Advice From My Younger Self

In my baby pink (or we could call it "millennial pink") Keep Calm and Have a Cupcake Notebook from my freshman year of college, I just found two pages that I'm shocked to say, are very applicable today. I can't say I'm not a little embarrassed to share this, but I smiled when I came across it this morning, so I wanted to share.

I think a lot of us can easily look back on a time in the not-so-distant past and feel like life was much simpler then. It's like that post that I'm about to misquote, "Remember when you thought you were fat but now you look back and you wish you were as fat as you were then" - not my finest citation, but I think it applies pretty well.

So here's some advice I wrote down every so often with cute little squiggly arrows because bullet points were too boring for my adolescent self... and this is literally how I wrote them

Stay classy (heart)
Good grades - every quiz, homework, etc. COUNTS
God loves me
Wake up early, it makes morning last longer
Just be PRODUCTIVE!! ... & nice, always
I'm happier when things are clean
I have an amazing boyfriend (happy face, heart)
Drink water ALL day, EVERY day
E X E R C I S I N G makes me feel better (&much leaner)
No one else knows what they're doing either
So be confident & be yourself - & nice
It really is ok to be different... just not really weird
"Just be yourself" sucks when you don't know who you are - be nice, confident, & hard-working

.... apparently I needed lots of reminders to be a nice person

Going over these now, I'm laughing at how true they are. Waking up early to make time to make my stovetop espresso, smelling the beans grinding, listening to music give me the chance to set my rhythm for the day. Even the homework one - every email, project, interaction COUNTS!

I hope you find this applies to you too, or find one little thing to take away to make your day a little more... nice. It's amusing to look back to see what my priorities were five or six years ago.

My takeaway from this morning: keep trucking, I know what's important, but it's easy to feel other things crowd my life. God, family, friends, and self-betterment are the most important. Everything else will fall into place once those are given priority.