A letter to my younger selfÂ
I’m only 18 years old. I am only three months into being a freshman in college and have only had a little taste of being more independent, on my own schedule and living somewhere five hours from home and away from the rest of my family.Â
These past couple of weeks have made me reflect on past decisions and opportunities that lead me to the place I am now, physically and mentally. When I was younger, there were some things that I would have gone back and changed if I had the option to. Most of them consist of mindsets that I had predominantly in middle school and high school, friendships that I had that offered me zero substance and ended up draining me more than uplifting me and comparisons of myself to my peers and classmates over the smallest things in life.Â
I’m only 18, but I have grown up a lot from where I was in the past.Â
Individuality over anything elseÂ
I am from a small town where everyone knows everyone’s business, who they’re dating, what jobs their parents have and how much money their family has. It was hard to grow up in an environment where everyone already has a set image in their head on the type of person that you are. This mold made it almost impossible to break out of, even when you’re changing and evolving from a younger version of yourself to an older, more mature self. Through high school, I realized that the people who didn’t like me because of what they might have heard through someone else was not my problem to fix, and if they chose to believe it, that it was their decision to do so. Living in a small town also made me realize that I wanted to stand out of the crowd and chose something for myself over anything else.Â
Everything will be okay
It was always so hard for me to tell myself not to worry over the little things in life. In almost everything I did, I worried about the outcome. I worried about what people would think of me if I wore this outfit. I worried about not doing well on a small assignment for one of my classes, even though I knew I would do well on it. Every time I hung out with a group of friends on the weekend, I would leave wondering if they even liked me. I realize now that I could have saved so much time and energy focusing on more important things in my life then fearing and overthinking about the things I have no control over.
Everything is not what it seemsÂ
Social media isn’t real. Everything that you see on there is cut, cropped and highlighted to look picture perfect for the followers. For the most part, people only share the perks of their life, which does not display a true representation of what a real-life experience is. I used to find myself scrolling through social media on the weekend, wishing I could be like those girls from school who looked like they had everything in their world figured out. Filters, how many likes I get on a post and how many people comment “pretty” or “cute” on my Instagram post does not determine how pretty I am.Â
I’m only 18, but I have learned and grown up so much within the past 24 months that I can’t help but be proud of myself. Although going back and changing the decisions that I’ve made in the past does sound nice, they have led me to the person that I am today.