What I have learned wished I had learned and have yet to learn after a year of attempting to be an adult.

-Always check your bank account. No really, debit cards have made us believe that we hold a key to infinite money. Truth be told, adult life is expensive, you will often find yourself in situations where there is way too much month left at the end of your money. You don’t want your overdraft email to be the one deciding whether or not you are going out this weekend.

-Always keep your phone charged. This isn’t college anymore where coming home after a party was a group activity. So for the sake of your worried friends trying to find you at 4 am, please keep your phone charged at all times. Also, you can’t really make a booty call with a dead phone.

-No job is beneath you and you are not overqualified for anything. Having a college degree doesn’t make you a super hero, it just makes you part of the 92% of Americans who have a college degree. That being said, if you’re at a job you feel useless at, where day and night you question your reasons for existing and makes you feel so shitty you can’t even live up to your fullest potential then get the fuck out of there. FAST.

-On that note, clean up your language. It’s really embarrassing to be post-collegiate and have a vocabulary so poor you need to curse every three words just to make a point. Also, it doesn’t look cute when a girl curses so often.

-Learn to make decisions. Follow your dreams even if it means defying conventions. Yes its super scary to take risks knowing there is a good chance you will fail, but you want to know a sure way of failing? Abstaining.

-If at first you don’t succeed do as your mother told you. That’s right, as much as we hate to acknowledge this Mamma is always right. In 24 years of experience I can say that I could have saved myself a lot of time and energy if I would have listened to my mom more often.

-Know and accept that not everyone is going to like you. You are not fucking Nutella, you can’t please everyone in this world. On the other hand, don’t spend so much time hating on other people. The reality of the matter is that hating isn’t going to make others like that person less and you are very likely wasting energy on someone who doesn’t even stop to think twice about you.

-What Susie says of Sally says more about Susie than about Sally. When people talk shit about other people they are usually criticizing what they hate about themselves. Next time you catch someone engaging in such activity, hand him or her a mirror.

-Love comes in all shapes, sizes and varieties. Just because someone doesn’t speak the same language of love as you do, doesn’t mean they don’t love you deeply in their own twisted way. However, you know what language IS universal? Respect. Never love someone who doesn’t respect you.

-Never buy a non-refundable ticket to Mexico. In fact never buy a non-refundable anything to anywhere. Life throws us curve balls, plans change and when they do you will be really mad at yourself because you deliberately threw away money you could have spent on going to see someone worthy of being visited.

-People have sex with strangers all the time; it doesn’t really mean anything. However standing in front of a person, looking at them in the eye and telling them you love them, now that’s being fucking naked.

-Don’t forget you get to write your own story. What plot twists would you include if you had the power to write it the way you would write a script? Think about that one.

Keep it sloppy,

A