Adults don’t know what they’re doing, either. Even my parents. Everyone is just winging it.
Use sunscreen and drink water every day
Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; or never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine
Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing Bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that Never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4 PM on some idle Tuesday Do one thing every day that scares you
Sing
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts; don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours
Floss
Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself
Remember the compliments you receive; forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements
Stretch
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t
Get plenty of calcium
Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone
Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t Maybe you’ll divorce at 40 Maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance; so are everybody else’s Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room
Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them
Do not read beauty magazines; they will only make you feel ugly
Get to know your parents; you never know when they’ll be gone for good
Be nice to your siblings; they are your best link to your past and the People most likely to stick with you in the future
Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you Should hold on Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard
Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft
Travel
Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old-- and when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders
Respect your elders
Don’t expect anyone else to support you
Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out
Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you’re 40, it will look 85
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth
But trust me on the sunscreen
All the adults aren’t ignorant of all the angsty truths you’ve realized, they realized them too. They just kept moving on, and are now 2-20 steps past that. It’s not about problems, it’s about their solutions, and how easy vs difficult any potential solutions can be.
Yep, as a teenager I thought thought of things like universal health care and how Obama didn’t do enough.
As an adult I realize that while I still want it, changing the entire medical industry in the US cannot be done in one term of a president, it’s a long slow process, and if everyone was on board and everything got passed immediately it would still take at least 30 years to turn the ship around so to speak.
I still want it and of course think it’s a good idea, but as a youth I was able to overlook things like everyone in the insurance industry being out of jobs and logistics changes and normalizing higher taxes and…
Everyone in the insurance industry being out of jobs would frankly still be a bit of a plus. It’s a fundamentally parasitic industry that is not actually necessary. That’s a lot of talent that could go to other industries, it’s not like unemployment has been any kind of problem in recent years. And prices would ultimately go down without the extra middleman industry.
Mostly stuff that younger me already “knew” but hadn’t internalized.
Don’t sweat the small stuff, things that seem like a big deal now won’t even be remembered later
Avoiding unhealthy habits now will pay big dividends in the future
Take it easy on the drugs and alcohol, there are better ways to spend your time
Maybe not something i wish I knew, but I wish I had a zeal for education when I was younger. It really took me until about my junior year in high school to really click. Only then did I actually appreciate studying. Before then, it was just an obligation. I still did fairly well, but I wish I had been more intentional about it.
Also, get involved in groups and don’t be so shy. Nobody cares about the small anxieties that you’re worried about. Just join groups and have fun. Still hard to apply this lesson even as an adult, but I try.
winning lottery numbers
That “weird food thing” you keep minimizing is called Anorexia Nervosa. Get treatment. You are missing out on what should be the best years of your life.
Future
the truth is in the eye of the beholder
That there are almost no limits to what should you can learn. It all just takes a lot of time. Your skull level is a reflection of the time you spent homing that particular skill.
Duplicate comment
It’s never as bad as you fear.
Sleep is sacred!
ADHD is not “can’t sit still for two seconds”.
That bitcoin is a thing.
What’s true for someone else isn’t automatically true for you. You don’t have to discount your own perspective and feelings so that they perfectly match up with those of someone you like and admire.
I considered a simular answer, but realized I was given that same advice so often when I needed to hear it. I still ignored it.
Much to our detriment. The "heart"often circumvents all logic and reason. Especially to our younger selves.
Best we can do is try to instill a enough self worth that we become a little more stable. At least in my case I’d have been less willing to change who I am if I actually knew who I was.
