Trippin’ with Fran & Ed

How revisiting our younger self can shed light on possibilities ahead.

Fear & Loathing in High School

If you could go back in time, knowing what you know now, what would you tell your younger self? Would you give good advice to relive your life for the better, or offer dire warnings to avoid your biggest mistakes? Would you share your hopes and dreams, or describe whom you actually came to be? Would both of you be proud or ashamed, excited or afraid, optimistic or fatalistic?

In lieu of having a time machine, remembering and sharing stories from our youth is a compelling psychological exercise. Deep in our past specific events triggered us and made us who we are; reminiscing gives us the opportunity to discover our strategies and coping mechanisms, perhaps explore insights to help make our future self more actualized— or at least more self-reflective.

For early peakers high school was the high point of life, the prom kings and queens, honor students and valedictorians, debate team captains and varsity athletes. For slow learners those teen years totally sucked, the dropouts and delinquents, breakfast clubbers and detention junkies. For most of us falling somewhere in between, we took the good with bad, tried to figure it all out.