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Dear 16-Year Old Elisabeth,
How excited you are to FINALLY be 16.
Remember how Kim & Sarah decorated your room with streamers, balloons, and candy? And how they gave you a white rose on your pillow?
Yeah. That was really cool.
So why did you stop being friends with them?
Oh yeah, that's right, you wanted to be more popular.
And remember how you are completely obsessed with that tall, lanky, black-haired boy?
Yeah. That was really dumb. Don't be obsessed. Being friends with him would have been so much better.
But it's okay. Everybody does stupid things.
However, remember that one stupid thing you did? How you constantly yelled at your parents and you felt like your siblings were inferior to you?
That....that wasn't okay.
You need to be nicer to them because honestly, they're the people that matter the most.
(my little sister & I)
They're the people who will be there when you're sitting in your apartment, bawling your eyes out because college isn't AT ALL like you wanted it to be. They'll be there. And guess who won't? Those other people you supposedly called friends.
But remember how much weight you lost?
Yeah. That was pretty cool.
Whatever possessed you to join the cross-country team, I will never know.
But you did and running 3 miles every day from June to January changed you for the better.
You can now call yourself a runner!
Don't be so eager to leave.
Sugar City might be a small town, but it will end up meaning the world to you.
It'll be your safe haven in a world of scary things.
It'll help you stay connected to your little bubble of a world that only exists in Sugar City.
Be happy in the moment.
Stop wasting away your life worrying about that boy who never texted you back.
Become concerned with what people need instead of what you need.
Just be happy.
Love,
20-year old Elisabeth
Communication Research Methods.
It's a class.
It's really hard.
I'm going to fail.
Ha! Okay. That's not completely accurate.
I think I'll do fine, however, my brain exploded when I found out I had to take this class.
The first day, I sit down and I'm in sheer panic.
I don't know what to expect from this class, but all I know is it's going to be really hard.
Truth be know, it wasn't as horrifying as I made it out to be.
Instead, I actually learned something.
My professor started talking about a wall she encountered as she was going to grad school.
She called it the Statistics Wall.
She said that as she took more and more statistics classes she felt like eventually she would hit a wall.
She imagined the wall being 20 feet high, all completely cement with barbwire on the top.
She kept taking classes and kept acing them and wasn't hitting any kind of wall. Even though she totally hated statistics.
When she decided to finally graduate...(she's one of those crazy teachers that LOVES school and was in school for like 25 years...) she went to talk to her statistics professor about taking another statistics class and she ended up telling him about her imaginary wall.
He looked at her and said "It's not a wall, it's a door."
She explained that, that statement changed her life and that instead of thinking that she'll eventually hit the wall and become a statistics puddle, that she flows freely door to door, picking up every kind of information she can possibly get.
MY MIND WAS BLOWN.
And I began thinking about how I could apply that in my life.
Instead of believing that I'll eventually fail and become a "statistics puddle", I should believe that every opportunity is just a door.
It opens and closes and I have to make the choice to open the door, whether I fail or not.
I won't hit a wall.
I just close a door.
I don't fail at something.
I just close a door.
I don't get rejected.
I just close a door.
And it's not like I won't ever be able to open a particular door again because I've already got the key that unlocks it.
Life shouldn't be about hitting walls. It should be about opening doors.
