If you could press a reset button and go back to age 19, 27, or 35, would you?
Asked by
Jeruba (
56110)
November 1st, 2020
If those ages are still in your future, this question isn’t intended for you. You can answer with a younger age, but you have to tell us.
No, you don’t get to know what you know now. You have to go all the way back, brain and body and memory and all. But you do get this: a postcard from your future self. Just a few key lines, such as “Don’t go out with that one guy on your 21st birthday” and “Buy Apple.”
So if you could, then, which one?
And then what?
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14 Answers
So difficult. I’ll say 35.
My postcard reads: get the antibiotics, try to get pregnant again, check your vitamin D, have more fun.
I’ll take 27, three years after we got married and write on my postcard, “You will eventually want a child so save every dime you can, starting now. It doesn’t get better.”
I’d go back to 19. I would write “let go of your boyfriend now. have fun and try new things now while you are still young”
I’d take any of them of course. But I doubt very much, in fact I’m all but certain that I could not achieve today at any of those ages today what was available when I lived through them.
The postcard at 19: ignore the women. Move immediately to San Francisco. Buy up the real estate. And more likely than not the 19 year old me would ignore every word.
If I have to be as dumb as I was at those ages then no I will stay right here.
19 for me. And my post card says: In the (paraphrased) words of Willie Nelson, There’s a lot old doctors out there, telling me I need to slow it down. But there’s more old drunks than there are old doctors, so go ahead, have another round.
Sure, any of those ages. My postcard would spell out the benefits of saving money and compound interest.
I’m NOT interested in a do-over!!! I’ve spent most of my life wishing that I had done things differently. Now that I’m reaching the age of actually seeing the results of my actions, I’ve realized that IF it hadn’t been for the perceived bad choices that I made that I would have NEVER been in the position for the GREAT results!!!
As crazy as it sounds, IF it hadn’t been for the abusive asshole who beat me daily, I wouldn’t have been in the right time & place to meet my WONDERFUL angel!!! Well, I was 19 when I met the asshole, so that rules out returning to 19!!! I most definitely wouldn’t want to return to being beaten again…yet without those beatings, I wouldn’t have turned out to be the strong-willed woman than my angel loved so much!!!
Thinking back, at 27 I was going through a time of discovering myself. NONE of my relationships lasted for very long mainly because I was waiting to catch them cheating or one of them to hit me. I definitely wouldn’t want to relive those confusing times a 2nd go round.
My happiest single years were around 35, but I had my stroke at 40. So, I wouldn’t want to go back to 35 because changing my life in any way that would have stopped the stroke would also mean that I wouldn’t have been in the right time & place to meet my angel. So, that rules out 35!!!
At 19 I was figuring myself out. I made a lot of mistakes and I was naive. Of course I think about doing things over when I think back to some of the bad choices and missed opportunities, but realistically, I wouldn’t go back to it. I like who I am now.
I’d go back to 35, and the note would say, “don’t marry her.”
27. “Don’t let her back into your life.” and “Manage your bankroll.”
Aw, hell no. Nope. Too much medical, too much weird family angst. Send me back to age 52, with a postcard that says “Dump your mother as soon as your dad dies.”
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