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Journalism of Courage
This is an archive article published on June 16, 2025
‘Things not to worry about’: F Scott Fitzgerald’s timeless advice to his 11-year-old daughter
In 1933, The Great Gatsby author F Scott Fitzgerald wrote to his 11-year-old daughter from Towson, Maryland. His words still resonate today.
Tucked within it was a short but timeless list of life advice, divided into three categories.
In the summer of 1933, The Great Gatsby author F Scott Fitzgerald, one of the most iconic writers of the Jazz Age, wrote one of the most profound letters penned by a father to their daughter. The heartfelt letter, starting with the words “Dear Pie” was written to his 11-year-old daughter Scottie while she was at camp. In it, he distilled a lifetime of wisdom, in three lists of things to worry about, things not to worry about, and things to think about.
“I feel very strongly about you doing duty,” he opens, before requesting “a little more documentation” about her reading in French, before segueing into the philosophical. “I never believe much in happiness. I never believe in misery either.” These, he writes, are stage tricks, while real life is about doing one’s duty. Virtue earns its rewards, he insists, and failure to meet one’s responsibilities brings consequences, “doubly costly.” He also gave her a list of things she should and should not be worrying about, and things if she had not so far, she should be thinking about.
Things to worry about
📌 Worry about courage.
📌 Worry about cleanliness.
📌 Worry about efficiency.
📌 Worry about horsemanship…
Fitzgerald offers sound advice to his daughter, which is to always be courageous in her decisions, to make sure she took care of cleanliness, to be efficient in one’s usefulness, and to retain the skill of control and poise learnt from “horsemanship.”
A letter of advice from F. Scott Fitzgerald to his 11-year-old daughter: https://t.co/hhR5ebZT7w pic.twitter.com/EJcUk0TYKJ
— Letters of Note (@LettersOfNote) September 18, 2021
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.
Here, Fitzgerald provides a veritable list of things children and adults routinely expend their energies on. He asks her to dismisses opinions, comparison, the fear of failure, and even beware of the allure of success. His advice to his daughter, and by extension to us, is that most of what we obsess over is not worth the worry.
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?
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In this final section, Fitzgerald asks his daughter to carefully think about her direction than strive for perfection, and always consider whether she growing intellectually, socially, physically?
Written during the Great Depression, this letter remains relevant in the 21st century. “With dearest love,” he signs off, one can feel the hard-earned wisdom and the love embedded in the words.
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