Five hundred words aren't a lot of words, but they're enough to tell you what I know to be true in my eighteen years of living. This will be brief, and there will be some things that I miss, but overall these are the things I know to true.

Not every person you meet will be as great as they seem nor will they be as awful as they seem. Time reveals truth in people, nothing more. It's okay to be mad or upset, but it's not okay to be mad or upset forever. People can and will change. Sometimes people will change into better people and sometimes they'll change into worse people and sometimes they won't really change at all, you need to see the difference.

It's easy to base your decisions off of what will make you rich, but not what will make you happy. Happiness provides more room for success than the hope of future prosperity.

It's okay to live in the moment and it's okay not to document every second of a moment. People will say things they mean, sometimes in the interest of hurting you and other times in the interest of helping you.

Talking to people is hard. Talking to the people you care about is even harder. And the hardest thing to do is talk to someone you care about that doesn't want to listen. You have to learn balance in life.

Respect yourself first. Love yourself first.

There are usually two ways out of a situation: recognize your fault or recognize the fault of the someone else. There will be times in life that you'll look back on and question your character at that time. There will be times you won't be your true self and you won't see that for a while. There's always a way to come back.

People will hurt you in times of need. Friends will hurt you in times they are hurting. Friends will get into real life messes and you'll have to help them. Things won't be black and white after a while. Sometimes you'll have to tell a friend to break up with their significant other because they aren't good enough for them or sometime you'll have to tell that to a friend because they don't realize they're in an abusive relationship.

People fall in love and out of love just as easily. Some people will just stop caring, you can't take that to heart. Some people you will stop caring about, and you'll have to live with that decision.

Life goes by way too fast. You have to make choices in life that will make you happy. Don't forget to care about others, but don't let others push you around. People will always be there to love you: friends and family. Never give dreams up.