A letter from Jun 03, 2022

Dear FutureMe, Hi!!! Hopefully I found this and still kept this email when I got older. I should probably get this in 20 years or so? I should be 35 by now, and hopefully still kicking, if I'm not, then hopefully I went out cool, like I got ****** by ghosts or something, that’d be awesome. Though if I'm alive, then I hope we stuck with art, or atleast went and did voice acting or guitar, or even better we went with all three! All those three mixed together would have probably made comic or show making easy!! I hope whichever way we go, though, we’re living comfortably, maybe in a cute apartment or flat? Honestly if the house fits into a Metropolis Cottagecore look, it’ll be great, hopefully if we were able to afford that, we also were making enough to support adopting a few kids, or pets, I feel like 30s is a good time to have both though. If you haven't gotten the pets yet, and want some name recommendations, I recommend FatFaz. It's a good name. Anyways, in case you might’ve forgotten, I have to give you some advice from my year in psych, so you better keep reading and not zone out, because I want to remember this advice. You probably remember or atleast are familiar with the Confirmation bias, we went over in highschool, which is the tendency to only search for, and value information that directly supports and defends their beliefs and values, it mainly can pop up in emotional or deeply ingrained issues and subjects, where it may be harder for a person to value the opposite opinion. While this problem isn't really able to be removed, it can be handled better, and you can train your mind to be more questioning of info, whether or not it supports your ideals. This can help us better with researching, and not falling victim to misinformation. Learning how to combat Confirmation biases could also make our arguments stronger in the future, since we’d be wayyy more confident in our information. It may feel difficult, but in order to truly be helpful and convincing in our cause, we have to be able to question our own evidence. Moving forward, exposure therapy would be a nice thing to keep in mind, a psychological treatment used to help people with anxiety overcome their fears, through direct contact and actively having to do what they're scared of. This can make people's lives easier, as they will no longer feel the need to avoid doing things related to their fear. This can be useful to us with our own fears, and help us be able to experience and do things that we are terrified of. A good example for what this can help us with is probably our fear of driving, especially over bridges. I don't know if we ended up solving it someday in the future, but perhaps if we were to start “wander driving” especially over bridges a couple times a week, this fear could dissolve, or atleast become somewhat bearable, which would be nice, since I don't think, at least in America, that riding the train everyday would be very pleasent. Another thing, that I DEFINITELY hope we keep in mind if we become a parent, is the Authoritative parenting structure. This is the most recommended parenting structure, as it is where a parent is nurturing, supportive, and responsive to their child, but also sets limits and rules for their children. Most children raised in this style tend to be much better people, as they were given a healthy balance of lenience and rules. We really should learn how to properly execute this style if we are going to be a parent, since it can help our children grow up to be good and healthy people, and probably keep us from going to a retirement home. I just really want us to be a good parent, which is why its very important we replicate this, and find a balance between our leniency and strictness towa I hope we also keep the fundamental attribution error effect in mind. FAE is the human error of underemphasizing explanations for an event. It can lead to quick decisions of why an event happened, an example being, people seeing poor people, and believing that if they worked harder they wouldn't be poor. This would be pretty good for us, since being able to give people the benefit of doubt, and looking for a deeper reason why an event happened. Also, since we tend to get anxiety about people immediately perceiving you not being talkative, or zoning out as rudeness, we should know better than anyone that not everything may be as it seems. Lastly, I want us to remember Solomon’s conformity study, a study about how long it would take for someone to conform to a group choice on a question, even if the choice is obviously incorrect.The study showed how most subjects would crumble easily when the rest of the group they were in had a different answer than them. Keeping this study in mind can help us be better at holding our stance and not conforming, and not feel anxious when the majority disagrees with us. The ability to not easily crumble to conformity can not only help us in all types of decision making, it may help us in group projects. You may not remember, but the amount of times we were in a group and knew the answer, but went along with the group and thus got the group messed up is embarrassing, and if we were to be better at not conforming, we can be more helpful to groups. I know my writing isn't the best (and still probably isn't) but I genuinely think that these subjects can help us in our future, and make us the smarter and better person we strive to be. Hope life is going well, and that we are happy and healthy! Also hope you're keeping in contact with Savannah and Lana, I know we forget to text, but you can just put on an alarm or something, no excuses.