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You’re too young to appreciate anything I have to say. So you’ll just go ahead and make the exact same mistakes I did. For what do I know? What could I possibly know?

Well, maybe one day we will both exchange notes, on the regrets which harangue us, when it’s much too late to make amends.

By then, if the Most Merciful wills, you’ll have kids of your own, who likewise will have no interest in anything you have to say. They too will not care for your regrets, either.

I get it. The peer pressure is unrelenting. The pressure to conform. To be bad, like all the cool kids. To flunk your studies too, lest anyone call you square.

But, bad news, even if you want to be a brickie, a sparky or a plumber, you’ll still need at least a 4 in Maths and English. Believe me: I’ve been through every apprenticeship offer today.

Maybe whatever your mates are calling to will be fun for a week or two. Exciting, even. But soon enough it won’t be fun at all.

Not when you’re out in the world alone, trying to make ends meet on a minimum wage, scraping to afford your rent, put a meal on the table, fund a car, pay your taxes.

I can show you a time before our present, when we drove an old banger and lived in a rooftop flat covered in black mould. When I couldn’t get a proper job, and had to traipse across London to drive an Italian coffee machine. And all that even with a Master’s degree.

It’s a tough world out there. But I get it: you want to be part of the crowd. Didn’t we all. I too got into bad company for a time.

But eventually, I woke up. I hope you will too. I hope you’ll sort yourself out before it’s too late. I hope you come to your senses. Make things right. Before it’s too late.