The 18 year-old kid dreaming of what college would be like is long gone. She's mastered the laundry, gotten rid of those hideous mom shorts (what really makes me sad is you know I picked out my very coolest outfit for the first day of college...), formed a great friendship with that pocket-sized roommate in the picture, and learned a whole lot about the "real world." The Cheez-It stash on that shelf has been replaced with Xtra Cheddar Goldfish.
(Tangent: Oh man, I just realized how much I miss those shoes. I adored those shoes. So cute, so comfortable...)
If I could go back and tell that kid in the picture one thing, I don't think she'd have listened. (Betcha didn't see the end of that sentence coming!) I know this because the advice I would give comes straight from a Bible verse I hung on the wall a couple months into college. "Above all else, guard your heart - for it is the wellspring of life." (No, I'm not going all Kasey Kahl on you...I'm going King Solomon on you!) It's so true, and so much of my vibrancy has been lost by not guarding my heart...but there's no way I could've understood that nine years ago.
This is the problem with giving advice. Sometimes it works, but most of the time, you just have to learn from your own mistakes. People say all the time, "If I could go back and tell myself xyz..." But the fact is, the you from back then probably wouldn't have listened either.
In nine years I've learned a lot. And sure, some of it has been through the wisdom of great Wheaton professors or sage bosses. But a lot of it has just been through life experience. And there's no amount of advice-giving that could've taught me the same things.
1 comments:
Unfortunately, that's true. And as a mother, it sometimes breaks my heart that you have to learn "the hard way".
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