Advice I Wish I Had When I Turned Eighteen
There was a time when I was about to enter the legal definition of an adult while not the legal drinking age. When I approached those crossroads, I had a good head on my shoulders. But, there are still many things I took for granted, many mistakes made, a
There was a time when I was about to enter the legal definition of an adult while not the legal drinking age. When I approached those crossroads, I had a good head on my shoulders. But, there are still many things I took for granted, many mistakes made, and things I wish I had known.
Here are the things I wish I had known when I turned eighteen.
It's okay not to know what you want to do with your life.
Once you turn eighteen, you feel like you have only made a massive accomplishment by aging. Yet, already you have pressure (most even before) to know what you want to do in your life.
Even when you enter college, you can get away with a year or so before you need to declare a major.
Nine times out of ten, you might not even end up doing the thing you thought you would at first.
You don't need to know what you will do with your life at eighteen. In fact, you need more time to be ready for college. Not everyone can and should start college right away.
After graduating high school, take some time for yourself. If you can, travel for a bit. Or work for a while in a retail or similar job and give yourself a break to decide when you are ready to start your journey.
I wanted to start college right away, but I couldn't. A week after graduating college, I stepped onto a plane that took me straight to Army Basic Training. I wish I hadn't sacrificed my whole summer to start the right way in the Army.
I did not get the opportunity to finish college right away. I had to start and stop again. But each time I was able to re-enroll, I found myself valuing getting my education more and more.
Yet even then, I changed majors three or four times until I was happy with what I was learning.
Even today, my full-time job has little to nothing to do with what I studied.
High School is not, and will never be, "the best years of your life."
The best years of your life should never be the four years you are going through adolescence. Whoever came up with high school being our best years must've had a miserable life.
The thing is, it gets better. After high school, there is much more to experience and explore. The possibilities are endless. And the only thing preventing it from happening is oneself.
Put Yourself First
Our friends and social circles are the only worlds that matter when we are younger. And sometimes, we allow ourselves to be pressured by others.
Other times, we make decisions based on what others might think.
And yet, as we grow older, we regret some of these decisions afterward. We lament those decisions because they disagreed with us or were not in our self-interest.
You must put yourself first. This includes what your parents think is best for you.
Sometimes, you have to decide and take a risk to allow yourself both an opportunity to succeed and fail.
These are but a few things I wish I had known when I turned eighteen. Though an adult, I was still very much a kid. And yet somehow, every decision I made affected the rest of my life.
Joining the military. Trying to go to a school in New York City that I couldn't afford to attend. Getting a full-time job and then quit it so I could go to school and get the whole "college experience." Though I cherish that experience somewhat, it was short and artificial.
Put yourself first and allow yourself the chance not to know everything.