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Mike

Hi Mike

Now don’t freak out on me, but this letter is from you 40 years in the future. I know it is hard to believe, but it’s true. Okay, I can tell by the look on your face (believe me, I’ve seen it enough times) that you are not believing this, so check out these facts about you/me at the age of 13:

• The year you are reading this is 1967. You are in your second year of your new (and now fully integrated) school. You have a crush on a black girl named Lisa. She’s smart, she’s pretty, and she smells good.
• Last year in February, your grandfather was killed in a car accident. You were supposed to go with him, but at the last minute your grandmother wouldn’t let you go. You pitched a total fit because she wouldn't let you go but a few hours later you realized she saved your life.
• A week after your granddad died your dog Tyke was hit by a car and killed. (It was a bad month.)
• Your childhood “girlfriend’s” name is Kathy. In a few years she will meet some other guy with the same initials as you, get knocked up and have to drop out of school. Forget about her now because there's no saving her.
• You have just recently discovered politics and have become obsessed with the whole process. This past summer you saw Bobby Kennedy speak and were amazed by him. Don’t get too upset about this Mike, but in a little over six months he’s going to be dead. Just file it under shit happens and move on.
• You just had a huge fight with Dad about the length of your hair. My advice is to forget about it. In a little over 5 years your hair is going to be well past your shoulders and Dad won’t have a lot to say about it. Time has a way of changing everything, even Dad.
• You are currently reading The Bible and becoming increasingly skeptical.
  

Now with those things out of the way, let’s talk about life.

I want you to think really hard about what you want to do with your life and there is no time like the present to start. There’s nothing worse than being 53 and regretting the work you’ve done and wishing you had made other choices. Don’t go for the money because that runs out. Happiness lasts a lifetime.

You don’t know this yet, but in two years your life is going to be turned upside down. Dad is going to accept a transfer to northern Michigan. Go ahead, look it up in the encyclopedia. I’ll wait. You are going to be going to a place called Rogers City Michigan and it is going to suck at first, but you’ll meet some really cool people and you will fall in love with Lake Huron. When you leave the town you are living in now, don’t ever look back. Just keep looking ahead.

In a few short years, you are going to be in high school and you are going to meet a girl named Debbie. You are going to love her like no other—for a while. By the time you are a freshman in college, you are going to resent the hell out of her for “holding you back.” Do us both a favor, when you graduate from high school, dump her. It’ll be for the best. Once again, don’t look back.

College is going to be a really great experience for you. You are going to see things and do things you never dreamed of. You are going to meet a girl named Kim and you are going to love her so bad it hurts. It’s not real though. It’s just a phase and one day you will wonder what the hell you were thinking. I know that right now you are thinking that you would like to be a teacher, but you are going to discover that it’s not for you, so think about other things. Try to get over your aversion to math and science because believe it or not, your career is going to be all math and science.

When you are in college you are going to hear about a guy named Carlos Castaneda and you are going to read his books. Not sure if that is going to be a good thing for you or not, but it is going to change your life and it is going to haunt you for the rest of your life.

The year 1974 is going to be a very pivotal year for you. You are going to be faced with a decision to leave one life behind and start a new one or stay on the path you’ve been on. I can’t tell you what to do here. I know I’ve had some regrets about the “path not taken,” but then again, things haven’t been too bad as they are. Just think it through carefully and once you make your decision don’t spend too much time regretting your choice.

After college you are going to bounce around for a few years, but you will meet “the one.” You won’t know it at the time. Hell, you won’t know it for a long time, but by they time you are the age I am at now, you will finally realize it. She’ll be a huge pain in the ass most of the time, but eventually you will realize that that is what you love most about her. Oh, and the whole drinking thing I mentioned earlier, she’s the one you’ll hurt the most. Well, her and your kidneys and liver.

By the time you are 25 years old, you are going to “fall” into a career. I would love to explain it to you, but it I just don’t feel like talking about it right now. I’ve talked about it so much in my lifetime that I am kind of sick of even thinking about it right now. Just go look up man-made diamonds or industrial diamonds and read up on it a little bit. Remember this Mike: No matter what they try to tell you, the answer is always higher pressure.

You are going to have some great kids Mike. You’ll raise them to be independent and then when they are all older, you’ll wish they weren’t quite so independent. It’s okay though, in the long run it’s for the best. Parenting is a funny thing. If you do your job right, some day they will go away and they won’t need you so much anymore. Good parenting = working yourself right out of a job.

You are going to get to see some really cool things in your lifetime Mike. You know that color TV that mom and dad got a couple of years ago? Well, all I can say is that you ain’t seen nothing yet.

There are so many things I could tell you about and warn you about, but I don’t want to ruin the whole experience for you. After all, it is all of life’s experiences, for better or worse, that has brought us to where we are today. Fortunately for both of us, you do have the ability to learn from your mistakes. Sometimes you learn a little too late, but you do learn. Well, all except for that damned smoking thing. Trust me dude, avoid nicotine like the plague.

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Again, opinions and ideas here are solely those of the writer and not of Third Option Media. Contact the writer if you are interested in discussing this article