18 lessons for my 18-year old self

Hey, I’m back! Actually, I wrote this post a month ago and just scheduled it for today. Right now I’m writing my board exams so wish me good luck 🙂 Anyways, today is a really special day for this blog. We just completed 2 years! How crazy is that? 104 weeks and 35 posts…ok I see why my analytics are dying. Honestly though, never started this blog for clout, I just wanted to document my teenage years and I knew keeping a diary was just not as huge a deal for someone as inconsistent as me…with that said this post may be incoherent for most of you and filled with a lot of bad grammar but there’s no need to understand it, I’m writing this one for myself, well…the future myself.

Dear 18-year old me,
I haven’t decided yet but whatever we want in life – peace, knowledge, money – make sure that it’s always the second priority behind freedom. Don’t ever let anybody or anything bind you down. We know how it feels to be tied down and we hate it.
Make sure that you keep your competitive side in control. But at the same time don’t get as complacent as I got in the past 2 years. We gave an attempt at this life, and we very well-tried the hustle life. FIND A BALANCE. You know what happens when you get into something. Consciously choose your priorities – health, mental peace and family above everything else, however shiny that jewel is. If you go overly ambitious again, you are just gonna go through burnout. This time it was an 8-year grind resulting in a 4-year burnout, we don’t know how long the next one can be. Keep your priorities straight.
Building onto the previous point, you saw how people’s view of you changed when you didn’t live up to their expectations, you saw how they flipped, trust people but don’t expect anything in return – I don’t mean support, I mean validation. As a teen, it was tough to not crave validation but we both know how double-edged of a sword it can be. Through thick and thin the only people that will remain with you are your family and those true friends.
Talking about true friends, people aren’t inherently bad, maybe their vibe doesn’t match with you. You know the influence such people can have on you. Cut them off as soon as you can, they may be hurt but you know what will happen in the long run.
Produce more than you consume. There will be a million self-help books, gurus and videos out there but know that the only true way of becoming the best version of yourself is through introspection.
Every time you decide you want to do something, weigh its pros and cons and think about its consequences. At first, this will be annoying, but make it into a habit, you know how annoying it is to instil habits.
Don’t care about what society will think about you when you visualise who you want to be in the future. Think if you will be proud and happy, think will Aarit have someone to look up to.
Know that as dumb as your thoughts sometimes sound, they are a part of you, there is no golden goose that gives gold eggs every time, the golden goose also produces faeces (for a lack of a better word).
Show gratitude when someone compliments you or criticizes you, you don’t know which one of these is genuine.
Don’t let your achievements go to your head but don’t forget about them either, they will pull you up in your darkest days. Do celebrate them though, even the small and “insignificant” ones.
Know that however organized and perfect you try to be, you work best in chaos.
It may be embarrassing when you wear two different coloured socks or forget to put on laces on your newly-washed shoes, maybe when you forgot your own name while filling out the MUN form? But the people who genuinely love you, accept and enjoy these quirks. And as it is happening, you know damn well you are gonna have a good laugh about it…
Don’t agree to do something if you don’t want to, we are the most “energy conserving” person I know. It’s very difficult for us to do something which we don’t want to. You know all the “work” I put into these board exams. Decide what you really want to do and go full throttle. As Mom always says “the 1%”
Every person you meet has some golden piece of knowledge that isn’t the cliche – be yourself. Keep this in mind whenever you socialize. Try to learn from everybody. You of all people should know that the best learnings come from unspoken words.
Talking about knowledge – I know how much you dislike knowing random things, they may seem useless to know but you never know when that random piece of information comes in handy…
Meet people – as many people as you can. Especially those people who have walked the path you are currently walking on. Sometimes we have problems, but always keep in mind that somebody else has also had those exact problems when they were doing what you are doing (pretty confusing ik). Getting advice or giving it never hurts.
I know that you get very passionate while debating on something you care about and even though you might think that standing your ground is normal, for many people it’s not. We live in a society where standing your ground is often confused with being egoistic – however much you hate certain things about society, both of us know that humans are social creatures, and we can’t live without society. Take a back seat and let the other person be right sometimes.

Lastly- hang in there man, sometimes you may feel alone, unworthy or just hopeless. Remember that all of these are just “phases”, they come and go, and there is no constant in life other than yourself (?) wait scratch that…you know how much you have changed in the past years and I’m proud of you for it. Never thought of someone like you – a bullied quiet kid with no friends, having absolutely no strength (the mental kind) due to a lack of a male authority figure. Someone like you who played alone because you knew mom worked really hard the whole day just to come home and handle all your problems with a smile and no complaints. Someone like you who never gave yourself a free moment just because you were afraid of confronting yourself, the person you were disappointed in. Someone like you became a school minister, made a whole bunch of crazy friends, put yourself out there on the internet for everybody to judge, became a big brother, and the biggest achievement of them all – have talked to more people than you can count on your fingers 😱

However bad the circumstances, however baneful the consequences, we will always know deep within that we got this. We will keep a smile on our faces just like mom did, wind up big time like our friends do and go full in with everything we got like papa and baba. All the while enjoying the chaos like our cousins. Have a happy life, my brother, I’ll do my best now so that you can have a good future 😀