The things they remember to forget to tell you.
Let’s be honest to our 10 year old selves here when we read “growing up is exciting.”
Because it is exciting, the excitement of complete freedom and control over your own life and happiness.
But as your growing up the teachings that are placed upon us from the adults we can’t wait to be, often don’t make sense.
When you are a kid, the world is your oyster, there is no such thing as fear or doubt of yourself because these things do not exist. You are fearless, and your imagination runs wild.
Never let the child inside you die.
1. You have to decide your future.
Update: you don’t.
And you’re not the only one who doesn’t know what the hell they are doing with their life.
Always keep in mind that our parents and elders came from a completely different generation of teachings, jobs and stable economies. Here in Australia we had the baby boomers where jobs were plentiful and people really could choose a career they wanted and stay in that job until retirement.
We don’t really have that luxury anymore, sorry we don’t. And your parents giving you the advice of “you have to decide your future because back in my day…” is irrelevant. Don’t live in the past.
Create your own future.
The world is still your oyster.
They just don’t tell you that.
2. Fame is an illusion
We live in a celebrity obsessed society. And we always have. Since the dawn of time we have worshiped Gods, nobles and people of higher power, only in the modern age it is celebrities who pose as actors, musicians and artists who we worship instead.
They do not directly effect your life and you do not know them personally, so don’t become so obsessed with this ideal that you forget to live your own life. Respect their work, learn from them and move on.
If you actually got up off your arse and completed some goals maybe you could do something ‘special’ too. There I said it.
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
In the wise words of Eleanor Roosevelt:
Your ambition should be to get as much life out of living as you possibly can – as much enjoyment, as much interest, as much experience, as much understanding. And not to simply be what is generally called a “success.”
You can’t define success, so don’t let it destroy your happiness if you don’t have it all figured out in your early teens and twenties. Hell don’t even let it destroy your happiness if you’re fifties.
3. Doubts kill more dreams than failure ever will.
Remember before how I was talking about not letting your inner child die?
Yeah don’t let it die.
That inner child is still the same kid who would dream about going to space or becoming an actor, singer, musician, scientist, Vet, Doctor, writer, anything!
The only thing that has changed is you. You’ve probably decided that money is the most important object and become comfortable in a job that you don’t really like because it’s easier than risking your dream and it’s easier than explaining to everyone what you really want to do.
I know, I know. What if it doesn’t work out?
But what if it does…
You’ve caged that dream and are watching it die on the shelf.
Everything starts with you, if you don’t believe in yourself to follow a dream then no one else will. Don’t be afraid of failure, failure teaches you much more than success ever will. Failure is your friend, and you learn from failure and you get back up again, just like you did when you were a kid.
You’re mistakes do not define you, they tell you who you’re not.
4. Self love is your one true love.
The two most important things in your life are your health and your happiness. Everything else is external and outside of you.
Materialistic objects don’t make you truly happy but they do make you feel better.
Just make sure you don’t fail into a trap of buying something every time you have a bad day, or don’t like the way you look. Learn to love your flaws and your body. Those photo shopped magazines aren’t real and neither is societies perception of beauty. What’s real is you and you should worship yourself with the same energy as you worship your obsessions. You are with yourself for the rest of your life so you may as well love yourself.
5. Never let your education get in the way of your learning.
University is not the be all and end all of your life. It does not make you any less educated than a scholar in the room. You cannot define intelligence by an education. That notion is ridiculous. And you do not have to go to university just because everybody else is, or conform to society and have a massive student debt weighing you down while you struggle to find work.
If you don’t want to go to university then don’t. Go experience the world, get a job helping people or animals, volunteer somewhere, study online or at a college and get a Certificate or Diploma, it’s cheaper and might put things into perspective for you.
There are countless educated and successful people who never set foot in a university or they did and dropped out. Bill Gates is one of them, Steve Jobs is another.
Could you image if Bear Grylls met Bill Gates and they swapped lives for a day they wouldn’t know what to do. Does that make them less intelligent than each other?
No.
They have completely different skills, interests and passions that separate each other.
Albert Einstein:
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
6. Money doesn’t matter.
You can get by fine on minimum wage. There I said it.
If you budget correctly and start a savings account you’ll be fine.
7. Youth is wasted on the young.
Getting older is a part of life, and it should be embraced as beautiful and celebrated as much as your youth.
Don’t focus on your age, focus on your life.
There is a sense of urgency as you get older to be ‘someone special’ but fun tip, your relevance isn’t defined by somebody else’s inability to see your worth.
When we are young we have all the time in the world and as we get older time becomes shorter, we spend all our time consuming instead of creating, watching instead of reading and talking instead of listening.
The worst regret you will ever have is looking back on your life wishing that you had done more with it. Wishing you had lived the life you wanted instead of what other people wanted.
Stay hungry.
Stay foolish.
Here’s to never growing up!
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. – Dylan Thomas.
Haley Lauren Smith 