I’m This Is Going to Hurt writer Adam Kay, and this is my honest letter to my 10-year-old self

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

Finger out of your nose, please. First of all, don’t panic about a 45-year-old man randomly writing to you – this is you from the future. I just wanted to tell you a few things before you tear this letter in half and feed it to the class hamster. (Don’t get too attached to that hamster, by the way. There’s an… incident next year.)

You can be a writer!

Yeah, I know you’ve been told you’re going to be a doctor since you were four, but other jobs are available. Even ones your parents tell you aren’t “proper” jobs, so just follow your heart and your actual interests. Although I would say that if you do stick with the doctor route for a bit, remember to write some diaries.

Don’t be ashamed to be smart

Look, you’re no Albert Einstein, but you enjoy learning and there are a bunch of subjects you’re quarter-decent at. But at school you’ll pretend you’re no good at them and stay quiet in class when your teachers ask questions, in case other pupils pick on you. Knowing the capital of Belize is nothing to be ashamed of (Belmopan, as you know), and you need to embrace your inner nerd. Talking of which…

You’re not cool

You’re going to spend the next decade agonising over how to be cool. Sadly, whatever you wear or however you style your hair isn’t going to convince anyone. (Those frosted tips at university are a catastrophic mistake, by the way – you’ll look like a melted waxwork of Justin Timberlake. You’ll hear about him in about six years.) Eventually, you’ll wake up and realise that it doesn’t matter in the slightest what other people think of you, and it’s OK to be different – the people who actually matter in your life won’t care about anything like that. One day you’ll write a TV show called Dexter Procter: the 10-Year-Old Doctor (see, you can be a writer!) all about the fact it’s fine to be different. Don’t worry, it’s funny too – give it a watch in December 2025. (The series will also be on BBC One over Christmas.)

Adults don’t always know best

You know how half the people in your class at school are idiots who you wouldn’t trust to open a carton of milk? Well, they grow up to become adults who you still wouldn’t trust to open a carton of milk. (Oh, there’s some bad news for cartons, too – they go out of fashion in a few years and milk all comes in plastic bottles.) Despite what they’ll repeatedly tell you, just because someone’s older than you doesn’t mean they know best. I mean, apart from me. I’m definitely right about all this.

Get your revenge

Most of the sayings that adults parrot out are absolute nonsense: for example, words are more than capable of hurting you, and sticks and stones are quite unlikely to actually break your bones compared with, for example, skiing. But there’s one saying that’s very true: revenge is a dish best served cold. Keep a mental record of anyone who’s ever wronged you, and include thinly veiled versions of them as the baddies in every book and TV show you write.

You’re gay, by the way, and that’s fine

Life will be confusing and strange for a long while yet, maybe for ever, and you’ll always be asking questions – why do the radiators make that noise at night? What’s the point of daylight savings time? Why do paper cuts hurt so much? What does third party insurance actually mean? But pretty soon you’ll start asking quite a big question – why do I feel this way? Big answer: it’s because you’re gay. You’ll feel like you’ll never have a “normal” life, whatever that means, and it will terrify you, but it shouldn’t. One day you’ll fall in love with a man and he will also in fall in love with you for some reason. Then you’ll get married (bit of a parliamentary legislation spoiler for you there) and have children (I’m serious) and it will be chaos and it will be heaven and everything in between.

There are no shortcuts

Unlike Dexter Procter, you’re not quite clever enough to get A*s in 87 separate A-levels. You’ll only do well when you put in the hard hours. Some of that work will be fun, and some of it will leave you covered head to toe in blood (you’re going to be an obstetrician, by the way, not a serial killer), but all of it will get you where you need to be. Eventually.

Actually, maybe there is a shortcut

Just in case you can’t be bothered doing any of that work, the Lottery numbers the week after you turn 18 (oh, they start a National Lottery in a few years) are 2, 7, 10, 15, 27, and 45.

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