Life Advice from a Time Traveller by Jacob

Life Advice from a Time Traveller by Jacob - July 2025 Scholarship Essay

If I could give one piece of advice to my past self, it would be this: Just try to stand up for yourself more often. I will not go fully into the details here, but I was in a relationship with a man once when I was younger who turned out to have committed some very bad acts against others. Everyone else who knew him left him very shortly after that, but because I was too meek and too afraid of hurting him despite the personal discomfort he now caused me, I remained with him. It was not long after that had come out that that same man lay dead before me, killed by his own hand. I stayed with him simply because I was too afraid of hurting him to stand up for and protect myself. That was perhaps the most harmful example, but was unfortunately by no means the only time. It would happen to me again and again, people using me and venting to me without asking simply because I was too afraid of causing them pain to ever say no. Eventually, after enough pain had accumulated from me being used and then tossed aside, I finally was forced to overcome my fear of hurting others if only to preserve myself. Ever since then, I stand up to people more. I speak my mind more often, object to things I do not want to do and enforce the boundaries I have created for myself more thoroughly and spiritedly than I ever did in the past. I believe that along with my experiences at college forcing me out of my introverted shell has led to me having a far happier and fulfilling life than I ever had when I was younger and more repressed. I look back on the personal progress I have made since I knew that man and I feel something like pride. There were times where my younger self would have done anything to appease those around him, and aside from that once piece of advice I would also like to give him another simple message: That we made it. That younger self found it inside his soul to push through some of the darkest times of his life to date, and now that once reserved and timid boy goes to his college English classes and openly and without fear debates his peers on what they think is the best way to write a story. He pulled through that dark night and used his experiences to write award-winning poetry and short stories, and now he knows that all the things he ever wanted are out there in the world, just waiting for him to find them. This happy life all began with him learning to take a stand in defense of himself, and I think he would be amazed to hear that. Perhaps it would give him the motivation to do what needed to be done far sooner than it happened as things currently stand.