be-past-self that all is well and that while life has its ups, downs, good and bad, happy, sad, tough times, it is Life after all.