Dear William,

I know the teenage years are hard and even though I am not out of them I still know what you are going through because you watched me go through the same thing five years earlier. You will always want to grow up faster than you should. With the adults in this world and the media making it look so easy with their everyday lives there is a lot more than what meets the eye. I have come to learn that everyone is in debt. Does not matter how old you are or where you come from. Unless you planned out your college the correct way there is always some debt that everyone is carrying around. This makes life so much harder than it needs to be and therefore more stressful. Always living paycheck to paycheck or worse trying to find a place to work because you know you will be broke is a lot harder than it is seems. The freedom that you just wish for you will get, but with that freedom comes no more free food. My meal plan alone is over 2800 dollars and with that I do not touch a single healthy thing that did not come out of a box. Savor home cooked meals or going out with your friends because it is a rare occasion when it happens in the real world. The worst thing I could probably tell you is that the real world is boring, you do school work and other work and you do that Monday-Friday and your weekends are not your own. There is a lot to do with no time to do it and therefore the real world is very boring. However, do not let this steer you off the wrong path and do not get me wrong, I do adore the freedom that I got with age just because you do not get questioned for the actions you are taking. As long as they are legal the actions that you take does not affect the people around you. This is one of the best feelings in the world, as well as meeting a lot of new people. There will always be those that you meeting in the real world that will always beat the people you meet throughout high school. They will connect with you more, because in college or the real world you do not become friends because you are thrown into the same school in the same town, you become friends through common interest and those are the friends that you are more likely to keep. No matter what you do while you are younger and no matter how much you want to grow up there is a place and a time for everything. No matter what you do you will always have a second chance if you make one for yourself and no matter how much you want to grow up, you will soon enough. There is enough stress and worry in the real world and you should spend as much time living in the free home of your parents before jumping into the debt with the rest of us. Keep pushing through every day and know that everyone you meet along the way is there for a reason. They do not have to stay in your lives and it does not matter what they do during the time that they know you because you will all change and grow into the people you were meant to be. Keep going brother, you got this.