What advice would you give to your teenage self?

Dear 18yo Sam,

I know a part of you is scared that love might never be your thing. I know you feel disconnected from everyone and everything. You have decided not to address your issues and live at the edge. All I want to do is hug you and say that things get better. You won’t regret wasting your brilliance or your time.

Don’t cry too much. Don’t scream too much. Also, those things that are happening to you… they are called panic attacks. You will get better at handling them. I promise.

You’ve always struggled to make friends for life but the future holds some really good ones.

They say that “This too shall pass” isn’t that great a thing to say but you know what it will.

Stay strong and remember you’re loved… you might not feel it now but you are.

Love,
An evolved version of you.

As a teen, I think I was into comparisons and that is something that made my life really difficult. I was good at many things but I thought I wasn’t good enough. I was gifted and didn’t realise that other had to work a lot harder to score similar marks and I never gave my 100% to studies.

I should have known the concept of JOMO back then. Should have focused on me. Just me. But I didn’t know better.

Now I do.

Everything takes time, effort, consistency, discipline and faith. We need to focus on ourselves, do what’s good for us and not be bothered by what’s going on around us.

That’s how we can live happy lives.

The joy, my friends, is in missing out all the things that are distracting and unnecessary.