[LiteraryLark]

Five years ago I wrote a letter to myself to open on my birthday.

I read the letter on my birthday and it inspired me to keep writing letters every five years. But the trouble is, I don't know what I do or don't want to read about when I'm 30. What amazed me from my 20 year old self was the dates. I wrote that letter two years after my hospitalization and I wrote that letter because the kids I worked with all wrote letters to their future selves and that touched me. I was disappointed because there were things I had hoped to touch on, and the things I did write about didn't really mean anything to me at 25, and the letter was very short. The letter was mostly a "what I hope to have accomplished" letter and I accomplished none of those things in the letter.

So what DO I write about? I'll be 30 when I open that letter. What does a 30 year old want to read about? What do *I* want to read about? The problem with writing to a future self is that my experiences will be different and what matters to me now might now matter to me in five years or it will be obsolete. Like, for example, I wrote that I did not want children (now I do) and that I had hoped to have traveled and have gotten married by 25, and I did neither of those things. So I'm a bit stuck as to what to write about.

[jpennell1008]

Originally Posted by LiteraryLark

Five years ago I wrote a letter to myself to open on my birthday.

I read the letter on my birthday and it inspired me to keep writing letters every five years. But the trouble is, I don't know what I do or don't want to read about when I'm 30. What amazed me from my 20 year old self was the dates. I wrote that letter two years after my hospitalization and I wrote that letter because the kids I worked with all wrote letters to their future selves and that touched me. I was disappointed because there were things I had hoped to touch on, and the things I did write about didn't really mean anything to me at 25, and the letter was very short. The letter was mostly a "what I hope to have accomplished" letter and I accomplished none of those things in the letter.

So what DO I write about? I'll be 30 when I open that letter. What does a 30 year old want to read about? What do *I* want to read about? The problem with writing to a future self is that my experiences will be different and what matters to me now might now matter to me in five years or it will be obsolete. Like, for example, I wrote that I did not want children (now I do) and that I had hoped to have traveled and have gotten married by 25, and I did neither of those things. So I'm a bit stuck as to what to write about.

That's and awesome idea. I don't think you should worry about what you may be interested in 5 years. Write about things that have gone on lately... for instance if you were going through a hard time and wrote about it in the letter, in 5 years you could see how you had survived. There are also alot of small things that happen from day to day that we all forget about. Those things, however small they may be, may even lead into something larger that define you as a person. I think it would be interesting to see how I might have changed as a person over 5 years. Even if my interests weren't the same.... Dont know if it helps, but write about anything and everything, you'll appreciate it more as you get older.