Letter to My Younger Self: Anthony St. Clair, Monmouth โ11
Dear younger me,ย
I know things are really tough right now, but youโre going to be okay.ย
Youโve already lived through more than any kid should have to. You hide the bruises on your arms while trying even harder to hide the emotional wounds that leave you feeling broken, alone, and invisible. Alcoholism has stolen people you love and made you afraid of your own home. Right now, youโre just focused on getting through the day. What you canโt see yet is that the things forcing you to grow up so quickly are also building qualities that will stay with you for the rest of your life. Youโre going to learn independence, how to solve problems, adapt to difficult situations, and keep moving forward even when you have no idea what comes next. One day, what feels like a burden will become one of your greatest sources of strength.ย
What I wish you knew most is that life-changing moments rarely announce themselves when they happen. They usually show up disguised as ordinary decisions.ย
For reasons that will never make complete sense to anyone else, youโre going to decide that while other kids are learning the trumpet, violin, or guitar, you should learn how to play the bagpipes. Most people are going to think itโs strange. Honestly, theyโre not wrong. But do it anyway. Youโre going to discover that youโre pretty good at it, and years later those bagpipes will earn you a scholarship to a small college in western Illinois called Monmouth. At the time, it will feel like little more than an opportunity to attend college. What you wonโt understand is that a decision made by twelve-year-old you was quietly setting the course for the rest of your life.ย
Monmouth will introduce you to many things, but none will be more important than the group of men you meet when you help bring Phi Delta Theta back to campus. Looking back, that decision will matter every bit as much as picking up the bagpipes for the first time. You wonโt simply join a fraternity. Youโll become part of a brotherhood that changes the way you see yourself and the way you move through the world. Your childhood taught you how to survive on your own. Phi Delt will teach you that you donโt have to.ย
Growing up, you learned how to anticipate problems before they happened. You learned to rely on yourself because sometimes it felt like there wasnโt another option. Those skills served a purpose, but they were only part of the lesson. Your brothers will teach you how to trust people, how to lean on others when you need help, and how to be there when someone else needs you. Youโll learn how to communicate with people who think differently than you. Youโll learn that disagreement doesnโt have to mean disrespect, and that some of the strongest friendships in life are built between people who donโt see every issue the same way.ย
Youโll also learn lessons about leadership that no classroom could ever teach. Leadership isnโt about having all the answers or being the smartest person in the room. Itโs about listening before speaking and bringing people together when opinions differ. Itโs about accepting responsibility when things go wrong and sharing the credit when things go right. Most importantly, youโll learn that leadership is ultimately about service. The best leaders arenโt focused on themselves; theyโre focused on helping others succeed.ย
As you get older, youโll learn something else that seems obvious in hindsight but feels impossible to understand at twenty: donโt sweat the small stuff. There will be plenty of things that seem incredibly important in the moment that wonโt matter a decade later. You donโt need to defend yourself from every criticism, win every argument, or protect yourself from every disappointment. You donโt need everyone to understand you, and you certainly donโt need every plan to unfold exactly as you imagined. Life is going to change. People are going to change. You are going to change. The sooner you learn to embrace that reality instead of fighting it, the happier youโll be.ย
Eventually, youโll become one of the old guys, and the young guys will remind you of that fact every day. Youโll watch younger brothers walk through the same doors you once walked through, trying to find their place just as you did. Youโll see them make mistakes, grow as leaders, experience setbacks, and discover strengths they never knew they had. During those years, youโll gain a different perspective on your own journey. The men who came before you helped build the road you walked, even though you didnโt know it at the time. They invested their time, energy, and wisdom into creating opportunities they would never personally benefit from, and those efforts helped shape the life youโre living. Now itโs your turn to invest in others.ย
Youโll find tremendous purpose in doing exactly that. Youโll share lessons that took years to learn. Youโll challenge younger brothers when they need to be challenged and encourage them when they doubt themselves. Youโll help them navigate some of the same questions you once struggled to answer. Along the way, youโll find that some of lifeโs most meaningful moments come from helping someone else find their footing.ย
Looking back, youโll see that your childhood taught you how to build a life for yourself, but Phi Delta Theta taught you how to build a life beyond yourself. The boy who learned to survive became a man who serves. The child who learned to depend only on himself learned that strength isnโt found in standing alone, but in standing beside others. And the young man who spent so much time wondering whether he had a future will one day find himself helping other young men build theirs.ย
Keep going. Trust that things can get better even when you canโt imagine how. The future youโre worried you may never have is already making its way toward you. A decision as simple as learning the bagpipes will set into motion a chain of events that leads you to Monmouth, to Phi Delta Theta, and to opportunities you could never have imagined. And years from now, when you look around a room filled with men youโre proud to call brothers, youโll understand that every step of the journey led you exactly where you were supposed to be.ย
With gratitude,ย
Dr. Anthony St. Clairย
