Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Our lives should be like this - trust me.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97 [I guess we can still say of 2010]:


Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and the beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen."

by  Mary Schmich, published by the Chicago Tribune on 01 June 1997

...

Everytime I hear this I think to myself... "this is so true". 
I was driving my car. It was around 10:30 p.m. and this song started to play. 
Everytime I hear these words I don't want to listen to anything else, because they are so pure, simple and most of all they are true. They are the real truth. 
Life is so precious and sometimes we through it away, watching soaps and stupid things on the tv. Some people prefer to complain about everything instead of loving themselves. Why should we? Why shouldn't we just let everyone do what they want to do? 
We should see each others as brothers and sisters. The church tells us so. And everyone that knows me, knows that I am not into religion [at least talking about the catholic one]. But this is so true. We are people. We are one of a kind. We look the same. We have the same blood. The same organism. Why are fighting against each others? It's not worth it. 
We should enjoy our love, the peace, the time we got and our life the way it is. It's too precious to be thrown away. It's a beautiful life and we should live it in the best possible way. 

3 comments:

  1. it was you that wrote this text? it's wonderful! believe me, I'm seeing my youth going away. I'm already 20, world of the grown-ups, and I wish I was still 18, cause my spirit's still a teen! x)

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  2. Read that one in school, once. Best part at that time: Don't read beauty magazines, they'll make you feel ugly.

    It scares me how much truth's in every single line. And it saddens me that we can't live in Utopia, even though in every one of us, there's an idealist. Hidden somewhere, but still there.

    But once, someone said to me, that we can define ourselves because we're different from others - we can say we're rich because we see people who're poor. We can say we're not hungry because we see people who are. So I was asking myself: Can we still define ourselves, if everyone is equal, has equal opportunities? We are all humans, that's correct, and all blue-eyed humans are related to each other somehow, but it's our differences in acting, living and being, that makes us us. So giving some kind of common advice for everybody on how to act, how to be and how to live is a very cruel thing to do. In the end, advice is just something reclycled and painted over, not an universal truth. But still, you should wear sunscreen.

    But I need the reminder that I just race against myself. And that I won't win this race, but someone else. And when you realise it, you already crossed the finish line and you wish to go back to the starting point and change everything all over and upside down again. So read this before you you stumble over your on feet and - most importantly - wear sunscreen. Yeah.

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  3. I want a comment of you on my posting about my wedding dress and on the posting about the conversation we (you, me Vera and Sandro) had the daya fter my birthday, about personalities.... go check it out! ;)

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