Letter To My Younger Self

A few months ago I was asked by Ireland’s Big Issue Magazine to write a letter to my younger self offering words of wisdom. Here’s what I wrote to my 17 year old self.

Dear Me,

It’s June 1977 and you’ve started a new job you love, in a record shop owned by EMI, in O’Connell St Dublin. You’re earning £21.50 per week and you’re getting paid to do something you’d do for nothing at home; play records all day long. It’s the perfect job for you and probably the most enjoyable job you’ll ever have. You’re off to a great start to your working life.

In school you showed a talent for Maths and your mother decided “a job in the bank” would be the ideal job for you “It’s a job for life with a good pension and favourable mortgage rates for employees”. You couldn’t think of a job you’d hate more, so you deliberately failed Maths in your Leaving Cert to make sure your mother couldn’t nag you into taking a job in a bank. Instead, to your mother’s horror, you got a job that you love, in a record shop. Contrary to popular belief, and certainly to your mother’s belief, your job in a record shop isn’t a dead end job. In seven years you’ll end up being the sales and marketing manager of EMI Ireland and you’ll work with people like David Bowie, Queen, Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Diana Ross, Pet Shop Boys etc. Don’t worry about your mother lamenting that you don’t have a proper job. In 1988 you’ll take her out to dinner with Cliff Richard and she’ll accept, at last, that you’re doing well.

Follow your own path in everything you do concerning work. If anyone gives you career advice – just don’t listen. Don’t listen to anyone who says “You must find something practical to do’ or ‘you must have a real skill to fall back on or a pensionable job”. Never look at a job doing something conventional or sensible because you’ll only end up in a job that doesn’t make you happy. Deep down you know what’s best for you.

Stop trying to have girlfriends. They’ll only end up being friends anyway, because you know in your heart of hearts you have no sexual interest in girls and you never will have. Save yourself six more years of hiding in the closet. In 70s Dublin gay people are “Queers’, ‘poofs’, bent” etc. and you are doing everything in your power not to think of yourself as gay, because being gay is different – and not in a good way, you think, in 1977.

I know you’re putting the ‘gay thing’ to the back of your mind, afraid of being found out, afraid that if your friends discover your secret they’ll turn against you and you’ll have no friends left, but the opposite is true. When you come out in six years time, not one single friend of yours will abandon you. They won’t care one bit. In fact they’ll be delighted to have a gay friend and they’ll think you coming out is great news. You’ll meet some fantastic friends on the gay scene too, like Ken and Robert, who will still be your best friends in forty years time. You’re a teenager and you want to be part of a group. There’s one waiting for you if you just pluck up the courage and go to them. Don’t waste your time trying to hide who you are.

Last but not least – stop trying to please everyone. It’s impossible to do. Learn how to please yourself and don’t deliberately do any harm to anybody. That way you’ll get to your late 50s with no regrets whatsoever, and you’ll be able to look back and say “I’ve had a terrific life”.

Hey, by only working at jobs you love you’ll even end up being famous hahahahaha. You’re going to have a fantastic life with much to celebrate in Ireland, especially in 1993 and 2015

From http://rorycowanblog.com/index.php/2017/07/22/letter-to-my-younger-self/#comment-15