A younger Zology would….

I just saw this week’s HL prompt and even though I’m excited to jump on, I’m going to be writing based on my interpretation of the prompt, because to be honest, I have so many unclear things about the prompt.

What does “reducing your age mean”? Does it mean you’re just younger but you have the memories and consciousness or your older self? (In which case it would sound a bit like time travel). Or that you completely go back to living your younger life with no memories of what happens to you in the future?

Anyways, I’m writing from a general perspective, regardless of whether I’ll still have my memories once I become younger or not. So here are a couple of things I’d do with this second chance.

Play more

This sounds corny(maybe) but I’m dead serious. Growing up now, I feel like I didn’t get as much time to play as many other kids did. It was always either school or Arabic.

I used to to to Arabic (makaranta as it’s called here) every morning at dawn before I go to school. We’d go just after praying Fajr and come home around 6am to then prepare for school. I was a perpetual late comer to school because of that.

School started around 6am there to around 2pm for me. After going through stress in school, I’d come home around 2:30pm, pray and prepare for Arabic again at 3pm.

Then we’d close Arabic around 5:30pm and I head home to pray, eat and prepare for Arabic at a different makaranta at 7:30pm which will close around 9pm.

The only time I had enough time to play were on Thursdays when I didn’t have to go to Arabic and the weekends when I didn’t have to go to school.

As much as school and Arabic are important, Kids are supposed to be given time to play because that’s what kids do - play. They’ll grow up eventually, and when they do, life gets serious and there’s no time for them again. They’ll miss their childhoods.

Spend more time with his parents

This one isn’t entirely in my control, but if it could become younger, I’d spend more time with my parents. My mom was a very busy business woman and wasn’t around most of the time because she had to leave very early and come home very late to make ends meet for us. And my dad, well…let’s just say we didn’t (don’t) have much of a relationship.

Learn to cook

Well, I had to say this. As old as I am, it’s embarrassing to say that I don’t know how to cook, but it’s true. I went through 4 years of university learning how to cook only plain rice. Of course I didn’t come out with nothing, plain rice just isn’t much.

Why I didn’t learn to cook before I went to University was mostly because my dad had a thing against guys being around the kitchen, so it was difficult to stick around there long enough to learn anything. But if I could be younger, I’d learn how to cook against all odds because I’m really suffering the consequence of not knowing how to cook now.

Learn More

And when I say this, I don’t mean read more books or something. That’s included, but I mean this on a more general interpretation. I’d try to learn how to do more stuff myself, not just cooking, but fixing the washing machine, patching up that leaking rubber container, fix up the fan, change the motorbike engine oil. More Diys, you know.

There’s honestly a lot I’d do, but these are what surfaces on my mind at the time. If I think of a lot more and can squeeze them in before tomorrow, you’ll see a part two of this part. I highly doubt that’ll happen though so enjoy these (for now)

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All images in this post are mine