Letter to a younger self.
Here are some things that are going to happen to you. Take heed and avoid the bad things, make the good things happen, and while there will still be a struggle, it may be a better journey than where your life has led you to be at 50.
So many people act as something that they are not. Most people don’t have the integrity they claim they do. Most people wont say what it is they really want, and may conceal their real intentions. Even the best among us. Beware of the hidden lies and cons after going in a given direction.
Resist what does not seem right. Move on, continue your search, keep open to new people and opportunities and shut down all those that will suck you soul out of you with drama, diversions, and decadence.
What you see to lure you in will never be what you get. Power is in manipulating others with what they want. Power is the lie that says you are worth nothing when in truth you have every right. Power is the lie that isolates you when the truth is you belong in the world.
Technology, especially in reference to the Internet, actively isolates everyone more than it brings people together. Piece by piece technology interferes with every human interaction and replaces it with a simulation. The wealthiest people in the world, whatever your measure of wealth is, are those who are the most social. Consider how many people a spiritual or political leader has met in his life, and consider how much of a rich life that can represent. Isolation, by whatever cause, is poverty.
Most of your aspirations will never come to pass. Often, your aspirations will be used against you and for profit. Still if you want something, you must do much more research and learning about what is really needed to require it, you should do much more work to learn what that is than you expect you must do. As for your deepest desires that align with who you are, find a way to live them. Regret can drive you mad.
In this modern age, there are endless lures to distract you from even beginning to think about what you truly need to do to improve your plight. A massive amount of things pushed in front of you is a lie. Consider the massive industry of unhealthy carbohydrates, pornography, political propaganda, overpriced products of every description, so much of it a contrived need.
Other people don’t have your interest in mind. Not even the people closest to you. However, if you can find or creating a small group of like minded people who share knowledge and resources among each other, it can be the most valuable method to improving your own life.
Don’t remain working at home forever. Turn it into something else eventually or move on. It is always in somebody else's interest to keep you isolated. Do this if you must, but it is isolating, and you belong in the world. It is in somebody else's interest to keep you at home. There are no assurances that you will be sufficiently supported to cover all your costs, with the depreciation of your equipment, inflation, and the imperative to continue to invest in your life savings.
Get work in the greater community, where the real opportunities are. The commute may be costly and frustrating, people toxic, but obviously the ones who flourish and prosper are those exposed to each other in a work place, out in the world, not shut up at home consulting.
The world is being destroyed with lies, especially when profit is possible. Every possible angle is tried in the desperate struggle for anything, and in the belief that this way is the only way that matters, because everyone else practices it. Still it is not too much to strive for a little peaceful square of it for yourself. It is also possible to end up with nothing despite the best of intentions.
Nobody wants you to know any of the above. It is in the interest of someone else that keeps you isolated, divided, and unaware of it. You must come up with the solutions to these problems yourself.
Edit: Thank you for the comments and great feedback. I wrote this late last night and could refine it I am sure, but there you go. Perfection shouldn't be the enemy of progress now, should it? Perhaps you all should take a turn at writing a letter to your former self every so often, as an exercise in understanding the route your life is taking.
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