Listen to Your Dermatologist

Dear 30 Year Old Me,

You are vain.   You like looking at the mirror admiring the view.  You like the compliments that you get from boys and girls – compliments that surprise you – but also makes you feel affirmed that other people actually think you are as beautiful as you think you are.

You are beautiful but you really didn't take proper care of your skin when you were growing up.  So now you have big craters on your face that will put the man on the moon’s face to shame.  You also have regular break outs of pimples, black heads, white heads and even – ugh – warts.  Many times you think you’re 30 and you should be way past this pimple thing.  You are not.  A big part of the problem is the environment that you live in.  Manila is a dirty place.  The pollution in that city is horrible.  Another factor that prolongs your skin predicament is your diet.   Go back to item number two – eat healthful food and you will also clear up the pimple and the allergies.  Stop eating processed food!

Don’t protest to me and say that you’ve tried everything and it’s a lost cause.  It is not a lost cause – you are just too stubborn and you don’t listen to the many dermatologists you consult with.  How many times have you started going for diamond peel sessions and stop after five sessions?   Many times – right?   The thing is, like the investments that I talked about – the good results for your skin will only happen when you continue with the treatments.   Recognize that you have craters on your face the size of Texas and it will take multiple treatments for them to get better.  If you start with those treatments now  and continue on it for the next couple of years,  I will not have to photoshop those craters away from pictures I post on social networking sites.  

Listen to your dermatologist.  Work with her (they’re all female – at least the ones that I met).  Their magic potions can do wonders for your skin.   Stop listening to your friends when they recommend those moisturizing creams for you.  You are a complex individual and a specialist needs to take care of your skin for you.  Over the counter creams don’t work for you because your face produces so much oil that it may actually have been the Philippines’ answer to the energy crisis in the 80s.   The creams that finally have worked for you have contents like Tretinoin and AHA.   When you first start using these creams you will have really flaky skin.  Again, don’t listen to your friends who will tell you to stop using the cream.   After two weeks your face will normalize and you will start noticing the following:  better skin for you, tighter pores, and no pimple break out.

I am not sure if you have already encountered this song with a man talking to young graduating people convincing them to wear sunscreen.   You must listen to that man.  Sunscreen is your friend.   Sunscreen is your friend even if you don’t spend time outdoors.  You work with computers all day and those computer screens can progressively damage your skin from prolonged use because of the bad rays they emit.  So you must wear sunscreen.

Now I must tell you a secret. Thank the universe for making you Asian.  We have received a gift – which we will call the Dorian Grey effect.  You have met a guy named Dorian five years ago – and you know where this name comes from.  Dorian Grey is the man who didn’t age because he made a deal with Death.  So he looked young for a long time – while his picture (or painting) depicted his real age.  For someone like you – you will notice that you will stop aging.  People you meet will say – you don’t look a day over forty.  They are right.  Thank them for those comments.  You will look young for a long time – but I must warn you.  The Dorian Grey effect comes with an expiration date.  When you reach the age of sixty – if you are like most people who benefit from this gift – you will age fast after that.   I have not received the letter from my sixty your old self so I’m not sure if this will happen to me. But please, I ask you to help me slow that aging process down and start working with your dermatologist now.   Listen to her – continue with your monthly check-up, use her magic potions, and wear sunscreen.

With  much love,

The 40-something Year old you

(Blogger's Note - this is advice number 4 for the 30 year old me and was written as part of a really long letter found here.)

Dear 30 Year Old Me

Dear 30 Year Old Me,

I am writing this letter because I’m trying to think of writing something useful as a 40-something year old man for 40-something year old people but realized that it is actually very presumptive of me to think that I can write advice on how to live this fifth decade of my life when I’m just starting to live it.  Then it hit me that I've finished living through my 30s and learned a lot of things in those 10 years.   Of course, my 30 year old self will not benefit from it (unless time travel suddenly becomes a reality) – but it doesn't matter – I decided that I will still write this letter to you.  First I want to let you know that we turned out alright.  You didn't die of any debilitating disease.   You’re actually very happy and content.   Your confidence in your capabilities has continued to grow.   And one last thing; in your forties, you've never looked better than you did all your life.  But hey – you didn't get to this state without hard work, patience, good vibes, help, friends, family and faith.

I’m going to try to read your mind but I guess I don’t really need to because I am you and you are me.  I bet you want to ask me right now “Knowing what you know now – what should I have done or not done to make it better for me when I’m forty?”   Well, if I tell you about the things that I think I should have done or not done in my 30s; this exercise may turn out into an exercise on regret.   I will answer your question but not out of regret because if there’s one thing that I know now regret is a futile act.  You cannot turn back time and thinking of the wouldda-shouldda-couldda does not result in changing one’s life.  I will try to answer your question not in the spirit of regret but in the spirit of taking inventory of the lessons in life that I am grateful for.   

There are so many lessons but I would like to write about the five lessons that you must learn now.   The other lessons, my young Jedi self, you will learn in the future.  I am hoping that this strong inspiration that I feel right now will revisit me in the not so distant future and I end up sharing a lot more lessons than the five that I share now.

Let us start.  Read on my young self.

     1.  Come Out of the Closet

What!?!?  You’re still in the closet?  Honey , tsk, tsk, tsk (smh), you have wasted your 20s by not coming out.  As they say – youth is wasted on the young.  I know that you know you like men.  I know that you can relate to Will Truman’s character.  I know that you can’t relate to Joey De Leon’s depiction of a gay character (and frankly you will look hideous in drag) but nonetheless you are gay. You like men and you must embrace this wonderful gayness that you are.  (Read More. Follow this link)

2.  Stop Eating Processed Food

Look back at your life and think of when you were the fattest.   I’ll give you a hint – you lived in Houston.  You were supposed to be eating healthy and people admired you for supposedly eating healthy.   Yup – you got it!  You were fattest (and least healthy) – when you were vegetarian.  But the truth of the matter is as a vegetarian,  you were not really eating a lot of vegetables.  Remember when you said you can eat as many cookies as you want because there's no meat in those cookies?  You were less a vegetarian but more like a Processed Food addict.  Processed food makes you fat even if there's no animal product in that food. (Read More. Follow this link)

3.  Start Investing Now

“Money. Money. Money.  Lots of Money.  It’s a rich man’s world”

Abba

So much has been written about money and I think that as I write this letter – I will come up with more popular (and some might even be unpopular) notions about money.  If I recall correctly (and being 40-something does clog up my memories so I don’t always recall correctly) – at the age of 30 – you have made peace with money.  This is difficult for you to do because you grew up being educated by priests and nuns who made you think money is dirty. You also grew up not having a lot of money so your relationship with money in the past is as complicated as that mathematical equations you were solving in Calculus.  However, with all these complications,  you also realized that with the good money you earn, you are able to help out – not just yourself but your family.  You have made peace at the thought of appreciating the abundance that has followed you ever since you started earning money.  So I’d say, good for you and your healthy relationship with money.  You're earning good money.  Now - stop spending all of them and start saving and investing for the future.  (Read More.  Follow this link.)

4.  Listen to Your Dermatologist

You are vain.   You like looking at the mirror and wondering why you have not been coupled by now.  You like the compliments that you get from boys and girls – compliments that surprise you – but also makes you feel affirmed that other people actually think you are as beautiful as you think you are. However, every time you look at your face you see the pock marks left by very bad acne infestation when you were a teenager.  People told you to consult with a dermatologist to deal with the pimples, and blackheads, and whiteheads.  No use moping in one corner for not listening to that great advice however, you must listen to this advice now.  You must consult with a dermatologist now and listen to her so you can take better care of your skin to ensure that you continue to look youthful in your 40s and beyond.  (Read More. Follow this link.)

5.  Talk to Strangers

“This week I discovered a terrible disease called loneliness”

“You see, when children are young, they’re told not to talk to strangers.  When they go to school, they’re told not to talk to the person next to them.  Finally when they’re old, they’re told not to talk to themselves, who’s left?”

Mork of Mork and Mindy

I think you’re too young to recognize where this quote came from.  I only know about it because some people in my Facebook feed (a Social Networking site that will get really big) have posted it as one of the quotes from Mork and Mindy.  The actor who played Mork has just died.  That actor is Robin Williams and as you know he played the roles of many unforgettable characters. He touched so many of our lives in those roles. Thing is – as much as millions of people are mourning his death, I think that his death emphasizes a sad truth for all of us mortals – all of us die alone.  Hopefully though – even if you are alone in your death – you live a full life surrounded by people you love, people you adore, and people you care for.  In your 40s you are not alone but you like settling in with the people you are comfortable with. That's a shame because there are so many people out there to meet who could be your friends, or business partners or maybe even your life partner but right now they are strangers to you.  So one skill you need to start developing is how to talk to strangers.  Talk to these strangers because they will open possibilities for you.  (Read more.  Follow this link.)

That’s it – those are the key lessons you should learn right now.   Start with these five lessons and focus on them.  They are not easy lessons to act upon.  Some of them you might think are trivial.  Some of them might seem insane. You must however understand that I, your forty year old self, have the benefit of hindsight.  Hindsight is always 20-20.  So hopefully you will listen to me.

I wish the best of luck to you young lad.

Best Regards – and with much love,

The Forty Year Old You