Three words

You meet your 18 year-old self. You’re allowed to say 3 words. What do you say?

There are many excellent choices to this question.

“Buy Apple stock” or “Buy Amazon stock” make a lot of sense.

Warnings like “Don’t marry Walter” or “Beware Francine McGuffin” or “Avoid fish tacos” might also make sense, depending on how badly you’ve been hurt by these things.

Admonitions like “Go to college” or “Start eating better” or “Leave Cleveland today” or “Don’t start smoking” also make a lot of sense.

There are a multitude of combinations of three words that could result in greater health, wealth, and happiness for your future self.

For me, the three words would simply be, “You’ll be okay.”

There were some excessively rough patches in my life. Homelessness. Poverty. Jail. Standing trial for a crime I didn’t commit. An armed robbery that left me with a lifetime of PTSD. An attempt to destroy my career through libel, defamation, and abject cruelty. The death of my mother. The abandonment of my father.

Much, much more.

All of it was incredibly challenging, but worst of all were the moments when I began to lose hope. For a long time, I thought I might never make my dreams come true. I wondered if I’d ever live under an actual roof again. Wondered where I might find my next meal. Wondered if I might spend years in prison for something I didn’t do.

I wondered if I would ever escape the endless nightmares that plagued me for more than a decade following the robbery. I wondered if those who tried to destroy my career would ultimately succeed. I wondered if I would ever live the kind of life that people around me seemed to enjoy. I wondered if I would ever be okay.

For me, the loss of hope was always the hardest. The belief that my future might be unstoppably, irreparably, and endlessly bleak was soul crushing.

I like to think that hearing my future self say, “You’ll be okay” might’ve helped me to avoid those darkest moments when I thought all hope was lost.

“You’ll be okay” would’ve meant the world to me back then. Far more valuable than any future fortunes in the stock market or anything else.

“You’ll be okay” would’ve been truly precious to me back then.