#Bloganuary – Day 1 – Note to Teenage Self

Live Life

If you are following me on Twitter, you might know that I decided to give WordPress’ #Bloganuary challenge a try.

If you are not following me on Twitter, please take this opportunity to mend your ways and reach out so we can connect!

To learn more about #Bloganuary, check out WP’s post.

Since I have had some out-of-town company for the past couple of weeks, I have been busy and unable to start this challenge on time. However, I still want to give this a go. Because of that, you might see more than one post a day from me until I catch up.

The very first prompt was:

What advice would you give to your teenage self?

-January 1st prompt

This prompt definitely was not the easiest for me. For the past couple of years, I have noticed people write letters to their future selves as an end/beginning-of-year thing. This prompt made me think of that. These letters are often vulnerable and that is not something I do very often. Additionally, I do not like dwelling on the past – what is done is done. I learn from the past, make peace with it, and move on. For the sake of the challenge, I decided to give it a try, though. (I wonder if you noticed I like challenges. Do you?)

My initial thought was to share some thoughts with my 18-19-year-old-self. It made me wonder why and I came to a conclusion that I consider those years to have been most influential on shaping me as a person and my life. It was quite insightful for me to look back at my teenage years and see where I was during that time of my life.

13-15 – I wish I was a little bolder back then. Example: A good friend of mine and a person of the opposite sex (J) asked me to ask my friend (A) if they liked J. I passed a note to A during class. A replied ‘no’ and asked how I felt about J myself. Trying to be a good friend and thinking that I can still help them come together somehow, I also replied ‘no.’ Instead of telling J about A’s answer, I passed the note, which also contained my answer. … I had a crush on J and I think that note killed my chances, and my friendship with J was never the same for some reason…

15-17 – Those were some cool years! I made a lot of friendships back then. Unfortunately, the majority of those did not stand the test of time, which kind of stumped me. It is this time period that makes me realize that my advice is mainly about social interactions. They have always presented an issue for me, but it is something I became quite confident about very early on in my life. So, while I might share this “advice” with my younger self, I do not think it would have changed much. Advice: Have more fun! (But you cannot really do that with parents who do not support that. Can you?)

18-19 – Give more people a chance! By then, I knew about people – i.e how disappointing they can be, which is why I closed myself off from people who I did not think were ‘quality’ people. While I think that was a smart thing to do, I also think that made me miss out on some good times. I have always been more mature/grown-up than my peers. Adults (or at least I) often say that it would be cool to go back to being a kid sometimes – you have an innocent idea about the world and you just enjoy everyone and everything around you. I might have missed out on that.

Or not.

Let me know what you think.

And, feel free to partake in the challenge yourself. I hope to catch up on your blogs in the coming days as I adjust back to ‘normal’ life.

Stay golden,

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30 thoughts on “#Bloganuary – Day 1 – Note to Teenage Self”

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  2. The only use I can see to these sorts of exercises is to bring out a story. Is there a story here? Or barring that, something useful for a character of a story? Can you use your note-passing example to write a short story that you might not even publish (or pub only on your blog) about a character who takes door #2 instead of door #1? These tales are usually about what they learned and a heightened awareness of the nature of regret. Useful if the character grows and becomes empathetic. If they just satisfy some narcissistic priority, I generally shrug and move on as a reader. You don’t have to answer this here, of course. Only privately if it gives you any writerly nudges. : )

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  3. Pingback: Note to Teenage Self – The Running Educator Podcast (TRE)

  4. I also decided to do bloganuary. Mostly because I’m in a slump and thought it would be a prod.

    I liked this post. It’s interesting that you focused on the upper teen years. Interesting, too, how very formative they are.

    Be bold, have fun, give people a chance. This is great advice, though I’d perhaps avoid doing the last: I find I give too many 😉

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    1. A slump? A SLUMP? GET OUT OF IT!
      Did it work?
      Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I was totally different. (ex.: gave more chances) But I know that no matter what I did as a teen, some things would suck anyway. They might be different from the things that suck right now, but they would still suck.

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  8. Hmmph. You didn’t really advise your younger self much, but I appreciate the insights into the different ages of Goldie!

    I wish my younger self would have been able to let go of toxic relationships (family, friends, love interests) easier/earlier. It took a while before I learned that letting go is necessary—toxic people rarely exit your life on their own steam. I still don’t like “giving up” on people I’ve invested time/effort in, but I understand the need to do so, and that there is a cost if I don’t.

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    1. I think my mindset of “I am who I am because of my past” is pretty strong so it was hard to come up with ‘advice.’ It made me think what else I could have screwed up if I did anything differently.

      I think that’s an important lesson to learn. I like to think that I have it down, but sometimes I’m not so sure. Some people are so much easier to get rid of than others.

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  9. Hmmm, I think mine would be relax and enjoy yourself. I was a very serious student and got my first degree in two years. II wanted to get out and work. I wish I had taken more time and enjoyed myself more.

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