20 Years Later...

Well... since I'm in the last few hours of being a teenager, I guess I'll share some of my last 19 year old thoughts. The past year has been one of smiles and frowns, laughs and tears, excitement and disappointment, and love and hate. It's been a struggle and an experience in trying to find out who I am and who I'm supposed to be. It's crazy to think that I've been on this earth for 20 years now and I still don't know who I am sometimes. This past year has made me realize that I REALLY still have a lot to learn about love, happiness, kindness, patience and life in general. I think sometimes we don't realize how much there really is to learn and experience in this life until we are caught in a situation where we need knowledge we don't have. We may not be able to learn and experience everything in this world but we need to learn all that we CAN. There are certain lessons that everyone needs to learn and other lessons that are more important for certain people. In my opinion, everyone needs to learn how to love. Truly, sincerely love. Whether it is love for a person or an object or a sport or a profession, you have to love something and have a passion for something. Without love, what is there to be excited about?

Next, I think everyone needs to learn how to have true happiness. Even if some people never achieve it, they at least need to learn HOW it's achieved. Happiness comes from loving the people and things around you. It comes from being grateful for what you have, not constantly wanting more. No one can have everything and YOU have a whole lot more than a lot of people in this world. Happiness comes from recognizing the blessings God has given you and acting upon them in the way he intended you to.

The last important thing I think everyone needs to learn, and one that I have a lot of work to do on, is patience. Patience for other people, patience for yourself, patience for the future, patience for better things to come, patience for love, patience for LIFE. In order to get through this life, it takes a lot of patience, and I've learned that without it, life really is going to be harder. Keep your goals in mind, keep your head up and keep moving forward, but live in the present. If you're always living in the future, you'll never have a past. And one day you'll look back and not know where your life went.

So, I guess I'm just saying that what I've learned in my 20 years is that life is hard and there are plenty of lessons to learn, but have fun along the way and don't get caught up in anything. Yes, you need priorities, but they need to be kept in perspective. After all, no one makes it out of here alive.