Winnie Lim " things I would like to tell my 10 year old self

journal/

on-going mostly unedited stream of thoughts

July 5, 2026

things I would like to tell my 10 year old self

I’ve been wanting to write a post like this for ages. A post which I essentially write about things I’ve learnt in life so far, that I would impart to my 10 year old self even though she would probably not listen, or that it wouldn’t be realistic because that so much I have learnt was simply not available in that era. I picked 10 years as the age because she would be old enough to understand and yet still untainted by life.

This felt like a momentous post to write hence till now it remains unwritten. It seems difficult to accurately gather everything that I want to express.

But these days I am trying to be very mindful of impermanence. If I were to die tomorrow, what are the words I would leave behind right now? I can acknowledge that I am a work-in-progress and hence this post will be too. I can write a version of it and it can be improved or added upon as I age. So here goes:

sleep is everything

Please have good sleep hygiene, avoid the late-night nescafe and redbull cans. Perhaps then we would have a chance to avoid premature greying hair and chronic migraines later.

nutrition matters a lot

Stop eating so much candy and chips. There is a reason why we had perpetual brain fog, fatigue and food comas. Ingest more protein please. Metabolism is life.

stop "falling in love"

Love as shown in the movies do not exist. Stop waiting to be rescued or completed. Don’t use "love" as a form of disassociation. Invest in our own psyche early.

be financially literate

It is very sad to admit this: money is not the most important thing in life but it is essential in order obtain some form of personal freedom. Learn about the 4% rule. It would be difficult to buy into the stock market in the 2000s in singapore though.

exercise = energy

Energy is mostly not magic. It is supplied by mitochondria. To have energy, feed them well and voluntarily kill them periodically.

don’t mortgage our energy

Youth, time and energy can seem infinite. All those long hours, late nights, excessive use of energy and hyperfocus – there will be debts waiting for us in the future.

a degree is useless in terms of knowledge but useful for immigration options

At age 45 I still believe for most people, conventional schooling as it is today doesn’t really impart much knowledge. But if I were to redo life again I would do the bare minimum to get a degree, just to open up options.

don’t worship anybody

Every person has psychological issues in some shape or form.

don’t play the status game

There is no point in living life just to impress others. Find the way to a quiet rewarding life. The world is a theatre, we can’t escape it totally, but we don’t have to blindly participate. Quitting the status game will gift great personal freedom, because much of the world’s energy is wasted on it.

…but some games have to be played

We can’t escape society’s games and rules. Trying to avoid them entirely will lead to personal misery. It is important to be realistic. Play them at bare minimum to get to where we want to be.

understand our neurodivergence

We are not lazy, clumsy, over-sensitive, etc. Our brain and nervous system simply functions differently. This would be the most challenging because in the 80s to 2000s there is very little awareness about neurodivergence. But if I could have my current consciousness at age 10 I would spare myself so. Much. Grief. And self-hatred. In the 2010s nobody would give us grief about our phone phobia anymore because voice calls will become uncool and deemed to be intrusive.

trauma colours everything

As a 80s child we are taught to believe in "meritocracy" – that as long as there is a will, there is a way. But trauma will shape our thinking, influence the way we think and respond, impact the way we relate to other people and our selves. It will cause us to accept bad jobs and fall in love with the wrong people. We can’t escape it, but we can be aware of it.

arguing is almost always pointless

People just don’t change their minds most of the time. A lot of it is not simply stubbornness, but rather every psyche learns, stores and interprets information differently. Language has given us the illusion that communication is easy if we are capable of using the same words. There are also different dimensions of literacy, but we don’t take that into account.

learning itself is a skill

We found traditional learning hard because we had never learnt to learn. It is not tenable to over rely on our hyperfocus. It simply leads to repeated burnout. Learning to chunk is essential.

be aware of systemic injustice

Even a hermit will have to rely on others to survive. Infrastructure doesn’t magically appear. This is something we will continually think about – keeping us grounded. Don’t be one of those people who think their success is entirely...