5 years ago I was 22. I had just graduated college and got my first ever car, with some help from the parents in it. I'm about to fail an interview or two involving older languages I never really mastered in programming / computer science. And then I'm going to start my career in something unexpected and unintended, Cybersecurity, and I'm going to really enjoy it tbh.

The only thing I would tell my 22 years old self is, beyond acknowledging that I'm ahead of a lot of folks my age, my finances won't really reflect it. I'm going to continue to rent, live below my means, Dave Ramsey style, and pay off my car, credit cards, and student loans and feel "self-righteous" and "disciplined" while doing so. I'm going to miss out on cheap 2% interest rates for affordable housing, unlike some of my friends/coworkers who struck at the opportune time, even without sufficient downpayment or other finances lined up. Envy will exist. I'm going to find comfort in my "above average" pay, when some friends/coworkers are going to make double because they didn't stop hustling and they allowed themselves to be exposed to discomfort and failure. I'm going to try to make up for it via gambling in stock options, succeed for a time around 25-26, then lose it all by 26 and 1/2. These are all experiences, inferences, lessons for me. Tortoise and the hare analogy strikes true.

Side note: I'm fairly proud of the focus and discipline on health and fitness for a natty, and proud to have gotten back down to my age 21-22 weight range at age 27.

5 years from now I'll be 32. Future me, I do not anticipate you will have a Master's, who needs one anyway when in 2022 you knew many coworkers who make 2x-3x your pay, at the managerial or higher levels that don't even have a Bachelor's. I hope that you have either a condo or house by your age, even if there's a chunky interest rate and daunting mortgage attached to it. I hope you've obtained your first ever six-pack and have maintained it for years. I hope alcohol matters less and less to you over the years, including setting stronger limits both in-the-now and over a time frame of weeks/months, it'll make that six-pack easier anyways. I hope you've been very picky with your women, as I've been lately. And to view women as another human, fairly, but not to invest your time/money in any that you don't think are worth it over a long time frame potentially. No more unintentionally, or perhaps intentionally, breaking girl's hearts, even if that's against the Misc Code of sloots gonna sloot and have as much sex as you can, to the point that your sexual activities define yourself as a man, and women are to be disregarded like objects. I hope dad's still alive and well, same with mom and brother. I hope you're still kidless too by the way, no baggage yet, your 37 years old version might be up to the task tho. I hope you have a positive, youthful, perhaps even blissfully naive outlook on life.