19 Life Lessons for 19 Years

1. If you feel like you are at the edge, I promise you that rescue helicopters are coming. Though the winds buffet and threaten to knock you over, you can remain on solid ground and eventually you will be found and things will be okay.

2. People who want to make things work will work with you. While it is imperative that you work to improve and make up for your own mistakes, functioning relationships of any kind are two-way: You cannot keep blaming yourself for not being perfect if that is what someone expects--you are allowed to have room to grow. Along with this, the other person or people are imperfect too. Always look for the good in others, but if they only criticize and/or belittle you, DO NOT STAY. You deserve better.

3. Without adequate food, water, and sleep, you cannot be productive. This is not a pick one or two and you're good thing. You need all three consistently. Please take care of your physical self or your mental, emotional, and spiritual self cannot progress either.

4. Everyone is constantly playing Chicken with each other. We are all scared of being open and showing that we love each other if someone else hasn't showed us or opened up first. Break the cycle. Take the leap and be the one who starts the conversations, who reaches out first. It is terrifying, but it is better to be scared and moving forward than to be frozen. I know that caring about people is something that makes you seem weak, but it isn't. Please learn to find the strength in loving widely and deeply.

5. Always check who is in group messages.

6. Kind of related to being open, but important enough that I think it should be its own: Go ahead and compliment people. One of the best ways to grow a positive outlook and mindset is to start seeing the good in others. So yeah, tell that random girl you'll never see again that you like her hair, remind your best friend or significant other how much you appreciate their willingness to serve. It can never hurt to make a kind comment.

7. It is not you against the world. As alone and picked on as you feel, there is a community or people for you. Even if you are alone, I swear to you the universe, God, or whatever you believe in has not abandoned you. There is a purpose to these trials and this suffering. There are small moments of kindness, small pockets of beauty, no matter how bleak it may seem. Look for it.

8. Listening to sad music will never make you happy. It's okay to have a sad playlist to listen to for five minutes or an hour when you just need to cry and hear someone who seems to understand you, but put a time limit on it. Once that timer goes off, switch to a song that never fails to make you smile or make you dance. Validate your emotions, but do not stay where you feel only darkness. Let yourself heal.

9. Plans change. Find peace in uncertainty. Take the things you learn from each plan, both the good and the bad, and move forward in faith. You will continue to grow with each new phase of life--don't get bogged down in the ideas of what "should have been."

10. You need to find passion. I know it's trendy and edgy to be apathetic, to not care, to dance through life and coast by but please overcome it. Minimalism in materials is admirable, but minimalism in effort is not. It is worth it to love something. It is worth it to do something you love, even if that isn't the thing you use to pay the bills. You will be happier and find your life more interesting if you look for things you can learn and enjoy. Marketable skills are great and very valuable, but having random abilities and interests are what makes you unique and adds color to your life.

11. The challenges and trials you face are not too much for you. If spite, refusing to allow someone or something get the best of you when it/they try, is what fuels you for now, take it and run with it, but start trying to see the things you can learn from the hard parts as you go through them. This is not an easy thing. It will take time to master this (I certainly haven't yet) but if you stop looking at everything with the potential it has to break you, I promise you will find strength to continue.

12. Stop being frustrated by your own imperfection. Allow yourself to have room to grow, do things you aren't particularly good at and learn to enjoy it, take the time to understand something even if it isn't instantaneous. Stop giving up when you "don't get it," because if you only do that you will never "get" anything.

13. Do not turn down opportunities to experience and explore art in all of it's forms. Even if it's not your major, take at least one creative class if you go to college. If it is your major or career, try a different form of art. Attend every free show or gallery that you can, support other institutions and friends when you're able, and learn to appreciate the effort and intelligence needed to be successful.Stop looking at creativity and art as a "soft" or less respectable option just because it isn't as easy to be successful in. Art is subjective, but you have to know something about it to offer a true opinion.

14. You are not broken, no matter how easy it is to believe that you are. You are not something that needs to be fixed; you are a person of great worth and intrigue, no matter what place you think you are at.

15. People want to help you, but you have to let them. If you push people away or only ever keep yourself at a distance, people will feel like they can't help you. Doing this means you will only ever feel like people don't care, but that isn't entirely their fault. If you ever wonder why no one is helping you, try asking for assistance or telling someone that you're struggling. You are not a mind-reader, and no one else is either. Give people the opportunity to care and you'll be surprised at just how many people love you.

16. There are few problems that your favorite food or dessert won't make at least somewhat better. At any rate, the food will taste good and that's a small positive thing you have some control over. Comfort food is a thing.

17. Look for the good in everything. As earlier stated, the world and people are imperfect and that's frustrating, but you cannot make it better by only being angry and seeing the bad. All change is the result of hope--it requires some optimism.

18. Educate yourself. Do not be content with ignorance. Your education may not be traditional, you may not go to college, but always try to learn more. Know what is going on in your world and seek to know more and develop skills and talents.

19. You are good enough. I cannot stress this enough: you are always enough. Of course, try to improve, there are always ways you can become a better version of you, but you are not trying to achieve a bar set too high to ever touch. Take a breath and move forward, knowing that you are of worth as you are, no matter where you are.

(Originally published at allthebestjess.wixsite.com/website on December 10th, 2018)