It has been 11 years so hopefully this means I am slightly qualified to pass along advice that I’ve learned in that time.
Hopefully you will be willing to ponder this advice since I do not consider myself a bonafide adult just yet.
What HCI Principal, Cory Popoff, and teacher, David Millette, has said is true. Learning is vital to your success. It does not matter where you go or what you do. Whether you go to a trade school, university, whether you flip burgers for a year,
it does not matter.
Just because you have left school does not mean you stop learning.
That is how we evolve as people.
Lessons are not just things discussed in classrooms.
We learn new things, we learn new lessons by experiencing new things and new people.
Mr. Popoff was also right about negative and positive people.
Negativity breeds negativity. Positivity breeds positivity.
Surround yourself with positivity. Surround yourself with people who want to make the world better.
On that note, be a person who wants to make the world better.
Sometimes you make the world better just by being in it. By shining the positivity to the world.
However, this does not mean surround yourself with people who think exactly like you.
Surround yourself with people who think differently and you will learn and explore new sides of the world.
This is a way in which you discover who you really are.
You will understand how you truly feel about the world by discovering it at all angles.
Challenge yourself to grow as a person.
Do not be so set in your ways that you cannot grow. It is okay to change your mind on things. That is just another part of human evolution.
Even as you evolve, do not rush into adulthood.
Sometimes it can be overrated to be 100 per cent adult all the time.
Take time to walk barefoot in the park.
Take time to spend all day in bed with a good book.
Take time to blow bubbles and watch them float around you.
There is something to be said for the wide eyed wonderment and awe that a child has.
Do not lose that on the way to paying your own bills and going to work every morning.
It is a scary place this road of life.
The only failure in life is letting fear keep you from living.
Go ahead, be extraordinary. There may be people who think you should not but they do not matter in your life equation.
Know that there are people who love you, people who support you, and people who want to see you succeed.
Pay it forward and be that person for someone else.
Above all else the best piece of advice I can give is respect.
People may not deserve your love and they may not even deserve energy.
But every person deserves to be respected.
Even yourself.
Eleanor Roosevelt said, “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Do not settle for less and do not give any less.
Congratulations and I cannot wait to see what your life has in store.
