A Sojourn among the Avatars of Wisdom

What if your older self could advise your younger self? How would that information be imparted? Suppose your younger self was a youth of twenty, and your older self was forty or fifty something.

Keep in mind that your younger self is building castles in the sky, yet that youth has no idea about the effort involved to reach those lofty heights. In fact, your younger self doesn’t realize that he or she might have to break a sweat to do just that.

Your younger self is living in a bubble, one that can be likened to living aboard the International Space Station. Gravity is absent. It takes the same amount of effort to float five feet or fifty feet; to do one summersault or ten. In fact, your younger self is unaware that he or she is wearing a cape.

Yet your older self is telling your younger self to snap out of it!

Your younger self is actually bound to earth where gravity is present. Real life is akin to exercising in a gym. If your younger self wants to be fit, he or she needs to encounter resistance, such as lifting weights, performing yoga, etc. It is through encountering resistance that is otherwise known as real life that your younger self become stronger. Your younger self will need to be stronger to weather the headwinds of life: recessions, jobs, relationships, and setbacks.

Perhaps your younger self isn’t susceptible to counsel when things are going well. Sometimes he or she chalks up a string of successes to skill. In that vein, why does your younger self need counsel when things are going so well? That youth doesn’t. Only when things are not going so well during your younger self’s moment of weakness that another opinion is called for. Not just any opinion, of course. But the same sages that are looked to by each successive generation over the centuries helped the latter transcend their obstacles.

Maybe your younger self would be more receptive to advice imparted indirectly: not at him or her, but to a fictional character. After all, your younger self would be less resistant to advice since the suspension of disbelief is invoked while that youth is reading the narrative.

There is always hope for your younger self, especially when the characters in this story are avatars of the ancients and modern sages!