Know, trust and respect yourself: trainer and facilitator Michèle Taylor’s shares the calming guidance she would give to herself at 22.
garryknight via Visualhunt / CC BY
#IfIwere22: I’d get familiar with the social model of disability sooner rather than later
I’d find a place within myself to reject the life-limiting medical prophecies that have been cast my way. I would like to know that I don’t have to accept the projections that come from a society obsessed with its own delusions of invincibility.
Oh, and by the way, that whole celebrity culture and pressure to aspire to bodily ‘perfection’? That’s going to get a whole lot worse, so brace yourself.
#IfIwere22: I’d find an excellent practitioner to take me through my Myers-Briggs profile
You are an INTP. When you wrote your undergraduate essays in the three hours between 6am and 9am before cycling off for supervision at 10am, that wasn’t scraping by; that’s how you work best. Trust yourself. With time, you will learn to balance that with respecting other people’s ways of working.
To work with diversity, you need to start with celebrating yourself and the way you work, even when that flies in the face of culturally accepted wisdom.
#IfIwere22: I’d be a little more circumspect about acting on my tendency to be an early adopter
That mini-disc player: don’t, just don’t. Remember how exasperated you were when Dad invested so much into the 8-track cartridge system? That. There are going to be so many opportunities to jump onto gadgetry bandwagons. Take a breath and pause a while – until iteration two or three – before you launch yourself into the latest bit of kit.
You are going to love technology. It is going to open the way for your productivity, your artistic expression and your work in ways you can’t begin to imagine. Take the time to make wise choices.
#IfIwere22: I’d be reassured to know the people who are going to stay in my life
Those women who matter so much to you at 22 – the ones you’ve spent four years of your life with: teaching practice, essay crises, emerging relationships, broken relationships, first nights, last nights, all nights, graduation, first jobs – they are going to be there for many many years to come.
One sunny afternoon in Cambridge, in 30 years time, you will find yourself at lunch with these women and you will be immeasurably grateful for their friendship. Trust it. Nurture it.
#IfIwere22: I wouldn’t want to be too quick to listen to my own advice
I’d want to have my own journey, with not too many short cuts. I’d want to value the mistakes and the missed opportunities, since they all contribute to the person I am at 54.
It’s easy for me to say these things now. I’m not sure, though, that I would have got here from there without the learning process. So, take this advice and use it wisely. Pick and choose. Resist my desire to rescue you. You’ll work it out. I believe in you. And maybe it’s enough for you to know that.
Michèle Taylor is a facilitator, coach and trainer.
Tw @michelelataylor
about.me/micheletaylor
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