They say youth is wasted on the young. Whoever ‘they’ are, they’re right. I’ll spare you my thoughts on ‘The Worst Generation’ and do a little introspection instead. I look back at my teen-to-20-something self and cringe a little, but mostly I think about all my mistakes and wasted opportunities, most, if not all, of which I could scarcely have known would turn out to be such a bug in my ass a few decades later, but still… If I could go back in time and talk to that guy, and if he would even listen to me, here’s what I would tell him:

1) Get straight As. You have the ability; you just don’t like school, or most of your classmates and teachers, but if you just do the work it’ll open up all kinds of doors for you. This is one of those rare cases where what those smug, narrow-minded assholes are telling you is actually true. Get good grades and go to Stanford.

2) If you’re not going to get straight As, drop out and get a GED. I realize I seem to be going from one extreme to the other here, but if you’re not going to excel in school and go to a top university, you should get out of formal education as quickly as possible and start making money. Try to stick ten percent into a mutual fund or something. Don’t ever stop learning, but there’s no sense in jumping through hoops if you’re not going to end up with a degree that opens doors for you.

3) Save church and charity for old age. While it’s true that you will meet your closest, lifelong friends at church, and you’ll develop some important skills there, the people who benefit the most from church are the ones who keep their involvement fairly casual. I know you think being a zealot is a good thing, but believe me when I say that you don’t want to be the naive kid who thinks he has all the answers — you don’t know shit yet, and that’s actually to your benefit, because learning is wonderful. So learn before you commit. Spoiler: you’re going to be an atheist later in life anyway, so don’t go all-in. The same goes for charity work. Sure, volunteer some time, but don’t make it a career. Make money instead; it’ll be a million times easier to run a charity later in life when you can do it on your own dime.

4) I repeat: make money. If I had spent the last two decades focused on making money, I’d be able to do whatever I want now. I wouldn’t be writing this shit, that’s for sure. Spend twenty years making money and the next forty years spending it. Whatever the specific career you choose, your job is to make money. If someone asks what you do, you make money. You don’t have to actually say that, because it’s kind of douchy, but you should be thinking it.

5) Figure out what you really love. Don’t spend years and years being pulled between what you really love and what you think you’re supposed to love. Make an honest assessment and don’t waste your time with things that other people think you should be into. The truth is I did a pretty good job of this, but I’m saying it anyway, because it’s important. When you’re not making money, be doing something you absolutely love, and that makes you a better person.

6) Get laid more. I think not having a family is a good thing for me, but between church and career and the misguided idea that I should only be in serious relationships, I messed up my personal life, bouncing back and forth between bad relationship and no relationship. I wish I’d put half the effort into casual relationships that I put into serious ones; I would have had a better time and saved myself a lot of energy and heartache.

7) Invest in long shots. I could be a Bitcoin billionaire right now, but I thought Bitcoin was a dumb idea. If I’d invested what I could afford to lose in some harebrained ideas, my life would be very different right now. Think of it like buying a lottery ticket, only with much better odds. You already buy lottery tickets with no expectation of ever seeing that money again, so this shouldn’t be scary at all.

8) Trust no one. Seriously. Fight the urge. There are people out there who ruin lives; it’s their entire purpose in the world and they’re very good at it. You will meet them. Many of them will seem like good people who want to help you — that should be your first red flag. The world is full of monsters. Assume everyone you meet is one of them. Be kind, in case they’re not, but don’t be trusting.

9) Travel more and learn foreign languages. I wish I’d done this more, and started earlier. My Spanish is slowly improving, but I really should be fluent by now. It also wouldn’t hurt to speak Mandarin, Japanese, or Arabic — just to name a few.

10) Stay healthy. This is easier when you travel more, and it’s also easier when you have money, but regardless, here’s the thing — it’s easier to stay healthy than it is to get healthy. You’ll never look back and regret not eating more food, or shittier food, but you’ll definitely regret the weight you gained, and not losing it sooner.

I like me. I like what I’m into, the things I know and know how to do. I don’t want to change who I am. If anything, I want to be more of -this-, and that would be my purpose in confronting my younger self. If I could sum up the above list in a single sentence, it would be this: Decide who you are, who you want to be, and do whatever you have to do to be that person, with enough money so that you can afford to change your mind.

I hate to be so focused on money as the solution to all of life’s problems, but the truth is that I’ve never had a problem in my life that couldn’t have been made better, if not solved outright, by money, and I’ve never done anything in my life that couldn’t have been helped along by having more of it. You can call it the root of all evil, but it’s not money itself that’s the problem, it’s the need of it to accomplish almost anything, with so few alternatives available to it. If I could get where I want to go, purely on the strength of my ideas and abilities, without spending a penny, I’d be there. If you still don’t agree, and you truly think money is the problem, I invite you to prove me wrong — give all of your money to me, and then we’ll connect in a few weeks or months and compare our lives and our happiness. There’s a contact form on this site if you want to reach out.