An Open Letter to My Future Son
Inspired by John Steinbeck’s 1958 letter to his son on falling in love.
Son, I don’t know you quite yet. At 22 I'm but a young man myself. Naive, for sure. I don’t claim to know everything, but please trust me when I say I mean well. I’d like to think that in the just over two decades I’ve been around, I’ve picked up a few lessons.
I’d like to share them with you.
1) Fail, and fail often.
Learn to be both resilient and persistent. Understand that nothing worth having will ever simply be given to you. Be sure to question things that are (See Lesson #9).
Never be afraid to try something new out of fear of others’ judgment. They judge out of ignorance and behind a veil of insecurity.
Have a sense of pride when you fail, keep your head high, and push through. Surround yourself with supportive friends and family. Quickly drop those who put you down, mock you, or discourage your dreams, no matter how unrealistic they may seem.
2.) Develop empathy.
No matter how outrageously desperate and hopeless a situation may seem, others have experienced, and continue to experience, much worse.
Men, women, and children throughout the world die of starvation each day. Others live in oppressive societies where they are unable to voice their opinion, get an education, or simply go outside because of their gender, their sexuality, their religion, or the color of their skin.
Forget color, gender, and faith. You are a human with dignity, and so are they; that is all that matters.
It’s better that you know this sooner rather than later because the world is ugly, brutal, and thankless. But it’s simultaneously beautiful, welcoming, and forgiving.
3.) Become an eternal student.
Always be reading a book or article. I don’t care if it’s a fictional children’s book or a 1,000-page biography of Winston Churchill. There’s so much untapped knowledge in this world that we fail to take advantage of. If you spent a whole lifetime reading, as you should, you wouldn’t make a dent in the word’s library.
How sad. There is so much you and I will never know. But nonetheless, we must strive to know and learn as much as possible with the precious little time we’ve been blessed with.
And speaking of libraries: Make them your second home. (Hell, I wouldn’t mind if you preferred they be your first home, just try and be home for dinner. Or don’t, that’s your prerogative. Always.)
Learn, soak up knowledge, and be well-read. Don’t worry too much about being “educated.” You are learning correctly if you graduate from high school and/or college with more questions about the world than when you initially enrolled.
I don’t care whether you attend Harvard or the community college down the street on a part-time basis. Or if you attend college at all — though I strongly and earnestly suggest that you do. You will be serving yourself and your future family well by doing so. Give it a shot. You can do it, I promise.
4) Forget about money.
First and foremost, focus on the wellbeing of yourself and others. Yes, money is necessary, and the prospect of earning loads of money is alluring, but it is also deceiving.
Earn enough so that you and your loved ones may live comfortably. Find someone — a man, a woman, who am I to judge? — who will love you unconditionally, not for the size of your wallet, but for the size of your heart.
Don’t let wealth and material goods distract you from what’s important. And you’ll find, I truly hope, that what’s really important can’t be bought. (Except books, and only when there’s no library nearby.)
5.) Disconnect.
Believe it or not, there used to be a time before smartphones, Facebook, and even the Internet. You should really understand the irony in all this: Now, more than any other time in history, we are more interconnected than ever. Someone in Germany, Nigeria, or Israel is only a Whatsapp text message away.
But at the same time, these superficial interactions take away time that could be spent in person with others who live close to you.
You will laugh at, and also be disturbed by, photographs of “social events” where friends are paying attention to only their phones, and not to each other.
Son, disconnect every so often. Take a walk in the woods. Play basketball or soccer in the park. Go camping. Gather a group of fellow bibliophiles and run off somewhere far away and read poetry aloud à la the Dead Poet’s Society.
6.) Watch the Dead Poet’s Society. Again and again and again.
Carpe diem, my dear boy. Look it up.
7.) Travel and get completely lost (in translation, or otherwise…).
Whenever you feel the urge to up and go, do it. Don’t hesitate. Follow your impulses, no matter how ludicrous.
Purchase a one-way ticket to Bangladesh and see what happens.
Learn a new language and re-find yourself. Unlock these new worlds and the unique ideas, opinions, modes of thought, and dreams contained within them. (Get good enough to read books in these languages.)
8.) Fall hopelessly in love.
I defer to John Steinbeck’s advice to his son, Thom, on this one.
The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try and live up to it. / If you love someone — there is no possible harm in saying so / It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another — but that does not make your feelings less valuable and good. / And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
You got that, son? Listen to Mr. Steinbeck, he was a wise man. Like you’ll be someday.
9.) Question everything.
There’s so much toxic disinformation in the world it’s staggering. People have, and always will, distort information and data to serve some kind of agenda.
You are always entitled to your opinion. Just be sure you can back up what you say with an overwhelming amount of credible evidence.
You are free to (respectfully, of course) disagree with others. Conversely, and perhaps even more importantly, however, know when you’ve lost an argument. Use it as a learning experience, and acknowledge where and when you went wrong.
10.) Reflect.
No one but you can ultimately determine what’s important to you in life. Every so often, take a second to reflect and re-prioritize.
I know I’ve already done this myself a few times.
Don’t be scared. Embrace change.
When in doubt, repeat steps 1–10.
Or don’t. That’s your prerogative.
Hope to see you soon. (Maybe not that soon, but soon enough.)
XO,
Dad
