I have learned to only spend time with those who deserve me.
I am sick and tired of wasting time on those who only need me to make themselves look better.
Know that you will screw up. I don’t mean you will be a late bloomer, spend a few years sorting your priorities out, or suddenly discover that the real world can move much slower than the pre-college fast track. I mean you will outright destroy something. Maybe you send an email worded in just the wrong way; maybe you sabotage a personal relationship you can never get back; maybe you develop strange hobbies. Your life will be worse, or at least less rich, than it could have been. There is no lesson in this; there’s no great truth to be found about accepting the hand you’ve been dealt or learning from mistakes. There will be things you wish you had done differently that simply cannot be sugar-coated.
Contrary to what you’ve heard, you’ll get second chances and second acts. But that’s not the same as do-overs or scraping a positive out of a negative. You will very likely make a mess of your life, or be unable to shape it in the first place. All you can do is wait for the next upswing. Maybe you will land on your feet, maybe you won’t. In the real world, actions have consequences. (That is the difference between what came before and what comes next, no matter how certain or protected you may be.) I wish I could save you the trouble and pain; it would be wonderful if all the wasted time and spent energy could be restored to us at an appropriate time. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. So when it happens, just remember: You are alone, and it is as bad as it feels. It is senseless and useless and there’s no moral to the story. It’s just part of what happens. Something else will happen next.
—Bethlehem Shoals, editor at The Classical and founder of FreeDarko, from the great article “Real Talk for New Graduates” (via dancinguponthearchitecture)
(Source: consistentcontradiction)
