Dear Melissa,

Right now you’re probably hanging out with Michelle or Andria, maybe driving around in your orange Bug (you still have it by the way!).  I’m sure you have a lot going on with school, friends and your family. I’m not going to trivialize your problems and tell you they aren’t a big deal. However, I can confidently say that whatever issues you’re facing now will get better, mostly because you will learn to better deal with problems and drama that come up in life.

Make an effort to be friends with more people and invest your time in the ones that challenge you and make you a better person. Try to meet new people and find ones that you have a lot in common with. Spend quality time with them before you all go off to college, move away or get jobs. Also, spend more time working on all those hobbies like music, art and surfing.  Challenge yourself more; you could always be doing better!

Many people around you are probably telling you that you should be enjoying your time in high school. After all, these are supposed to be in the best years of your life, right? You have fewer responsibilities, more friends and more energy.  But in many ways the best years are still coming.  Sure, you’ll have more responsibilities in the future (harder classes in college, a job, a family), but as you get older you learn how to better cope with and handle those responsibilities.  In fact, college will be better than high school, your twenties will be better than college and so far your thirties are looking great!

Don’t always keep looking to the future though, enjoy what you have now. You are so often thinking about next week, next month or next year.  Embrace the present and what you can do right now to make a difference today.

Love,

You