A LETTER TO 18-YEAR-OLD SELF

Some pointers to help you in life: Your grades won’t define you; Talk to someone new every day; When attracted to someone, get to know them first

- Siddhartha Vaidyanathan

Dear Siddhartha,

A VERY happy 18th birthday, and congratulations on finish-ing your schooling. Here be-gins the most thrilling phase of your youth, one that the writer Roger Kahn so poetically described as a “point in life when one is through with boyhood, but has not yet discovered how to be a man.”

The next few years will whizz by. Much will happen, and yet you will look back and wish you had done more. There will be stacks of books unread, hobbies neglected and skills unlearnt. Time will expand and collapse in unusual patterns. School life may have revolved around a fixed schedule. College life — and beyond — is often about coming to grips with your freedom.

HERE ARE SOME POINTERS THAT MAY HELP YOU ALONG THE WAY:

Your grades won’t define you. Whether you shock everyone with 95 per cent or stay true to form with 70 per cent — which will prompt nosy relatives to shamelessly ask your mother if you are developing “habits” — your intelligence, creativity and the core of your personality will stay the same. Your family and friends will still stand by you. A set of poor scores may feel like a harsh blow in the moment, but over time it will matter far less (if at all).