I have a habit of getting drunk and calling myself on the telephone. It happens about every other Tuesday or Wednesday. The middle of a busy workweek is when I'm the most desperate for my own attention.
I like to give myself plenty of encouragement and advice. "Just keep doing what you're doing," I say. "That's how I got my start."
It's fun to make these calls, but I don't like receiving them. When I'm busy working on a project with a looming deadline, or I'm having a romantic dinner, the last thing I need is my future self calling and blabbering a bunch of drunken nonsense.
You might think it's useful to get advice from the future, but it's really not very helpful at all. It's always too vague or obvious. "Be careful around large bodies of water," I'll say. "And tell mom you love her."
I never give myself any good advice, like a smart investment strategy or how to avoid regrettable behavior. It would be really nice if, just once, I would explain to myself exactly when clowning around will be funny and when it will get me into trouble.
Sometimes I get caught in a vortex of phone calls. I'll call myself in 1999, and he'll put me on hold because he has me from 2008 on the other line. Then I'll get a call while I'm on hold, and it's me from next month, telling me to hang up if I know what's good for me.
I got a really sad call about two years ago. I asked myself if I remembered when I told myself to just follow my heart. "Not really," I said, "But that's a pretty common piece of advice, so I've definitely heard it a lot."
"Well," I told myself, "It turns out I didn't really know what I was talking about back then. I've come to find out that you should only follow your heart about half the time. The rest of the time you should be practical."
That was when I decided not to listen to my own advice. I pretty much treat myself like a prank caller or a telemarketer now. "Why do you bother calling me?" I sometimes ask. "Because I love you," I always answer.
Paul Lundgren is a newspaper columnist and a very nice man. His e-mail address is paul [at] geekprom.com.
