4Tests Blog

Spend enough time on reddit, particularly the education areas, and you are bound to find some compelling advice. When I was in high school, the Internet was in its infancy. It’s unfortunate because I missed out on a lot of great advice that kids today have open access to. If you are a teenager and standing at the precipice of your future, you would be wise to seek some of this stuff out. It can help you with your school and life in general. Here are some of the best bits and pieces I’ve been able to cull together. For the rest, check out this thread and enjoy!

1. “40+ here. … To anyone under the age of 18: Unless you are a prodigy of either the very good or very bad kind, NOTHING that you accomplish, or fail to accomplish, in high school is going mean jack shit in 20 years. … Captain of the football team? Doesn’t matter. Prettiest girl in school? Doesn’t matter. Stoned kid in the back of class? Doesn’t matter. Hopeless, friendless, loner, obsessed with books about dragons and/or robots? Doesn’t matter … in 20 years, odds are you will not play football professionally. … You are not doomed to a life of hanging out on park benches asking for change. … Above all, even if your own conduct affects you, there is time and ample opportunity for you to fix stuff. You are not the category you fell into. The world is HUGE, and the differences you think make you totally unique and special in a class of 500 will matter not at all in a college of 10,000. … This should not depress you. This should fill you with hope. What you are now, the things that seem most important and most crucial to your day to day life, will magically disappear one day, to be replaced by an entirely new set of worries, hopes, and desires. … Learn to roll with it.

2. “Be nice to your body. It’s the only one you get. You will pay for the things you do to it before you figure out you aren’t invincible. I’m 31 and have spent the last 4 years paying.”

3. “29 year old male here. By all means, have your first love and enjoy it. It’s one of the purest feelings you will know in your lifetime and it feels like it will last forever. Unfortunately, most of you will break up before long and it will crush you. My advice? Grieve briefly, remember the good times, and then get over it as soon as possible. … I’m begging you. Please just let it go. One of the greatest regrets of my young life was taking six years to get over my first serious girlfriend. I loved her so much that, for six years of what should have been my sexual prime, I kept trying to win her back, strung along by all of our hookups and flirting between other guys she dated. I just kept telling myself there was a reason she always came back to me and that if I just kept at it, we’d end up together. Stupidest thing I ever did.”

4. “Find any way to go to college that doesn’t require massive school loans. Go to a two year first and then transfer to a four year. Apply to every scholarship offer you can.”

5. “Never accept being called smart, genius, or intelligent. There is always more to learn and you should never be satisfied with the knowledge you have obtained. Knowledge is all relative and can can easily slip away if you get lazy. And that’s why I’m 25 and working at geek squad.”

6. “You are not entitled to anything. Don’t whine when you don’t get the car you want, or the clothes you want, or the phone you want. Likewise, don’t expect the world to magically hand you the job you want, or the love of your life, on a silver platter.”

7. “Don’t pass up an opportunity. Experience as much as you can in the time you have in this life. You’re young! So you have time to recover from stupid mistakes and heart breaks. … So go ahead and travel the world, ask out any girl or guy you find yourself attracted to, go to college, join a club or team of some sort, jump out of a plane, kayak over Niagra Falls, run with the bulls in Spain, buy that pontoon boat you have your eye on, fall in love, have children, set a goal, own an exotic pet, laugh, cry, but most importantly have fun and appreciate your life for what it’s worth.”

8. “Mostly to just relax. If I had to do my teen years over again, I wouldn’t have taken it so seriously. Your teen years, yes, do set you up for the rest of your life, but only because of what you consistently do in those years. … Do you consistently work hard? Get good (realistically) grades? Treat people well? Make friends easily? Then you’re going to be ok. The people who graduate high school and have a ton of problems are the ones who get in trouble with the law now, show a lazy work ethic now, don’t improve themselves now, get pregnant or catch diseases now. … Unless you’re a top-1-percenter going for Ivy leagues or something, a few small mistakes or regrets over your teen years are nothing in the broad scope of your life. Just do a consistently good job and you’ll figure it out. … Oh. And don’t pay attention to people who are ‘unimpressed with teenagers.’ They’re unimpressed in themselves more.”

9. ““Don’t go to University for the sake of going to University. It’s too expensive if you don’t really, REALLY mean it. … If you think you’d be okay working in a trade, do it. If you’re life’s goals don’t require an expensive education, don’t bother with it. Student debt is the worst debt and unless you’re taking a well paying degree, you’re [in trouble]. … If you are driven, you know EXACTLY what you want to do, find out more about what it is you want to do. Go meet with someone who works the profession. Talk to them. See if the good things outweigh the bad. … If I had been told this as a teenager, I wouldn’t have paid attention because I was wearing rose-colored glasses. I now have a degree I have no interest in using and I work in what would be more accurately be described as a trade and I love it.”

Did any of this advice to teenagers resonate with you? If so, are you a teenager or just someone who wishes you could have had access to this knowledge when you were younger? And what advice would you give to teenagers?