Advice to my 21 Year old self.

I recently read a business article about successful entrepreneurs, and what advice they would give their 21 year old selves. It was an enjoyable read and quite insightful. Often when I read something like this, it makes me consider my life and sometimes, something weaves its way into my own adaptation of writing.

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I have been consumed lately with thoughts about my twenty one year old step daughter and where her life will take her, the journey she is on, and decisions she is making and will be making as she becomes the director of her destiny. I would love to give her advice, but I don’t! It all makes me wonder what advice I would give my 21 year old self. What advice will I give my daughter when she is old enough? I’ve done the exercise of what I would tell my 16 year old self, but let’s face it, at 16; life is all about hormones, emotion, first loves. We are consumed by trials and tribulations that make us feel as though our world is crashing in around us. At 21, at least you have usually survived your first break up, graduation, your first bona fide job, maybe post secondary school, but always the question of what you are going to do with the rest of your life.

So I compiled my own list of advice, and wow, I have a lot of advice I sure would like to give! It was great to write it out, because it made me question where I’ve been, where I am going, and hey, can I still use this advice, even if I am 40 something? It’s coming to me 20 years too late, but “better late than never”, isn’t it? What do you think?

Here goes, my advice, in absolutely no particular order at all!

1.       Read. A lot. Learn. I don’t just mean novels, read anything that interests you and read about things you may think will peak your curiosity. Reading keeps you sharp.

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2.       Learn something new. Don’t ever think you know it all or know enough, there is always something new to learn.

3.       Find a mentor. Find someone you admire for their work ethic, parenting style, life or professional values. Find someone who is at least ten years older than you, someone who is trustworthy and who will answer your questions with honesty. If it’s possible, have a personal and a professional mentor.

4.       Be curious. Ask questions. If you are genuinely curious about things, about people, you will learn to be a good listener. You will learn to value what other people say and you will gain knowledge from their stories.

5.       Keep a journal. I’ve always been good at keeping a journal and I’m glad I did. Write down your thoughts, feelings and goals. Record the events in your life. Then go back and re-read then every once in a while. When you go back two years and re-read what you wrote, it’s like listening to yourself, hearing your heart, your yearnings. Let it be your reminder.

6.       Be quiet. Be alone. Take the time to sit quietly, be by yourself. Listen to what you hear in the silence, what your body, your mind, your soul tell you. Don’t be scared to be alone, and know there is a difference between time alone and being lonely.

7.       Be single. Not forever but don’t feel that you need to be in a relationship. When you are never alone, you don’t truly know who you are. You only know parts of you. When you move from relationship to relationship, you only know who you are when you are with another person. You hear all the time to “love yourself”, but I want you to “know” yourself. Knowing who you are comes to you, it really does. Sometimes it takes awhile, but it does come. Hopefully you are always changing and growing. This may be at the top of my advice!

8.       Travel. You will find so many excuses not to go; you have no money, no one to go with, you’ll break your mom’s heart. Go. Go as often as you can. It doesn’t have to be far it just needs to happen. See the world from a different window not just the one where you work and live.

9.       Love. You will get hurt. You will never forget your first love, but love people. Friends, family, and lovers. Love them without fear. You will always survive the heartbreak; it won’t kill you, even when you are certain it will. Being jaded, cynical and doubtful, it will kill you inside.

10.   Be Healthy. You won’t always have your figure, maybe your looks will fade, so be healthy. Find an exercise that you like and do it. Try new ones, and do them too. Be careful what you put into your body, if it’s not good; don’t let it touch your lips.

11.   Hug and Kiss. Embrace your friends and family. Touch is good between those you care about. Hold hands. Place your hands on top of your friends hand, mom, dad, and lover. Place your hand on their face, their arm, their shoulder. Kiss and kiss well, when you find that love, never stop kissing. Kiss deep, long, and with conviction.

12.   Think about marriage, not your wedding. I was never one of those girls who dreamt about her wedding, what it would look like, what kind of dress I would wear or any of the other fantasies girls have about their weddings. I also didn’t have an example to look to of a good marriage and so I didn’t ever think about what a good marriage consisted of. You should! Marriage is hard, and it’s complicated. Spend more time thinking about what makes a marriage, what you want from a husband and what it means to be a good wife, and less time thinking of the beautiful dress. A wedding is one day, a marriage is not, so put your focus where it belongs.

13.   Make mistakes. It happens, we all make so many mistakes in our lifetime, and that is ok. Just take the time to pause and learn from them. Think about what went wrong and what led to the mistake. Then forgive yourself. Forgive and move forward.



14.   Be kind, every day. This is broad, I realize, but there are countless ways to be kind. Smile at people, in the grocery store, in the car next to yours, when you cross the street, to the homeless person. Let people into your lane when their signals are on, if someone drops something, don’t just notice it, and pick it up. Make cookies, just to give away, invite a friend to join you and another friend to the movie. Invite people to stay for dinner, not just to come over when plans are made. Offer someone a ride, volunteer your time, and pay for coffee for the person behind you. Just be kind.

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There you have it, just some of the advice I would offer. I stopped at 14, but I could have gone on. I have a favorite quote that I love, by Maya Angelou...”when you get, give....when you learn, teach.” It is so simple. But consider how much better of a place the world would be to live in, if every day, we lived by that one simple rule, get...give, learn...teach.

I’d love to hear from you, what advice would YOU give to your 21 year old self? Share with me in the comments below

Thank you for stopping by.

Tannis

 

 

What Keeps Me Up at Night - Story Unfolding 101

*What keeps you up at night? What could you talk about every single day for the rest of your life? What do you want to shout from the rooftops so everyone will know? What runs electric through your veins?

What keeps me up at night? Seriously?

What doesn’t keep me up at night?

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I don’t sleep much, or well. So the fact that I can’t sleep, keeps me up. Fear of insomnia taking over my life once again, keeps me up. People use the word insomnia too much. I think I likely did as well, until I actually had it, and sleep would not come to me, not at 1 am, not at 3 am, not a 5 am. Never. Finally I would nap some afternoons, for short periods of time. Insomnia, you know when you have it, and it is dreadful!

What keeps me up at night?

Conversations I ought to have or would like to have, will keep me up. Thinking about marriage and friendships, keeps me up at night.

Story ideas keep me up at night.

Songs stuck in my head keep me in a state of consciousness.

Oddly enough, ways in which I can meet and have dinner with Prince keep me up at night.

If you tell me to think about ice cream flavors to help me get to sleep, instead of counting sheep, now THAT, keeps me up. DO you know how many ice cream flavors you can think of? Remember the ice cream in a cone shape plastic cup, it was pink and had a gum ball at the bottom, and you ate it with a wooden stick spoon? What about the Canadian Mint Bar or Strawberry Shortcake? Oh and pudding pops! See what happens?

My brain does not shut the fuck up!

This writing prompt does not help me, and it even kept me up one damn night!

Now what could I talk about every single day? Again, some would say Prince. Weird, I know. Others would say my daughter, my cat, the crappy service you get from people in retail stores.

I know where this writing prompt is meant to go, what it is supposed to inspire in me. It doesn’t.

Here is the thing. Something that moves me, or something I am passionate about, it is not something tangible.

It is a feeling.

It is a deep, unbending need that gnaws at me every day, a need that I push into those deep crevasses.

It’s a feeling of home, of family (not necessarily the traditional sense of family). It is a place of belonging.

That is what it is, that ignites me, what I want to shout from the rooftops. This feeling I search for and long for, that I am scared I will die without feeling it.

A feeling of love and warmth, closeness, kindness, tenderness, sharing, caring and an absolute unvarying, sum of exchange.

Love that is given and returned on the parity,

A place of solitude, peace and tranquility,

Beauty,

Trust,

And Adoration.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tannis

Story 101

I started a new writing course, Story 101, which will continue for ten weeks. In these 10 weeks, my plan is to use this blog as my writing place. We have a syllabus for our ten weeks, full of writing prompts, blog analysis, activities, books we need to read. I may be a bit crazy to be doing this right now, in the busy summer months, but all of my months are busy. No time like now.

The first food for thought presented to us; “why am I taking this course, do I have a story unfolding?”

We all have a story, don’t we?

For the last four days on the beach, there was this anonymous man, sitting there in his chair. He would sit alone, drinking a beer or two. When the heat became too much or the water beckoned him, he would retreat to the water for a swim. On and on, day after day, my curious eyes would watch him, my heart felt warm towards him. We have now progressed, him and I, from a friendly nod of acknowledgement to a hello and finally an exchange of names and a conversation. He even offered to take a picture of my family.

Today, I glanced back at him. Tibor is his name. No doubt he was handsome in his day. Now he has silver hair, likely in his 60’s, a fit, tanned man. As I glimpse at him, I wonder about him, what is Tibor’s story? Is there a Mrs. or is she gone. Does he have children, grandchildren? Is he sad? What does he think about all those hours?

Tibor has a story.

I have a story.

We all have a story. Some of us want to tell it. Some of us need to tell it. Some would rather their stories didn’t exist in their form.

But...we all matter and each and every one of our stories matter.

I may find out through Story 101 that I began this course to tell my story. Maybe it is to see if I have the courage to use my authentic voice. I am taking this course to learn; from myself and others as we become brave worriers in our own right.

I am taking this course to find my heart, become alive in places I fear I have died.

As we build a community and rally around each other, I hope to share my stories and find my authentic voice which these days, seems to be silent.

Most of all, I want to write.

I want to dig into the crevices of me, deep and dark, bright and wild.

I want to write.

You may choose to read or you may not. It is ok either way. You may be intrigued by my journey or bored. Either way, it is ok.

I do know that in my writing I will grow, I will find beauty, I will be beautiful. If in some small way, by being me, I have touched someone deep inside their crevices, helped someone feel love, make them smile or help them feel a sense of connection, my words will have been worth it.

Story 101 is just another one of my journeys, to my final destination.

I hope that without judgement, you will join me in reading about my journey. Perhaps you will begin to or continue to find your voice to your own story unfolding.

My biggest barrier, as I take this course, is going to be fear. I’m ashamed to say that sometimes, fear rules me. What am I afraid of? Well, sometimes I am afraid of the fact that no one truly knows me, and in writing and sharing, people may finally get to know me. What if knowing me means not loving me?

I am afraid to dream my dreams, because of fear of success. What if achieving my dreams means leaving others behind? I am afraid of the crippling guilt of being selfish.

Finally, I am afraid, that I actually will find my voice and in doing so, I will split myself wide open, gaping wounds and all, for all to know, for all to see, for all to judge and for all to question. I am afraid to find the answer to my burning question: How can I feel like something is absent, when I am so happy?

How will I manage these obstacles? With the faith and belief that all of this will happen and I will be loved anyway, I will still be happy and maybe even happier still.

I will manage these obstacles by the simple knowledge that I am who I am for a reason, that my stories, my life, and my love, is meant to be shared. I believe that beauty can indeed be something that can be felt in my heart and not just seen.

This is the truth. The truth shall set us free – right?

My truth will take courage, vulnerability and love.

I am about to embrace my story unfolding!

Thanks for stopping by.

 

Tannis