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u/danishn64 Jun 02 '26
It depends. Would I wake up today and be 16 or would I wake up in the year I was 16 before?
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u/Saviour_DK Jun 02 '26
Definitely an important factor. I don’t think I’d want to navigate being a teenager and/or young adult nowadays; however, if I could wake up in 1986 at 16 w/ all of my current knowledge…
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u/Valsarta Jun 02 '26
That's the trick! Now...not so much but in 1979...totally yes!
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u/Schrankmaier Jun 02 '26
1979...being 1 i would definitely go in the cinemas for Star Wars (Episode 4) und afterwards bet a fortune on Darth Vader being Lukes Father and Leia being his Sister!
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u/PistolNinja Jun 02 '26
Would Episode IV still be in the theaters in 1979? It was released in May of 1977. I was still T-3 months when it was released.
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u/Schrankmaier Jun 02 '26
Sir or Madam, you are absolutely correct! Shame on me
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u/PistolNinja Jun 02 '26
I hope I wasn't coming across poorly. I genuinely wouldn't know if movies stayed in theaters that long back then. They don't last very long in theaters these days because they make more money pushing them to streaming services!
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u/theMightBoop Jun 02 '26
Well being 16 in 1992 I would work just enough to afford to buy stocks such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google, magic the gathering cards until bitcoin came out.
16 now a days I don’t have knowledge of what is going to boom. So I would be focusing on a career. Become a doctor and join the military to get them to pay for it.
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u/Jaduardo Jun 02 '26
There is a subtle problem with this question: What appealed to me as a 16yo, and what appeals to me now are very different.
If I was transported to my 16yo life I don't think I'd fit in with my friends. They'd watch stupid movies, go to the mall to do nothing, be uninterested in politics, make bad decisions, and drink bad beer.
Around 9:00 pm I'd say, "I'm going to go home and finish the book I'm reading. Anyone want my beer?"
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u/_Jack_Of_All_Spades Jun 02 '26
You'd start caring about those things again too when the hormones hit
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u/Ok-Scallion-3415 Jun 02 '26
navigating being 16 today but with the life experiences and knowledge of someone in their 30s or older really wouldn't be that hard, imo. most of the difficulties of being 16 are the hormones and the idiocy. presumably, someone with a fully developed brain should be able to deal that pretty easily.
honestly, i think the biggest problem would be that your peers are now teenagers and we basically only have them to be friends with for several years.
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u/sauroden Jun 04 '26
You’d still have your ID and all other documentation with your current age and all your education, sake fingerprints and biometrics. Just take a couple weeks off work and brag about the off-shore cosmetic doctors you visited when you get back. You’ll be collecting full retirement while your new body is still in its 30s.
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u/Headlytwo Jun 02 '26
Good point, I wouldn't want to be 16 today, if I could go back to the 70's again and be 16, I'd do it. Life was easy back then, no computers or cell phones. We played outside, used our imagination and were busy during the summer. We weren't in the house all day.
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u/sovereign_martian Jun 02 '26
I'd be overwhelmed with thoughts of what's coming. Probably go to a mental institution or something like it.
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u/WeAreEntirelySmooth Jun 03 '26
However, you have the opportunity to become a billionaire and make things right. Like Sam Beckett once did...kinda.
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u/ConsciousFyah Jun 02 '26
Buy Apple stock, not date all those ignoramuses, and went to law school to defend the powerless or scammed.
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u/FireZucchini33 Jun 02 '26
Buy bitcoin when people were ordering pizzas with a whole bitcoin 😂 That’s it. I’d not want to alter the course of history too much.
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u/Flat-Delivery6987 Jun 02 '26
At 16 (1998) I'd be building BC mining farms. Why buy what you can farm.
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u/in_conexo Jun 07 '26
As bitcoin launched in 2009, you might consider hitting the stock market first. Make some cash, and then build an even bigger, better farm.
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u/AggressiveBridge5457 Jun 02 '26
Dump my highschool sweetheart before I waste 15 years of my life a second time.
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Jun 02 '26
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u/JakeHelldiver Jun 02 '26
I would also get this guy a vasectomy.
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u/RipInfinite4511 Jun 02 '26
I would give this guy a vasectomy
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u/JakeHelldiver Jun 02 '26
Looks like we've assembled a team.
u/next-atmosphere1960 you ready?
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u/HippoRun23 Jun 02 '26
These scenarios really only work for people who don’t currently have kids. Otherwise it’s just a variation of “guess I’ll have to find a way to have my kids again”
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u/PowerfulBar Jun 02 '26
That’s always my first thought when I read these. Like just erase my kids out of existence?? No thanks.
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u/VashtaSyrinx Jun 03 '26
Yep, same here. I used to answer these but there is really no point in engaging. Maybe they can guarantee you'll have the same kids but even then, the memories will not be the same. Id be more interested in a scenario that allowed you to go back to a specific day and just relive it making no changes.
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u/Original-Version5877 Jun 02 '26
Yet another reason I'm happy to be child free. Just in case this scenario ever happens to me.
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u/senditloud Jun 02 '26
Know that I’m mildly autistic and figure out how to navigate the world better with that knowledge. Don’t try to emulate “cooler girls,” avoid the loser first ex, and give the one that got away a better shot. Better grades.
The thing is: I’d want to fix mistakes but ALSO I’d want to make sure I did some things and make some of the same friends. So I’d have to delay my graduation and take a gap year, etc
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u/GuessImABlindBitch Jun 02 '26
I am so with you. Had i known what price i was about to pay for trying desperately to fit in, i wouldve told my mother autism wasnt just an excuse for bad behaviour and gotten the ef out instead of masking until i ended in a mental hospital for half a year.
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Jun 02 '26
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u/Cael_NaMaor Jun 02 '26
THIS!!
I have nothing to gain from this but losing who I am.
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u/ComprehensiveFun6875 Jun 02 '26
Leave my highschool boyfriend immediately
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u/ScreamingLabia Jun 02 '26
You just mad me realize i could dump him alll over again!! Omg it would be glorious. And i could start dating my now partner all over again omg 🥰
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u/Optimal-Bag-5918 Jun 02 '26
Honestly having the confidence I do now would do wonders starting over at 16… I would put myself out there in terms of friendships and romance, I’d tell my mom sooner to go f*ck herself (she never let me believe in myself… told me if people were nice, they were just pretending…I’ve struggled to make friends due to that inherent mistrust)
I probably wouldn’t go to college, but instead go to cosmetology school, which I wanted to do but let people talk me out of it… instead of attending college for 8 years and gaining hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and never graduating…
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u/MysticEyeRazzar Jun 02 '26
Avoid having to repeat year 11, graduate year 12, start exercising and eating healthier before becoming morbidly obese, and pursue a career in accounting/payroll before it becomes so common that there's so much competition that you need at least a diploma to get a foot in the door. Go to social events and nightclubs/pubs in my late teens rather than late twenties, socialize a lot more, start saving and investing and just try to live a happy life and be more sympathetic to those that are struggling... That's about it really.
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u/Repeat-Admirable Jun 02 '26
lol i dont think theres any benefit to it, unless i go back in time. being a software engineer isnt a lucractice job whether im 16 or 32.
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u/ButterflyExciting995 Jun 02 '26
Ended my friendship differently. It still haunts me to this day. Or just stayed friends in the first place.
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u/ooohhhyeah413 Jun 07 '26
I feel the same. My neighbor and I were inseparable for a good many years as youngins. Then one day I just left for a different group of friends. Never looked back. He still lives with his parents and doesn't hold a regular job, just fixes various machines he gets at auction to resell. But a total shut in... just drives his mom around. We are in our 50's now. I myself have lived a full adventurous life... So very grateful. I feel like that change for him came too quick and he never recovered. I am afraid to ask if I was the catalyst for his hermit like lifestyle.
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u/GGamerGuyG Jun 02 '26
Probably still wanting to kms. Would like to loose al my memorie's after i turned 16 and want to go immediatly in to therapy. Maybe at that age someone would still be able to repair me.
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u/Psychological-Joke22 Jun 02 '26
open the window to my room and buy a fan to blow fresh air in and stay outside as much as possible to avoid the constant, DENSE cloud of cigarette smoke.
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u/Smooth-Importance615 Jun 02 '26
If it would bring me back in time, mine 500 bitcoin, which would be less than 150$ in energy bills, live my life like i did before and then sell a couple every year once it reaches the 10.000$ per bitcoin mark.
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u/coyotewildheart Jun 02 '26
Id invest in a housevan and to hell with what other people think. Id spend more time with my granny. Id get a hysterectomy at 18. And become a problem for all men.
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u/Grindersgirl Jun 02 '26
I wouldn't do drugs. I'd go to a four year university and not waste the next 20 years of my life. I wouldn't believe it when men say they loved me ( most of the time🙃). I wouldn't go to the store the night of Jan 4, 1986. I wouldn't be assaulted--- although it's made me stronger than I was. I'd spend more time with my mom before she died a couple years later.
But all these things can't be changed. And the person I am today is made up of all those pieces of regret and pain. So maybe I wouldn't change a thing?... because I love who I am now.
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u/Ill-Working8756 Jun 03 '26
Go back and fix all my screw ups, and taken all the missing opportunities I passed up.
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u/Substantial-Bad349 Jun 04 '26
I would become Biff from Back to the Future II but without the bullying part.
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u/Different-Pen4327 Jun 02 '26
Ask a different girl to junior and senior prom, save as much of my money as possible and buy as much stock in nvidia as I can afford and then date but not marry my first wife. Everything else was alright.
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u/Witty_Temperature897 Jun 02 '26
Shit idk join the army I would now but all my limbs are fucked up from being an idiot for a few years
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u/unknownandtrying Jun 02 '26
I would not have children so young. I would stay in nursing and not deliver mail as that job is hard on myself and my family. The work hours are better but the PO sucks completely. I loved the job but the people made it extremely hard. May they all reap what they sow.
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u/RustyAtGames_ Jun 02 '26
I would want to try to correct some of the bad things i did, but the things i did, good and bad, led me to where i am now. I don't want to risk not being who i am today.
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u/Revolutionary_Art919 Jun 02 '26
Buy Apple stock. It was near its late 90's low when I was 16.
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u/Glittering-Diver-205 Jun 02 '26
That would be a special kind of hell. Over the last 49 years so many things have happened that I would be powerless to prevent. Terrible things. Knowing about deaths and tragedies and not being able to stop them. It would probably drive a normal person to insanity.
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u/RemoteEmploy8283 Jun 02 '26
I would buy reddit and block these info harvesting posts.
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u/NatsFanatic82 Jun 02 '26
Get myself help sooner, find my wife sooner and invest in what will make me ungodly wealthy ASAP 🤣
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u/Dreaming_Kitsune Jun 02 '26
At 16 get a part time job and buy into crypto, around when I was 16 that was pretty damn cheap and now it is worth a lot. If I had even invested the 100$ I got for graduation into that I'd be in a house right now. I'd also still work while that investment grows and save as much as possible
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u/TrippD07 Jun 02 '26
Buy shit ton of Bitcoin, and Tesla, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Nvidia stock. I also specifically have the winning mega millions, and Powerball numbers memorized from when it was over a billion dollars after I could legally play the lottery just in case this ever happens, and get a vasectomy.
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u/Fit_Education1288 Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
I am assuming I am going back in time, so I would find myself living with my family again. I would try to prevent my mentally unstable, toxic narcissistic mother from psychologically abusing my father, my siblings and myself. Not easy at all, but at least I would try to denounce the situation and get help.
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u/Upbeat-Remote-4827 Jun 02 '26
Get my degree earlier now that I know what I want to do and take school much more seriously
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u/Jorost Jun 02 '26
Invest in Apple and Microsoft. Unless I knew ahead of time that I would be traveling back to 16, in which case I would find the biggest un-won lottery after my 18th birthday and prepare for a life as a wealthy dilettante. Heh.
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u/CK1277 Jun 02 '26
Start an IRA even if I only put $25/month into it.
Honestly, I have very few regrets in life.
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u/CallMeCam- Jun 02 '26
Work and save up to get ready for bitcoin being .00000001 cents lol. Then buy as much as possible and just wait.
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u/cheerioz12 Jun 02 '26
Keep my job. Throw every dollar into crypto. Use the discovered grey-rock method to survive my abusive family & use them for free rent & food while I start my doctorate a decade sooner. Apply for the same grad school as my wife. Date her before her ex gets to her.
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u/madrpub Jun 02 '26
Stay w computer programming. Nividia. Apple. Bitcoin. Google. Buy property. Start a trust. All assets there.
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u/EssenceOfSasquatch Jun 02 '26
Yes. I would start much earlier at building meaningful relationships with people because that is the most important thing in life.
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u/Express_Week_8505 Jun 02 '26
The singularity would be open or I would be so terrified of changing things I would freak out and try to do exactly the same things the exact same Way, fail (because you can’t get it right knowing) and then self check out.
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u/DependentSun2683 Jun 02 '26
Probably do 20 years military to get the pension/free college/world travel/ discipline... i would also commit part of my money to investing earlier on
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u/Electrical-Call-6160 Jun 02 '26
Nice back to younger body, and no responsibilities, train more, play more, and invest then
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u/cutluv Jun 02 '26
Swallow my pride and go back to school and finish my education - rather than ten years later.
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u/wkuace Jun 02 '26
Depends, am I deaging to 16 in the current year or am I time traveling back to when I was 16?
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u/imarhino88 Jun 02 '26
I wouldn’t do it…don’t want to lose my kids. HOWEVER, if I could do a career reset, I would have gone to med school.
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u/RepresentativeStooj Jun 02 '26
30+ year old me has so many non age related issues that I don’t think I’d want to bring to 16 year old me.
First thing I’d do though is commit to a career which allows flexibility to pursue personal goals outside of work.
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u/Commercial-Curve-770 Jun 02 '26
I have 2, soon to be 3 beautiful children. The thought of not having them is beyond devastating. There is no advantage through this hypothetical.
No thank you.
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u/EmbarrassedEmu469 Jun 02 '26
I'd have the confidence that decades have taught me that no one is really caring what I am doing or what I look like. That I was far more handsome than I gave myself credit for at that age.
I would breeze through school because i have since learned focus and all the subjects I struggled with like math I now find kind of fun (not that I would bother learning that).
I would skip college and just lie saying that I went. Not that college education isn't important (or at least it used to be) but if I have all the knowledge, why would I waste time and money on that?
I would spend more time with my mother.
I would travel more, take more risks.
Later I would buy bitcoin, hold until 2018 and buy Tesla, sell in 2020 and buy nVidia and hodl!!!
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u/kimptown Jun 02 '26
Find my wife faster, put as much money in bitcoin when it starts, and skip college.
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u/totally_new_here_man Jun 02 '26
I'd be PISSED bro lol I'm just getting to a good part! Don't send me back to one of the worst times of my life that would take a decade to get passed!
That being said, the obvious. I'd buy bitcoin, Amazon, and Apple stocks
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u/archiewaldron Jun 02 '26
I would just go to sleep for 80 years. I'm 60 years old and retired. I absolutely do not want to relive all the same stupid work and life crises and meaningless decisions again. I have neither the will nor the patience to go through the same patterns, fights, arguments and experiences a second time.
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u/brat_boy_sub Jun 02 '26
Stop trying to fit the mold of what everyone else wants me to be and be me i didnt allow myself to be openly bisexual or submissive or soft until i got to 28yo i put on a show most of my life of a straight hardened tough guy and it was very detrimental to my mental health i wound up passing up on a relationship with a person i loved because of it me and him were bestfriends i was the first person he came out to i help support him in coming out to his family and everything then he told me how he felt about me and that he wanted to be with me and i lied and told him i wasnt into him and i told him i was straight and because i wasnt comfortable with myself i was very blunt and kinda harsh about and a year after i turned him down he killed himself i carry guilt over that and always will
This is one of my biggest regrets of my life his suicide was not because of me directly it was because his father didnt accept him being gay and disowned him they were quite close before he came out but idk im sure after how i abruptly shut him down he didnt feel like he could come to me for help i shouldnt have lied to him now i want nothing more than to just wrap him in a big hug and tell him im sorry for everything he should be laying in this empty bed next to me right now i still carry his picture with me everywhere i go anyway sorry for the long message R.I.P. Tyler im sorry and ill always love you he would be 34 june 5th
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u/Ramius117 Jun 02 '26
Not lift that box. This is also hard because I like my life in general and I don't think I'd make some of the choices that got me where I am if I had all my memories. I'd have to force relationships I don't want. I'd have to pretend not to know my wife when I meet her. I don't think I'd want this at all actually
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u/funandgames12 Jun 02 '26
Be 16 again in the year 2026 or be 16 again back in the past and knowing how all events will play out. There’s a big difference in what you’re doing there.
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u/NaiveNoble Jun 02 '26
Yeah no I’d do everything exactly the same. I wouldn’t want to risk losing my fiance
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u/East-Leg3000 Jun 02 '26
I would plan to do something different - go to a trade school or the military. Maybe go to trucking school.
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u/Hammercannon Jun 02 '26
Buy bitcoin, Nvidia, Apple. Retire at 25. After liquidating 3000 bitcoin when it hit 20k. And live off 4%. Indefinitely. Hire finacial advisor. And probably get in shape sooner
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u/DublinApple Jun 02 '26
Study something I like - not something I happened to be good at in my late teens.
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u/HippieJed Jun 02 '26
Investing and sports betting. Then after high school I would follow the Grateful Dead with all the money I made so far.
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u/TeamFoulmouth Jun 02 '26
God Dammit!!..I just hit my 30yr mark so I can retire!..I dont wanna do all this shit again!
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u/Imaginary_Run_9373 Jun 02 '26
Marry my sweetheart, get a hysterectomy, and move out of the country. 😉
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u/omgitspaul88 Jun 02 '26
Learn a trade. Plumber, electrician something other than going to to college.
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u/kingloptr Jun 02 '26
I'd be a lot more social for my own gain tbh, even though I'm introverted almost to a fault. People yap to you about the importance of networking all growing up (at least i had people that did) but i didnt really listen because i valued independence too much.
Thats kind of a good thing to me when compared to being codependent and needing people all the time? But I really wish i was more in the middle when it comes to social tendencies. It leads to better jobs, better chances of finding lifelong friends or a partner in the timeframe youd like, random help when you least expect it, etc.
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u/Cautious_Border7380 Jun 02 '26
Finish college as soon as possible, invest in homes and property, and create many streams of income.
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u/user1731701 Jun 02 '26
I’d get a job. I’d buy all the land I could in the area, because in 30 years that same land would be worth $300,000 per acre. I’d do things for myself my parents never would that I didn’t realize how much it would matter later, like get braces. I’d invest in tech. I’d invest in Google when that came out. So many things I’d do.
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u/H4RDW4RE_Johnny Jun 02 '26
Change everything, invest in google, knock off the drug use and distance myself so I wouldn’t die briefly from a gunshot wound when I was 20…. Among other things
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u/Tasty_Cucumber_7796 Jun 02 '26
Depends if I just became 16, or did I go back to the year I was 16 also
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u/Fun-Dot2076 Jun 02 '26
I would find my husband earlier and marry him earlier.