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Last week I wrote a letter to my future self with several key points. In the letter, I listed out a few traits that I’m working on in 2013 and outlined the person I would hope to be by the year 2030. It included the present struggles that I face today and it was a reminder to myself that I can look back on anytime I want.

Now I’m opening up a question to all my readers: Who do you want to be in 2030?

We often hear the advice of picturing WHERE you want to be, but rarely is the question asked of who do you want to be in the future.

Keep in mind this is a personal development question, but it can be interpreted in any other way that you feel fits.

What are you like, Vincent? I am still working on improving myself every day through daily self-reflection. Here are some of the things I hope you’ve fully internalized by 2030; the traits of who I want to be.

Don’t be afraid of being different
Back in 2010 and even earlier than that, you cared a lot about what others thought. You weren’t yourself because you were so scared of not being accepted.

Then you met great mentors, you established strong bonds, and you found that being different is not so bad. You were living life happily and it didn’t matter if you were different.

You learned that being different makes life more interesting and that people are drawn to genuine personalities. Continue to be genuine and be interested in others, because I know you LOVE learning about other people. Most people aren’t like that, so keep being different.

Besides, it’s no fun being a fake. Too many people are fake, not enough people are genuine, and you are the only one out of millions who aren’t afraid of who they really are. Keep at it.

It seems that through every hour of darkness, every moment of utter defeat, and every period of my life where I’ve felt at my lowest, I found solace in walking.

I maintained my sanity through long walks at night to be left alone with my thoughts. It didn’t matter where my destination was or whether or not anyone saw me all alone. “What a loser,” someone must have thought to himself as I walked around the lonely, quiet neighborhood. I can’t blame anyone for thinking that because at the time I sure felt like a loser.

The moment the clock hit 8 p.m., I took off into the night without any explanation to anyone. I dropped what I was doing, headed out the door, and returned an hour after. I always managed to return with a content smile on my face.

Forming the Ritual
Years passed since my last tragedy and I had gotten rid of that nightly ritual. I found myself no longer needing walks to keep my sanity. Why? I realized how great my friends were and began to emotionally invest in the “overpowered” group for support.

Over time, walking just soon became embedded into what we did. Sure, we were too young to drive back then, so we didn’t really have much of a choice, but we loved every minute of it.

A close friend and I spent two hours walking to the mall and while we did it, we just talked about anything that came up no matter how personal and secret it was. Walking taught us to embrace the moments of silence. It taught us to let go of our worries and just focus on the present. These sorts of walks kept us sane and we tried our best to take advantage of walks as much as we could.

A few years ago, a friend and I did the trust fall test with each other; the trust fall is the cliche symbol of true friendship. The problem is, I’m such a frail and skinny guy that I nearly dropped her onto the hard tile of my kitchen floor. It ended a lot better than it could have. Too bad this isn’t the sort of trust I’m talking about.

When it comes to trust, it is my honest opinion that I’ve never been harmed due to placing trust in others. Sure, there may have been times where my trust was taken for granted and I was wrong, but was I ever harmed? Probably not.

People are told all the time, “be yourself,” but what does that mean? They promise everything will just fall into place as long as you remember how to be yourself, as if it is some profound, life-changing advice. Why didn’t you and I think of that? Huh, “be yourself.”

Really though, what does it even mean to be yourself? Even if you wanted to, do you know how to be yourself?

Truthfully, I doubt that many people even figure out who they are and perhaps never will know what it means to be themselves.

Who had themselves figured out? Abraham Lincoln? Teddy Roosevelt? Colonel Sanders?

Nope, during their lifetime they were just working up the self-stairway (hey, that’s the name of the site!)