I am a mature woman now and there are many things I wish I could have told my younger self.
- Enjoy being a kid. Don’t be in a big hurry to grow up. Play with toys and believe in Santa Claus and dress like a kid as long as you can. Because once it’s gone it’s gone and you will never get it back. For most of your life you will be grown up so enjoy being a kid.
- Enjoy your schooldays. As much as you hate them now (and some things are not nice), you will look back longingly more than once in your life. You have your basic needs taken care of, holidays, the privilege of learning (yes it is a privilege), no responsibilities for anyone else. But don’t get your jollies at the expense of someone else.
- If school is not your thing, remember that many people peak in high school. Others only start their success afterwards. Being good at school will one day matter very very little.
- You think you are fat and ugly. You are not. You will look back one day and realise you were beautiful but you did not appreciate or enjoy it because you were too busy trying to be something you were not.
- Wrinkle creams do NOT work. If you want to get older looking younger – do not smoke, do not drink too much alcohol and avoid the sun. No yo-yo dieting (diets do not work anyway except to make you fatter in the long run). Moisturise your hands and your neck. Go easy on the tattoos as they are a lot harder to get rid of than piercings.
- Old people are not old people – they are young people in older bodies. Despite what the outside tells you, our inside age is young. And this will be you one day, if you are lucky enough to live that long.
- Don’t save things for best. Because best may never come and you will have wasted enjoying them in the meantime.
- You never know what lies around the next corner so don’t waste your present worrying about your future.
- Time goes really quickly so enjoy every minute. And if you don’t, remember that ‘this too shall pass’ – sooner than you think!
- Clichés exist because most of them are true. So don’t roll your eyes when some ‘oldie’ tells you ‘time heals all wounds’ or ‘there are plenty more fish in the sea’ because you will be telling your kids the same thing one day, and that one day will come sooner than you think.
- Blood is always thicker than water.
- No one owes you a living and life is very seldom fair but enjoy it anyway.
- No job is fun all the time so when times get tough just suck it up and keep on going.
- Don’t spend too much time at work and too little with your family. Your job will never love you back, and on your deathbed you will never wish you spent more time at work.