I've been a grown up for 9 days now, nothing much has changed although it is nice to know that next time I need cold medication I can actually buy myself some. Other than that, life is pretty much the same, although I haven't had to sign anything yet...that'll be truly exciting. I thought I'd take this time to share some great things I learned before I was an adult.
It has to get worse to get better. When I was little I shared a room with my sister, Elisa, we would constantly make a huge mess of our closet and my dad would go in and take everything out of the closet and spread it out all over our bedroom. We hated this, it made it feel worse, but it always resulted in the cleanest closet. This is true about life as well, life gets worse just as it's about to get better. If you're in a rough patch right now, take this to heart and just wait, I promise it'll get better!
Am I faking it? Last year I worked in a coffee shop (and I'll be back to work there again in a couple of weeks), I hate coffee, but you could ask me what the difference between a mocha and a latte, or a light roast and a dark roast, or even why a dark roast is darker, not stronger. I could answer all these as if I was the ultimate coffee lover. I'm most certainly not! I realized I may be doing this in other areas of my life, especially with my walk with Christ. Sometimes I feel I'm just faking my walk with Christ, doing and saying all the right things, but not actually loving the coffee that is Christ. This has helped me to change my attitude toward Christ and I'm in a much better place now.
The three pieces of happiness. Unlike the last two lessons, I didn't learn this from my own experience, I heard it in a movie. In order to be happy you need these three things: something to do, something (someone) to love, and something to hope for. I find that if I'm missing one of these in my life, it feels like there's a hole in my life and I don't know what to do. Something to do keeps me busy, as they say "idle hands are the devil's workshop." I find myself lonely, bored, and worrying when I don't have anything to do, even if this thing is trying to beat my best friend in rewatching all of pretty little liars. The something to love, this is what keeps me going in life, and it's important to know what you love, I love kids, I'm taking all my classes so I can be a teacher and be around kids all day. Last, but not least: something to hope for, I try to find things of varying distances away to hope for. I'm hoping to graduate so I can be a teacher, hoping to go home for Christmas and see my family, and sooner, hoping to see my best friend tomorrow.
Just laugh it off. Growing up as a shy girl, messing up was my biggest fear and the root of all my shyness. As most shy people will tell you, the reason I was shy was because I was terrified of saying or doing something wrong and people judging me. Well, I've learned, life is more fun if you just go out and have fun. People won't judge you if you're confident and just laugh when you mess up, they'll be jealous of your confidence!! Just knowing this is a world of confidence.
Try something new. Just as the last, this lesson is linked to my shyness. I was terrified of trying something new for fear of messing up. Once you get past that, new things can be fun. Now it's a fun challenge for me to push myself to try something new. I like to say I try new things, but often struggle to stick to this idea. I have to force myself to try new things. So, I put myself in situations where it's less awkward for me to avoid trying something new than to actually just do it. For example, after never playing sports in my life, and being very athletically challenged, I played lacrosse for two years. I told so many people I was going to play, and borrowed a stick from a friend, and made a deal with my dad. So, when my head finally realized this was more than a silly whim, it would be for more awkward and more of an inconvenience to back out than to just play. Going on and actually trying this new thing was one of the best things I ever did. I loved lacrosse! Now I just need to work on trying new foods.....
I hope and pray that in my next 18 years I'll learn many more lessons, maybe when I'm 21 even I'll have more to tell about what I've learned since becoming an adult. One of my favorite quotes says "the day you stop learning is the day you start growing old." I think this is totally true in the sense of the bad parts of being old, although being old also means you have a lot of wisdom, which is something I look forward to. | "The day you stop learning is the day you start growing old." |
What's you're favorite piece of advice you wish you could share with the whole world? Comment Below!