One of the threads in that community got me to thinking. The question posed was "what advice would you tell your 15 year old self?" I couldn't come up with just one thing. Now that I'm staring down the double barrel of 40, there is sooo much I would tell myself at 15.
Here's my list of 15 things I would tell my 15 year old self:
- You are more precious than gold.
- You are worth every good thing given to and done for you.
- You will change the world somehow, some day, for someone, and you probably already have a million times.
- Your grandfather was right. There is a lesson and an opportunity in everything you do. Learn from watching others mistakes as well as you learn from your own. And learn how to be diplomatic when you speak.
- Don't fight with your father, and go on every single family trip you can no matter how appealing the extra cash from working is, or how dull the vacation sounds. You only have 6 years left with your father. You won't remember the fights, but you'll have a hard time remembering the good moments too because there were just too few of them.
- The best moments and the best memories happen when you make them, and are better when they are every day moments. Soak up every last one of them, and remember every possible detail.
- Stop worrying so much about boys. Boys will come eventually, and over time, there'll even be a couple good ones. The best ones for you, will be the ones your parents dislike the most, BUT you should always trust the instincts they gave you. They're good. And when they tell you to get out, do it and don't look back.
- Being alone is as much awesome as it is the suckage. One day, you'll be so entrenched in family and togetherness you'll be desperate for a good chunk of alone time.
- Learn to love exercise right now. Today, you are not fat, despite what everyone in the world keeps telling you. Listening to those voices is going to hurt you for so long. If I could show you a picture of yourself in 25 years, you'll completely understand why.
- You are always good enough, and better than you give yourself credit for. There are a lot of painful moments heading your way, and lots of disappointment. But every single day of your life, there are a million things to love and be happy about.
- Belly laugh every single day and marry the man who makes you do that even on the days you want to shake him.
- You are going to have the most awesome kid one day. She is perfect and she is yours and she is just like you in so many ways. Motherhood is the most rewarding job you will ever have, but it's also the ost challenging, and I'm serious about that - it's not as cliche as it sounds. Some days you're going to wonder if that child was sent to kill you - but she's not. She changed the entire universe the first time you saw an extra line on that stick, saw her first ultrasound, and heard her heart beating for the first time. She could run a country one day. She's that bad ass.
- When it comes to figuring out what you do with your life, do what makes you happy every single day, and the money will come. What I mean by this is don't get sucked into "just gotta get a paycheck", cuz those jobs pay great, but they make for a long and painful death. Do yourself a favour and take some practical theatre courses at university, and think about doing something charitable for your day job. Live your life for some of the stories you can tell versus the paycheck. Seriously, it's worth putting the time in now to find a passion and make a career of it - they get sick benefits and lifelong careers at some of these charities and it's impossible (really impossible) to make the switch later on.
- Love yourself and your own company. You are a pretty freaking awesome individual, and despite your flaws you are your family's primary bread winner, primary caregiver, and that dream you had of being super woman, well, you've been there, you've done it, and you got the t-shirt. It really isn't worth the ativan, BUT, you did it! And you were awesome at it!
- You rock and I love you.
No comments:
Post a Comment