One great way to make yourself cringe is to watch video of yourself as a teenager. If only you could go back in time and give yourself a little advice to ease the way forward.
Young adults from the York School Class of 2004 in Monterey, Calif., were confronted with their teenage hopes and dreams when they gathered earlier this month for their 10-year high school reunion. Each viewed a video “message to my future self” recorded more than a decade ago during senior year. The videos—mostly about a minute long—are a 15-year tradition at York, a private high school with a diverse enrollment of 230 students, 35% to 40% of them on financial aid.
While the videos elicited plenty of laughter and eye-rolling, the 14 members of York’s 53-student Class of 2004 who attended the reunion saw value in pausing to revisit goals set long ago. Many found that their teenage selves had sketched out achievable road maps—though they’d underestimated the confidence and patience needed to pursue them.
The members of the York Class of 2004 were unusually well-equipped to achieve their ambitions. Nearly all York students attend college and 83% graduate in four years, more than twice the national average. Still, they exited college into a recession, and most of them had trouble building the careers they wanted.