I'm 19, so I think it's safe to say that I know a lot about some things.
I can teach you how to write a really good thesis statement, play guitar, and how to ride a bike. I know about emotions, friendships, and heartbreaks. And I can give you advice about school, and tell you why it's good to read, as well as how you should always do what makes you happy.
The thing is, despite the fact that I know a lot about these things, there is still many things I don't know about them. In fact, there are MANY things I don't even know anything about. And to go even further, there are many things that I don't even KNOW I don't know about. The only reason I am even kind of aware of how little I actually do know is because every year, for as long as I remember, I have learned new things that I wouldn't have even been able to fathom in my head until the day I learned them. In our society we call this knowledge or wisdom...or something like that.
My opinions have completely changed about certain topics probably about 30 times in the past two years alone, and I can recall outlooks I have had in my life, that are literally the exact opposite of what I believe today.
The point behind all of this is that I am continually growing and evolving and having the ability to learn and grow is a really cool aspect of being a human, because it allows for change and possibilities.
There was a point in my life however, where I didn't feel this way though.
I used to be really hard on myself because of mistakes I made. Whenever I screwed up I believed I was a complete failure. I felt the pressure to be smarter and more put together than I actually was. And because of lack of life experience and the basic nature of humans, I always fell short of my expectations for myself.
The thing is, you can't just gain knowledge out of thin air, and live a life free of mistakes. I wish. No. Knowledge comes from trial and error, and if comes from experience. You can't fake experience, or try to make it happen. It just happens on its own over time.
So what I don't understand is why people feel the pressure to be smarter, more put together and basically anything different than they are right now if it is out of their hands. I see this a lot in school, where students feel the need to all of a sudden be full-fledged adults and to have their whole life figured out. People hold such a pride within themselves to the point of not wanting to ask for help or admit that they don't know something, but we don't need to be guarded and ashamed of where we are in life right now. God has us in these positions and stages in life for a reason, and there is no way to force yourself past a specific stage. We need to embrace where we are in life, and experience everything that the stage we are in has to offer, instead of trying to change it because we feel the pressure of the world on our shoulders.
It's important to accept ourselves for who we are at this very moment in time, and allow ourselves to be who we are right now, rather than trying to choke our hearts into being something different. I think that it is important to give ourselves grace when it comes to our imperfections; we don't need to beat ourselves up because we make a mistake. The cool thing, is that we get to learn from those mistakes, and become better people through them. There are going to be MANY things that you don't know how to deal with, or accomplish, or get through, and we need to give ourselves grace in the things that we don't know. When we do give ourselves a break, we have the opportunity to grow, and to truly rely on God and learn from Him, rather than trying to do it all on our own.
One day you will know the answers to the questions that your are asking today. And you will probably want to go back and tell yourself what you know now, but we can't do that. Instead, we just need to accept that there are going to be imperfections in our lives, but that doesn't mean that we are terrible, awful people. It just means we're human.
So, yeah I'm 19. And I know a lot about some things, but I also know nothing, and that's OK because that means I get to spend everyday of my life learning.
