Someone recently forwarded a meme where you come up with things you would have told your fourteen year old self. Now, I do occasionally get to pass on bits of wisdom to high schoolers but there are somethings they don't need to know (or that I haven't found a way to sneak in) and some things that are just such givens about their lives today. Things other than they changed that whole SAT eons ago, so the thing I took is obsolete. (Thank goodness I don't need that anymore.) And in honor of my impending reunion, here's 20 things I would love to pass on to my high school self.
1. The internet is awesome. You don't even know.*
2. Someone will create things like Facebook (friendster, etc) where you can re-connect with folks from camp, high school and college who moved away before they got your last snail mail.
3. Someday, your high school English teacher will leave the most amazing status update on Facebook, proving that she is still awesome.
4. Remember how you wrote a book for your senior project, that will become important again later.
5. You are very beautiful.
6. Almost all the plans you have right now, will work out differently than you expect.
7. It's okay, it works out pretty awesomely.
8. Later you will end up getting a job right near high school.
9. You will start going to church regularly.
10. You will end up at a church right near high school.
11. So, yes, for whatever reason that road, seems important.
12. Oh, and you do get your driver's license. Soon even.
13. College turns out to be hard, but not really that much harder than high school. (Apparently they are keeping that a secret.)
14. You will probably never again have as much free time as you do in college.
15. Take advantage of all those opportunities to have great, in depth discussions with people about things.
16. Do your best to listen and try to understand why they may disagree with you.
17. The sooner you learn that some people cannot be swayed by even the best logic, the better.
18. Get to know lots of people who know things you don't. You never know when having friends who know about nuclear reactors will come in handy.
19. Someday, most of the shows you loved in high school will be made available in little packages for sale. It's awesome.
20. Try things you don't think you can do. You'd be surprised how many people are faking it out there.
*Yes, I know the internet existed when I was in high school. But I didn't have access to it at the time, it used to be hard and require fancy equipment.