Lessons In Hindsight

Une Femme d'un certain age too long ago posted a wonderful & thoughtful post, What I've Figured Out So far. In this, she thinks about what advice she would got back to give her 20 year old self. My personal favorite is 4. You can't fuck someone into loving you.

While it hasn't been long enough to go back & give my 20 year old self advice, there is advice I can give my younger self:

1. It's never as bad as it seems. When in high school, not having any boys like me was the worst; my friend committing suicide shook my world. Then I got to college, and the turmoils of first love were so confusing and consuming. Following that, I was plagued by Hurricane Katrina and moved across country with a boyfriend who dumped me a month & half later. In hindsight, some of these things were sad, but I moved on (well, except for maybe the last point).

2. There are boys who find you attractive, whether they're dating you or not. This can really apply to your gender of preference, but I think in some way, we're never really conscious of how attractive others find us.

3. Don't get ahead of yourself. It's so easy to get ahead of ourselves, start fantasizing and projecting our goals, our career paths, our relationships, all before anything ever even happens. Hell, I was young and idealistic and eager for my dreams to come true. And while it's not bad to daydream, realizing that your actions will irrevocably impair the direction of those is important.

I had some friends, a couple: they were in love; he was going to be a lawyer, she a librarian. They had the neighborhood they wanted to live in picked out, ideas for decorating. Inevitably, they broke up. He didn't pass the bar, had to sell his car and Wii, and she moved out West (and seems to be doing quite well). Their break-up was ten times the messy because they got too far ahead of themselves. They looked so far in to the future, they were ignoring today.

4. Don't shy away from the "less attractive" alternatives.
A very silly example of this: only within the last year, I have begun wearing black-brown mascara. It sounds less appealing that black; the image of black mascara is more chic, glamorous, sensual. But in reality, I now know that, during the day, I look better in black-brown. It's softer, it complements my skin tone more nicely.

This is to say, make sure that the choices you make are genuinely the best choices for yourself. Don't go with something else that may not be as good because you like the image it conveys better. You're more likely to convey that image if you go with the best choices for yourself.

5. Save, save, save. I worked through all of high school and made decent money. And to be certain, there is nothing to show for it. I wish my parents had better taught me the value of a dollar (or that Suze Orman had at least written The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke at that point. This book has been a smart-send to me, I swear; I even contemplate picking up Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny as well, to break those bad buying habits I have).



Any lessons in hindsight you'd like to share, or are there any lessons you learned early on that you're glad to have?