Repeats and Do-Overs

Recently, an acquaintance of mine made the statement, "If I had  "it" to do all over again I would do everything exactly the same."  HHHMMMM...could that be true?  OR do they mean given the same knowledge that they had at the time they did "it ....whatever it was...in the first place, that they would most likely repeat "it" again.

I was just over at We Work For Cheese and Nicky was weighing in on what she might say to her 16 year old self.  If you haven't ever read her blog, you should as she is super funny...smart funny.

Thought #1.. The things I would tell my young self

I would have a lot to say to my 16 year old self but first I would have to convince her that I was, indeed....HER.  I just didn't become a skeptic, yesterday.  I have been perfecting my suspicious, "look at it from all angles" persona since birth.  I am sure 16 year old Cheryl is incredulous that she could have gotten THAT OLD!

Here are some of the things I would suggest to my 16 year old self as she is suspiciously eyeballing my wrinkles and thinking to herself that I could have done a much better job with moisturizers.

Ten things I would tell the 16 year old Cheryl P.  (there would of course be a gazillion things but for the sake of expediency let's just pick out a few)       

drummmmm  rooollllllll ....and ....IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

1.  (Sidebar: At 16, I was one year away from getting engaged and 2 years away from getting married)  I would tell my 16 year old self " Go ahead and get married.  Ignore the naysayers that tell you it can't work because you are too young. They are right of course...you are WAY too young but it will work out fine. You might want to spend less on the wedding.  You could buy a house with that same amount of money. That won't always be true.

2.  Have more fun.  Don't worry all the time and try not to be so serious.

3.  There is a little 24  store chain located only in Arkansas called Wal-Mart that has been around for about 6 years. I know that you  probably haven't even heard about yet.  When you do, buy some stock as soon as it is available.  Same goes for Apple, Google and Yahoo.  You won't hear about them for awhile as they haven't been created  yet but when they are...buy, buy, buy....as much as you can.  Oh...and buy some gold.  At around $39.00 an oz. it may not seem like a bargain, but it is.

4.  Don't take your young healthy body for granted.  You are going to get older and with age comes changes.   Get an early start on eating right and exercising. The days that you are able to wear  mini skirts and hip huggers are numbered.  You might still fit into them but they won't look good.  Gravity is not your friend.

5.  Recognize that you are going to live through thousands of trends.  Most of them amount to zip. Today's fashion is tomorrow's garbage.  Buy smart, classic and well made. 

6.  Cherish the important things like your family, friends. AND be prepared...you are going to have losses. Heart breaking losses.... You aren't immortal and neither are the people you care about.

7.  Young self, you are going to have a good life...a really good life.   Be grateful for it. It could have gone the other way.  You are, also,  going to have a wonderful family...look forward to it.

8.  Pay closer attention to things.  You will have trouble remembering a lot things, both big and small,  that you will want to remember. While some of it might be chucked to a bad memory, some of it is was you weren't 100% paying attention.

9. Spend less time trying to please other people and spend more time trying to please yourself.  Worry less about what other people think of you and try to act in a manner that you can respect yourself.

10.  Recognize you are going to become the person that you now think of as ancient. You will become a  cynic, overly cautious, and have a tendency to be a bit pessimistic.  But even with those qualities in play, you are going to be happy.  You will be content with the way things are going at least up to the point of your 2012 self.   Your life will be  way less WHAAA WHAAAA

AND way more WOOT WOOT!!!!

Thought # 2 Realize you can't really go back and undo the things you did wrong and try to make peace with that.

I have made more than my share of mistakes. I don't think most of  my blunders were life changing for me or for the people around me. But who knows?  Maybe something I did, changed the course for someone else in a negative way. 

So to my adult self, I would like to think in the future, that my blunders are small.  As for the things that I shouldn't of said or done, I can't go back but I can be remorseful for my lack of sensitivity, my lack of respect or my poor judgement. 

Here's a video that is talking about serious regrets.











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