Lori Culwell: Things I wish I knew back then

Lori Culwell, Author of Hollywood Car Wash

Things I Wish I Knew Back Then

I was just talking to one of my friends from high school (who I’m still friends with even now), mostly about how the more time goes by after high school, the more a couple of things happen:

-- You look back at the high school version of yourself and think “what a bonehead.”

-- You stop making such a big deal out of everything because, frankly, you’ve seen most of it before and you know that eventually things get better.

I don’t mean to be blasé in my attitude toward high school students, because frankly, I find today’s teenagers to be much more mature and worldly than I ever was. In a way I guess that’s also kind of sad, because whereas I had years to marinate in life experience before I did anything like, say, start a business, or write a blog, or have a real relationship, it seems like everyone is doing all of those things these days, all before they get out of high school. That’s too fast, man! I didn’t do any of those things in high school (at least not successfully) because, as I have mentioned, I was a bonehead back then.

Actually, if I have to be honest, I feel more like myself now than I did back then, mostly because I have a better handle on my emotions. I can actually laugh at things that are ridiculously frustrating. If there is an emergency, I’m pretty confident I can figure out a solution. I have done things like get books published, work at jobs for long periods of time, buy real estate, and travel to many and various locations. I have driven across the United States—by myself.

Here are some other pieces of insight I wish I could have told myself back when I was 17:

1. Calm down. No really—calm down. Things are going to turn out ok.

2. Relationships are important. Don’t take people for granted. If you have regrets later in life, they will be based not on material things you did or didn’t do/ get/ achieve, but on time—time with people, with loved ones, with friends. That is the one thing you never get back. Take the time. Do nice things for people when you think about it.

3. One day, you might face a hard choice on the road of your life, and there will actually be no clear right answer (no matter how many people tell you to “trust your gut”). If this occurs, the solution is simple: take the option that is the shortest and least painful, put your head down, and do the time. The lesson: sometimes things just suck, and then they don’t.

On the bright side, the more years you get in your rearview mirror from high school, the more opportunities you have to reconnect with people who meant something to you then (and who mean something to you now). That is one of the things I love most about the internet—everyone is connected in a way we never have been before, and really, it’s good to still be friends with people who met me when I was a bonehead. It is even nicer to know you again now that I am an even better version of myself.

~~~

I absolutely adore Hollywood Car Wash! An amazing novel that I highly recommend! Read my review of it here.

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