Read time: 7–8 min
Writing a letter to yourself feels strange. There is no one waiting on the other end. No one to impress. No one to perform for. That is exactly the point.
Most of what we write — messages, reports, pitches, reflections — is shaped by the audience reading it. We soften things. We emphasize what sounds good. We edit out the parts we are not proud of. The letter to future self is different because the only reader is you, at a time when you will know whether what you wrote was true.
That shift in audience changes everything about what you are willing to write.
Goal-setting produces lists. Lists can be ticked off without changing anything fundamental. I can write 'launch something' and check it off whether or not what I launched was meaningful, whether or not I showed up honestly, whether or not the work asked anything real of me.
A letter to yourself does not work that way. It requires you to imagine standing in the future, looking back at the present, and telling yourself the truth about what mattered. That imaginative act forces you to take a position on what you actually want your life to look like — not what you think you should want.
The students whose letters stayed with me are the ones who wrote as if they were telling the truth about what they were afraid of — not what they hoped others would think of them. Those letters do not just capture a moment. They shape what comes after it.
Before I taught this course for the first time, I wrote a letter to myself. To the version of me who would reach the end of the semester. I want to share it with you — not because it is exceptional, but because it is honest, and honest is what makes this exercise work.
Dear 4 Dec Kasper,
Congrats on reaching another milestone. You always dreamed of being a professor — not for the title, but because you love teaching, supporting people, and helping them discover their "why" and design their life around it.
You will doubt yourself: Do I deserve to be teaching these bright students? Do I know enough? But remember: it's okay not to have all the answers. What matters is that you learn together, stay curious, and give your best.
This course will drain your energy at times. You planned for 20 students, but nearly 50 joined. It wasn't easy to balance time and strength. Still, your energy returned whenever you read their reflections. Their growth is your fuel.
Treat your students like family. One of them may one day change Thailand or even the world, and you'll be proud to have been part of their beginning. Don't be the stubborn professor. Be the curious brother — let their wonder teach you too.
And remember your father. He once wanted you to study at Chula Engineering. You chose another path. Yet here you stand today, teaching his roon nong. Somehow, his dream and yours met in this classroom. Carry that with gratitude.
At the end, congratulate your students. Tell them how proud you are and how much you believe in them. Remind them they will always have your support — and that through SEA Bridge, they're part of something bigger. Welcome them to SEA Bridge NextGen Family!
With pride, — Kasper at the Beginning of the Course
I wrote this before I knew what the semester would be. Then I lived it. When I read the letter at the end, the person I was trying to become was visible in what I had written. Not everything happened the way I imagined. But the commitments I made to myself in that letter shaped how I showed up every single week.
That is what the letter is for. Not prediction. Direction.
The one-year letter is the harder one to write, not because the questions are deep, but because it demands specificity. And specificity is where most people stop.
It is easy to write: 'I want to be building something meaningful.' It is much harder to write: 'I want to have had one real conversation with a potential customer, and I want to have asked them to pay for something, even if they said no.' The first sentence is a feeling. The second is a commitment you can actually keep — or break, and know that you broke it.
Questions worth answering in the one-year letter:
Vague wishes are forgotten within a week. Specific commitments — the ones that name what you will actually do, stop, or change — have a way of staying with you even when you are not consciously thinking about them.
The five-year letter is harder and more important. Five years is long enough that real things will have happened. Decisions you make in the next year will have compounded — for better or worse.
This letter should not be a prediction. It should be a statement of what kind of person you want to be by then. Not what position you hold. Not what organization you built. Those are downstream of who you are.
Questions worth answering in the five-year letter:
Write the five-year letter as if the person you are writing to will be grateful for your honesty. They will.
That is a commitment I make to every cohort. One year from now, five years from now, the letter finds you again. Not because I want you to evaluate whether you kept your promises. But because the person you were trying to become is visible in what you wrote — and seeing it brings you closer to understanding how far you have come.
Write to that person. They are worth the honesty.
A NOTE FOR GVP STUDENTS
Block H asks for two letters: one year from now, five years from now. Do not combine them. They serve different purposes.
The one-year letter is for specifics — what you will do, stop, or change. Name the fear you are sitting with right now. The more specific this letter, the more useful it will be when it finds you.
The five-year letter is for the bigger questions — what kind of person, what kind of work, what kind of relationships. Write it as if no one else will ever read it. Because no one will. That is the only condition under which this exercise works.
Kasper-Tanakrit Sermsuksan is the Founder of SEA Bridge, Dean of SEA Bridge Institute of Entrepreneurship, and a Visiting Lecturer at Chulalongkorn University, Faculty of Engineering (Computer Engineering). Learn more →
