Balance your checkbook.
Get rid of stuff. Simplify your life. You don’t need those book reports from eighth grade.
Use a clean dish rag every day.
Give up thinking that you are right all the time. Even if you happen to be right, it usually doesn’t matter.
Be proud of yourself.
Take risks.
Spend time every day looking at your flat stomach and appreciating it.
Stop buying stuff on the clearance rack just because it’s a good deal.
Recycle.
Use more sunscreen.
When you get pregnant, don’t use that as a green light to eat whatever you want. You will regret it.
Most dogs are not trying to bite you. (Only the really big ones.)
Share yourself with others. Don’t hide your talents.
Get rid of all of your ideas about what makes a good mother. You’ve got what it takes.
Order your salad dressing on the side.
Listen to other people’s opinions, especially if they are different from your own.
Stay in school.
Enjoy the time in life when you are not responsible for anybody but yourself.
Dream big.
Wear things that are trendy and ridiculous. You can use your youth as an excuse.
Buy a bikini and wear it every single day. I know you don’t think you look good, but I’m telling you—you do.
Travel, travel, travel.
Let your husband be himself. Don’t ever try to change him; it would be a shame.
Widen your musical tastes.
Credit cards suck.
Don’t look too far down the road. It’s not worth getting overwhelmed.
Appreciate your good childhood and healthy parents.
Be patient.
(Of course, this conversation would be completely and totally useless. When I was twenty, I knew everything already.)
What would you tell your twenty-year-old self?
I really could’ve used a list like this. Mostly, the parts about being a mom and appreciating my stomach. I didn’t even realize how good it was back then. It never crossed my mind. Oh well, It’s too late now.
Thanks Tiff. I’m almost twenty and it was a good reminder of what matters. I look back now and think…if only I’d have none this at 16! Maybe with this list I won’t say that about being 20! Here’s to being young!
I like your list. I like you. One more thing – save every photo of yourself, even the ones you hate. Believe me, you will realize how good you looked back then. Maybe one more. Be respectful of older adults, I mean really older adults. One day you will be one.
I would have told myself to write down more of the little details of my courtship with my husband, it’s all starting to get fuzzy and I’d give anything to be able to bring those little details back to my memory.
Great post, Tiff.
I would also tell myself to STAY IN SCHOOL!! And I would emphasize that I didn’t have to choose a major that I was in absolute love with — just choose a freakin’ major already, and stick with it!!!
I would also tell myself to blow off finals and go out with that really cute guy who asked me out!!
I would tell myself to attend my student ward, instead of going home each weekend.
I would encourage the my former self to deregard my list of expectations. I have been a miserable failure according to the unrealistic expecations I had as a twenty-year-old. I wish I would have set some sort of a standard for the kind of person I wanted to be as an adult, and then used that standard to identify characteristics I wanted to nurture in myself. Instead, I had a list of achievements I wanted to reach. Life turned out different for me than I thought it should when I was twenty, and I had a difficult struggle when I was time to look at life in terms of who I was (the core of me) rather than what I had and had not accomplished (including my failures).
p.s. It’s not too late to appreciate how good you look now. When you’re forty you may long for the days when you were thirty and looking like the hot mama you are. Embrace the now!
p.p.s. I hate how many typos I had in the above post . . . grrrrr
okay, my comment was getting too long. My 20-year old self has a lot to learn. Check out my blog.
I wholeheartedly support your bikini motion. Though I am well beyond 20 and still a practicing member of the bikini club.
I’d also tell myself to milk my parents for all they were worth. I let them get off waaayy too easy!
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