Dear Andrew,
The lessons in this letter are hard-won; they were learned through significant struggle, effort of will, and one bitter failure after another. You spent days, weeks, months of your life in degeneracy and depression, but you eventually faced down the Black Dog and once again took control.
This letter is your reminder - whenever you feel the familiar struggle or temptations - to do better. To strive for quality in all things.
You know now that quality is your gateway to peace - where you demand quality, you reject the false and the short term.
To settle is to allow evil to win, one small concession at a time.
Quality in all areas of your life, therefore, should be something to strive for.
It begins with your most mundane habits - the care and attention you pay to tying your shoe laces, washing the dishes, or organising your home. Is this something you care about? Do you strive to improve? Seen in this light, even chores can become meditative and be used as an opportunity to create a better version of yourself. Are you the sort of person who thinks "someone else will do it"? Or do you just get it done?
These daily routines, when executed well, give you the time, space, and orderliness required to develop your mind and body further. They are the foundations upon which you can truly develop the one place you will always live; your body. The exercise you undertake, the food you eat, and the books you read can all be set to with the requisite level of care when your house is in order. You will find it easier to fall asleep and easier to rise when everything is in its right place, and as a result you will need to rely less on your willpower during the day to simply do the right things - eat your vegetables, get your exercise, and nourish your brain with high quality reading.
With these fundamentals all taken care of, your leisure time becomes truly something to savour and restore you - you will be able to relax in a way that you have struggled to enjoy since you were a boy. You will be able to enjoy the books and games, savour them, not get lost in them, and then put them down and get back to work.
You have been fortunate to develop incredible friendships and relationships. Your family - now you have dealt with your demons - were truly a gift of constancy and example. But quality in your family and closest friends is something that you must work on too; you must contribute. You must now be an example to them, and pay back the great gifts you have received.
In your new relationships be careful to maintain your standards. Hold people to account. Challenge them. Help them accomplish their own dreams. Ruthlessly hold yourself to such high standards that people in your presence feel compelled to raise their own game too.
Quality in your work life - which is really your mission - has been a long time coming. Though your path is certainly one less well trodden; though you have many thousands of miles yet to blaze; though you have the hardest parts yet to come, finally you know the destination. Finally you have set your sights high enough to motivate you, and so long as you keep your eyes up, nothing will stop you. Small goals and modest ambitions reduced you, squashed your personality, and ultimately delivered to you failure and shame. Never again be tempted by that which seems to be within grasping distance. Always stretch for the fruit just out of reach.
Do not let your recent successes deceive you; you are still an amateur. You are still just beginning. You still have so much further to go.
Remember, always:
You can do more.