Dear future self, always remember one thing... －拝啓、将来の私、これを覚えていてください－

Imagine that you know that you are going to die tomorrow.  Okay, now cheer up!  You are also going to be reborn into a new body.  Unfortunately, you will have to start over as a baby, and you will not remember the life you are living now.  But you are in luck!  You can leave one message to yourself in the form of a single piece of life advice.  If you have made a major mistake in this life, you can be forewarned in the next.

What advice would you leave for yourself?  It could be something very general, like: “Try to be happy.”  But that is probably not very useful.  How do you actually put that into practice?

Perhaps you would be better picking a more specific piece of advice.  If you have lost a lot of money gambling, you might advise your future self to stay well clear of Las Vegas.

The reason I have been thinking about this topic is that a relative of mine is going to give birth soon.  She asked me to write down some advice or a message for her unborn daughter.  The child will then be able to read the message some years in the future.  I found it quite difficult.  How old will she be when she reads it?  If she will be five, I might say, “If you wet the bed, you should tell your mother quickly.  Don’t try to hide it.”  But that advice might surprise her if she doesn’t read it until she is 18.

So I tried to solve the problem by thinking about it as I wrote above.  What information would I want to pass on to myself, if I could be born again?  I also wanted to avoid something too general.  So here were some ideas I had:

-“Save some money while you are still young and healthy.  You might need it later.”

-“If you are drinking by yourself, never open a third bottle of wine.  You, and your carpet, will regret it.”

-“Be cautious of red-haired women.  I don’t have time to go into all the details.”

-“Do not wear socks with holes in them to a Japanese friend’s house.  You will have to take your shoes off and it will be embarrassing.”

Okay.  Some of the above points may in fact be too specific to my life.  In the end I wrote down this advice:

-“Be careful of dentists and plumbers.  They make money by finding things to do, not by helping you avoid unnecessary work.”

Sorry to any dentists, plumbers and red-haired women who may be reading this.  I can only judge from a single life’s experience. 

Vocabulary:

to be forewarned – to be told of danger in advance

to put something into practice – to take an idea, theory etc. and try to use it in a real situation

to give birth – for a pregnant mother to release a baby into the world

to wet the bed – to release urine into one’s bed when sleeping