I swear, I cannot get though a week without some sort of Fitzgerald. I feel like this is advice he is giving his daughter, but it is almost trying to tell her to take a different path than her parents.
In 1933, renowned author F. Scott Fitzgerald ended a letter to his 11-year-old daughter, Scottie, with a list of things to worry about, not worry about, and simply think about. It read as follows.
(Source: F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters; Image: F. Scott Fitzgerald with his daughter, Scottie, in 1924.)
Things to worry about:
- Worry about courage
- Worry about cleanliness
- Worry about efficiency
- Worry about horsemanship
Things not to worry about:
- Don’t worry about popular opinion
- Don’t worry about dolls
- Don’t worry about the past
- Don’t worry about the future
- Don’t worry about growing up
- Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
- Don’t worry about triumph
- Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
- Don’t worry about mosquitoes
- Don’t worry about flies
- Don’t worry about insects in general
- Don’t worry about parents
- Don’t worry about boys
- Don’t worry about disappointments
- Don’t worry about pleasures
- Don’t worry about satisfactions
Things to think about:
- What am I really aiming at?
- How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to:
- (a) Scholarship
- (b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them?
- (c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?
With dearest love,
Daddy
via Lists of Note.
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