A Roadmap to My Sixteen Year Old Self

Year 2000

To Me,

I am you from the future. In the future, people like to write letters to their younger selves. No, I am not joking, people are lame like that now. You have to get tagged to write a letter, but since no one tagged me (probably because I only started blogging 5 minutes ago) I decided to buck the trend and write it anyway. Yes, you become hardcore like that.

Most people decided to write lame letters pleading that their past selves be more cooler, chilled out, smarter, thinner or more sophisticated. Since you’re as good as it gets already (ladies, hint hint) and since none of the other stuff really matter, I decided what you needed was a bit more pocket money. So here we go.

Monarchos is the winner of the 2001 Kentucky derby. And Australia wins the 2003 and 2007 editions of the world cup. I’ve also included a list of winners of significant sporting events at the bottom of the document. Bet all the money you have on the winners. Yes, that includes the money you got for passing your O/Ls. And yes you pass all your exams, stop worrying about it. Also, bet anyone who’d care to listen that the war will be over by 2009 and that a black guy will be the president of the United States. You should get good odds. Now you should have some seed money to throw around. Now we start the real stuff.

Start buying all the gold you can get your hands on. The price of gold is going to go through the roof in ten years. Helped by the fact that some countries decide to keep their reserves in gold.  Don’t worry about the selling, I’ll be doing that. Just raise some money by using it as collateral.

In 2004, you’re going to hear about a company called Google going public. Your main aim will be to collect all the money you can and buy as many shares as you can from the IPO. And sell out by October 2007, that should earn you about five hundred dollars per share.

Next up is real estate. An apartment complex boom is going to hit Colombo soon and it will tank around 2008. Buy as much land as you can around Colombo 4, 5 and 6. So while all the other 16 year olds will be exploring their changing bodies (pubes for guys and boobs for the ladies), you will be buying up key real estate inside city limits. Start selling the properties around early 2008.

By 2008 you’ll notice that you are in fact, me – since unlike most people we are only 9 years apart. What with you taking care of all the real estate and the stocks, and me taking care of the gold, we’ll be sitting on top of a nice pile of money while everyone else will be copulating like rabbits on acid because their present selves don’t get enough action.  Now that we’ve got a substantial amount of money we can,

1. Buy a Gulf Stream
2. Get sexy

Now all we have to do is put all that money into low risk bonds and wait till my 35 year old self sends me a letter with the other details.

Dear John Pereira of 16.

You are awesome.

Love, John Pereira 25

P.S. – Don’t worry about losing weight. By 2009, fat people will be ruling the world and Sri Lanka. Most of them are in the Cabinet.