Being the mother of 2 teenagers who manage to recoil from most all of the wisdom-nuggets I attempt to educate them with, I had a thought. If I could go back in time and visit myself as a teenager, and I was allowed to give one bit of advice, what would that be.
I didn’t even really have to think about it:
Don’t marry him, marriage won’t change him like you think it will, nothing will change.
Aw… the innocence of youth…
So, if you were given this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change your life (and by some weird twist, teenage-you would be required to act on this advice… hey, we’re going back in time, why not) what would be the one nugget of inspiration you would bestow on the former you?
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It WAS all he had to say about it!
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{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }
Wouldn’t change a thing, even the bad parts. It took every single thing happening exactly the way it happened for me to get to where I am today with my kids. If I change even one thing no matter how slight then it will change everything and my kids would not exist. I might have different kids but they would have been made with different sperm and different eggs and they wouldn’t be the same kids. Its the whole “butterfly effect” thing.
I have to agree with Anonymous on this one. Changing one thing no matter how small would end up changing everything. Everything happens for a reason and its the mistakes we make early in life that help to mold us into the people we are later in life.
My mistakes as well as my accomplishments when I was a younger man shaped and formed me into the person I am today and I wouldn’t change that for anything in the world.
Good topic though!
A little different slant on the this post: I was given a second chance to make things different. After I had raised my son, a young female relative came to live with me. So essentially I was given a second chance to correct any mistakes that I thought I had made with my first child. I was a single mother raising both kids. But guess what? I found myself doing the same things that I did the first time around. Both of my kids have turned out to be productive members of society and I am very proud of both of them. Both of them are excellent parents. So, even though I had and have some regrets about my child rearing years, I found out that a person doesn’t really change what and who they are except in extreme cases.
“Go play outside.”
Are you yelling at your kids again Marcus??
I will be when they start camping the computer at 13 like I did! I really missed out on my childhood…wish I would have taken more risks and been more adventurous. In some ways anyway. I like my life today, but I still wish that I wouldn’t have wasted my youth on the internet.
Also, not dropping out of school would have been a good thing (I do have a GED and HS Diploma now), and maybe some college courses.
C’est la vie!
Wisdom I’d deliver to myself when I was a teenager? Nope, I wouldn’t bother. I know myself (finally) too well.
When I was in my early twenties and starting a new job at SHS in Blackfoot, I moved in with my Dad temporarily while looking for a place of my own. I’d just relocated from another city after working in a different hospital.
Dad and I were sitting in his living room one evening and I don’t recall what subject we were discussing but I do recall a comment he made to me. He said he tried to tell me not to do some stuff but I did them any way. I remember looking at dad and replying that I knew the difference between right and wrong, and recognized the consequences of making a wrong decision. But that I often times followed my own wrong judgement out of stubbornness; I wouldn’t even listen to myself.
I guess it really does take some of us, like me, the hard way to learn the hard lessons in life.
I clearly remember looking at a high school pic of myself some time after high school, and upon seeing the liberally applied blue eyeshadow asking my mother why in the world she ever let me out of the house like that.
She just looked at me and laughed a little and shook her head. I knew exactly what she was trying to say… lol.
Don’t marry her, marriage won’t change her like you think it will, nothing will change.
I think I had a brain tumor when I was a teenager. If I could go back, I’d be nicer to my girlfriend. I really wasn’t mature enough to handle all those emotions. (Of course, I’m 40 now. And I’m still not mature enough.)
I definitely wouldn’t care so much about having the perfect outfit, hair or makeup just to “fit in”. I was too worried about what others thought, when they probably weren’t thinking of me in the first place! Funny how the really popular people didn’t make a lot of themselves, rather those of us who were lost in the middle somewhere who really became successful.
I don’t think I would have worn as much hairspray either. Gosh, part of the ozone layer is my fault. Remember the mid/late 80’s, teased, poufy hair? Yep, me. I think I wore the blue eyeshadow too. Ugh!
The advice I’m glad I listened to and repeat to teens to this day? Women, develop a skill or go to school. You never know when a marriage fails and you have to rely on yourself to support kids or just you. Don’t depend on a man or the system to take care of you.
Very good advice, Reader. All women (and men) should have a skill to fall back on. You never know when life will bite you in the butt.
And another part of your comment brought back a fond memory.
I remember one teen day being particularly unhappy with my appearance for some reason (probably while I, too, was contributing to the loss of the ozone layer). I was whining about something that I must have seen as a crisis of biblical proportions, when my mom, I’m sure sick to death of hearing it, says something to the effect of “you’re not the center of the universe, get over it, they have their lives and bigger things to worry about than how your hair looks”.
I was uncharacteristically calm about this revelation, and I learned a small but valuable lesson that I still snicker about.
I had to laugh – my stepfather told me over one particular “crisis” – smiling of course b/c he was pretty cool – “oh for cryin’ out loud – 1 billion people in China couldn’t give a (expletive)!”
Ha, so true, even to this day. Here’s to never smelling Aqua Net in our hair again!
You guys are too funny! Gotta love growing up in the 80’s. Sadly the only good thing to ever come out of the 80’s was the music. Certainly not the parachute pants and acid wash jeans!
’80s music was good? News to me
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the clothes were bad (really bad) but the music was pretty good
Oh young lad Marcus, if you have to ask, you didn’t live it.
Yeah, we look back and some music was good, some silly, but it was being part of the MTV generation that was so great – remember when MTV was cool music videos all day long?
Clothing, come on, it was great! Tight black pants and crazy long sweaters, or long johns under our miniskirts…. don’t forget all the black jelly bracelets and hair swept up like Madonna….sigh….those were the days! CR, I know you wore ripped up jeans like the rest of us! How about those sleeveless tops made with parachute material? You had a mullet, admit it!
My advice to kids now – just wear what you’re comfortable in – don’t try to be someone you’re not. I wasn’t Madonna!
Hey 80’s crowd, tell me you didn’t LOVE “Wedding Singer” with Adam Sandler.
You nailed it Reader! Those were the good ole’ days when MTV actually played all videos all the time. (and I will never admit to having a mullet!)
You think music of the 80s wasn’t good?
Listen for the first time and then really think (for the first time).
The Cure
U2
Led Zeppelin
Pink Floyd
Deep Purple
Guns n’ ROses
AC/DC
Pink Floyd
Toto
def leppard
Metallica
Tears for Fears
Keny Loggins
The Police
Jouney
Marvin Gaye
Bruce Springsteen
Duran Duran
Mean at Work
Motley Crue
Phil Collins
the clash
UB40
Wham!
Boston
Chicago
David Bowie
beastie boys
Def Leppard
Megadeth
Bryan Adams
Bangles
Mr. Mister
Pet Shop Boys
Prince
REO Speedwagon
Starship
The Cars
Whitesnake
And many, many more
Everything from the 80’s was magnificent. (Except Gary Coleman….God help that miserable soul.) The girls were gorgeous. It didn’t matter what you wore, it was cool and hot at the same time. I grew up in Bear Lake so we didn’t have any girls who looked like Madonna…but, I watched Night Tracks on WTBS all Friday and Saturday night trying to stay awake. The dreamworld of the 80s was someplace else and I always wondered where it was because it didn’t exist at Bear Lake High School. The John Hughes movies are scripture to me. I grew up to be the worst part of the Breakfast Club….the janitor and the angry ‘Dick’ Vernon mixed into one horrid human. Talk about Weird Science.
Thanks for the music list, Wendy Jo. I’m thoroughly tired of the path that the new music has taken and have been filling the holes in my 80’s CD collection.
Awww the memories.
Note to the music industry:
Not everyone likes rap *bleh*
Not everyone likes “death metal screaming”
Heavy guitars + orchestra + talented vocalist = perfect
Long live Queensryche!
*steps down from soapbox*
Ahhh memories…..
I’m LOL at the Gary Coleman comment….too funny newshound!
Nice list WendyJo! I’ve got quite a few big hair metal bands from the 80’s on my MP3 player….this list will help me add a few more.
I remember one of the best concerts I ever attended was Monsters of Rock in Texas Stadium 86 or 87 I think it was. Night Ranger, Whitesnake, Van Halen, Ted Nugent, Scorpions, Deep Purple, with over 80 thousand screaming fans. It didn’t get any better than that!
The good ones of that bunch played music in the 80s, but weren’t 80s bands!
Agree on music being produced now…can’t stand most of it. Can’t really list what type of music I like though, or really the bands. Not much of an audiophile.
True. While some of them were producing music before that time, most of them were real popular and got a lot of airtime during the 80’s.
Can anyone picture Marcus with a mullet? lol…
No mullets for me! I’m more of a dreadlock type of guy
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I really can’t even remember what I was like as a teen other than I was useless and obnoxious like all teenagers. I find as I look back on my life that I have completely reinvented myself about every ten years or so through career changes, moves around the country, marriages, children, divorces…….you know BIG life changing events.
I guess if I have learned anything these past 48 years it would be to listen to folks who are older than I am and heed their advice. My take is that if someone is ten years older than you are, they are probably 10 years smarter as well. Of course there are exceptions to this rule but……there is nothing like a visit to Lincoln Court to put some prespective into ones everyday life. I find it heart breaking that our culture rewards a life time of achievment this way. And guess what, one day we will all suffer the same fate.
If I could go back in the time machine I would tell myself to listen. If my younger self did not listen I would slap him with a dueling glove. Someone in my native town of Schnootzstein did that to me and lessons came back to me like the sun on a clear day. Anyways, I would tell my adolescent self to stop eating so much sausage, halt trinken (stop drinking), und auch (and also) stop eating so much hamburgers. Back then my stomach was as big as a huge ship. Excuse my German at times I am still learning how to talk and speak in the English form of things and form sentences. I would also tell myself to climb lots of mountains because it is good for the legs and for your arms. Danke sehr fur deine Zeit. I meant to say “Thank you for your time”.
80s music…like every era (let’s be honest) had its awesome hits and some awful misses and today’s/late 90s music also has some awesome hits (Coheed and Cambria, Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, to name a couple) and some awful misses (Well, I don’t think I need examples for this one. We tend to remember the negative better than the positive!)
On topic…What would I tell myself…? I have no regrets from that time, per se, but I would probably tell myself to not lose the ability to feel emotion. I would tell myself that there is a balance to be struck between rationality and emotion and that being emotional is not “worse” than being rational…That for life to be meaningful, we have to have a healthy balance of both. I would then tell myself that if I don’t figure out how to open up more, life will be significantly less meaningful than it could be…even though it would hurt more.
Cryptic, I know, but it’s what I would tell myself. I would also tell myself not to stop pursuing writing – that I really will be famous and to not give up at any point on that…It might be a lie…but maybe I wouldn’t find myself in a writer’s block right now if I believed it…
Nice question.
I would tell myself that the relationships that will endure in the future are those that I put the most effort into. I won’t be able to assume that just because someone is closely related to me, they will still be “family.” The old saying about blood being thicker than water doesn’t always hold true.
I would say “End it now, life never gets better only worse, and there is nothing you can do to stop it from doing so…”
Go ahead and do it attention wanter. We don’t care.
Your life is what YOU make of it. Not what anybody else makes of it. If you’re unhappy with the way things are going in your life, then change them. It’s really that simple. Only you can make you happy. And if you choose to wallow in your own self pity then go for it. None of us can help you out there.
Marcus, LOL, you’re such a stinker! I hope you’re kidding. At the same time, comment #30 is a bit melodramatic but if it is made in sincerity, I hope the person gets or has gotten counseling. You never can tell here whether someone is serious or not!
I was dead serious.
Speaking from experience, if a person feels the need to tell a group of individuals that they are considering suicide, they are not willing to do the deed…at least not at the time that they state it. The people that really want to do it just do it and skip dealing with the drama that would be spurred by announcing their plan.
Of course this isn’t scientific fact. I got tired of teenagers threatening suicide and not following through when I was a teenager…all of these kids are still around. The few individuals that NOBODY expected to do it are the ones that ended up 6 feet under of their own accord. I’m not nice to those that mention suicide, because all of the “suicidals” I’ve met in the past have been flakes…and I hate flakes.
So again, anonymous, stop calling out for attention…you’re not going to get it. Go exercise, live your life, and if you really think you need it, go to counseling. What you need to realize is that your life is just as much of a shit pit as everybody elses. Cope.
I agree with marco, that person was just looking for attention and most suicidal people don’t cry out for help online anonymously. But I’m not a real doctor so I could be wrong.