Dear Recent High School Graduate

So you think you are ready for the world? You aren’t. Until now, you have been sheltered and protected. The world you have been living in is not real.

To celebrate your graduation, I could send you a gift card, but you would just forget about me after you used it. Instead, I’m going to give you a present that you can use your whole life – the gift of my experience.

The lessons below are in no particular order. They are lessons that it took me all these years to figure out. Some of these lessons came too late in life for me to take advantage of. I can’t go back in time, but it’s not too late for you. Commit these lessons to memory. Print this blog and stick it in your yearbook. Look at it twenty years from now. If you don’t think it’s absolutely true, I’ll refund 100% of your subscription fee to my blog.

1) Get an education.

a. Learn as much as you can about something, even if it means teaching yourself. You need to know more about something than most other people do. If you don’t, you will not be valuable to the rest of the world.

b. Do it while you are young. You will soon be too tired from working all day to sit all evening in a classroom full of 19-year old children who are all texting each other instead of listening to the teacher.

2) Save your money. I know that you think you need the latest iDoodad to complete your life, but in the end it won’t make you any happier for more than a few hours. At some point whatever you buy will become obsolete and useless. If you start saving now, you’ll be wealthy and able to enjoy your life when you are ready to stop working. Plan for that day and never forget about it.

3) Never pay a bill late. Once you pay something late, you will dig a financial hole so big you may never get out of it. If you don’t have the money to pay, be honest about it. Call them and let them know right away. They will work with you.

4) Never loan money out that you don’t expect to lose. The moment the money leaves your hands, consider it gone forever. If it comes back, you will be pleased, but the chances are high that you will never see it again. You should know that in advance.

5) Don’t use your good looks to succeed, either in business or in relationships. You are cute now, but you will be 40 years old in about two hours. (Okay, it just seems like it, but the effect is the same.) One day soon, you will wake up and see things on your face that look like you slept on a piece of corrugated cardboard – and they won’t go away. You will walk into a bar and nobody will pay any attention to you, except to laugh at your clothes. Cute is only temporary. One day, your boss won’t be interested in looking at you. And if your mate is only with you for your looks, you will eventually find yourself alone.

6) Buy your own home. Forget about whining to the landlord about your clogged toilet and learn to fix it yourself. You should never have to ask permission to paint the wall or change the carpet. Everyone needs a place to call their own.

7) The friends you have now are not going to be your lifelong friends. They are just people amusing themselves with you until they find lives of their own. When they have children, they will completely forget that you exist. During your life you will meet one person that you can truly call “friend”. It won’t happen until you have become the person you will be someday. You are not that person yet.

8) Nobody cares about you, as much as you do. My mother shared this one with me when I was a teenager. It’s always been true. Do not think that when you get married or when you have children that someone will take care of you. They have their own lives to live. Go back and read number 1 and number 2 again. If you do these two things, you will never have to rely on anyone else to take care of you.

9) When you choose a career, forget about the money and do what makes you happy. Don’t listen to the people who tell you that you will never make a living doing what makes you happy. If you are happy, the money will take care of itself. It is far more important to wake up and be happy than it is to wake up rich.

10) Get a good night’s sleep every night. Nothing good ever happens after midnight. Most good things happen before noon. Be awake when they happen.

11) Travel to other countries. There are as many different opinions of what is “normal” as there are cultures in the world. Go and experience some of them. Only by exploring other cultures, can you ever hope to have a real understanding of your own culture.

12) Never lie about yourself to please someone else or to gain their acceptance. Do not pretend to be something you are not. Be proud of who you are and what you have accomplished. Do not allow anyone to tell you that you are not good enough the way you are. When you are honest about yourself, some people will turn their backs on you. Those people were never there for you to begin with. You don’t need them in your life. The ones who stick by you, even after they know what you are really like, are the most important people in the world.