I'm sure there are a select few of you who have been white water rafting. And if this applies to you, then I congratulate you!

You have successfully taken a small gander at the life that I have lived for the past three months.

I moved to the Ocoee River in May to begin a photography job for a white water rafting company. I honestly had no clue what to expect, other than the fact that I was going to be leaving air conditioning and private showers behind.

Needless to say, this job came with far more than communal showers and dinky bungalows in the middle of the woods--I also got 36 brothers and nine sisters added into the mix. Some people might think, "hey, 36 males is a lot of males to live with..." And those people are 100 percent correct.

Never before in my life have I realized how disgusting males humans actually are. In the past few weeks, we've had over 10 breakouts of athlete's foot, two cases of lice, two dislocated shoulders ... the list goes on.

I've seen more blood, broken bones, pulled muscles, vomit, and snot than any average RN and somehow I've lived to tell the tale.

Within weeks of living on the river, I learned that political correct-ness is completely useless and showers are only mandatory if you make them out to be. I learned that a cell phone is completely useless without the service to use it. But most of all, I learned that if you force 45 people to live together for long enough, you'll learn a lot about yourself along the way and a lot about the way other people play roles in your life.

I don't know if I've ever felt this confident or liberated in my life, nor have I ever understood myself on the level that I do now.

Anyone who has struggled through Freshman year of college knows that there is a massive existential crisis that occurs within about two months of leaving home and lasts until probably the end of our lifetime.

But I've finally realized something I think everyone deserves to realize.

We must open our hearts to the people around us. Out here, if you're not weird, you're weird. That's the motto for the family I live with now. Whether you're a homebody with the urge to never leave your bed or a go-getter with the need for something new, what's most important is that any interaction we have with one another should be one of openness and understanding.

(ChattanoogaFootball Club Soccer Game with the Raft Guides)

These beautiful people have taught me more in three months than any other education I've had in the past 18 years, and I want to share some of the lessons I've learned with all of you as told by some of my co-workers family.

1. "When you got it, you got it. And when you're right, you're right."

2. "Be authentic, don't follow a crowd. Unless following a crowd is your way of being authentic. Then do that."

3. "Team work makes the dream work. Go big or go home."

4. "Aim for tasty waves and smooth lines, dude."

5. "Life is too short to always match your socks."

6. "Don't be shackled by reality ... live your dreams."

7. "You never know where the river will lead you, sometimes it'll spit out in the ocean or it'll spit you out where you want to be. But it'll for sure change you."

8. "I can get you through it but you gotta get me to it."

9. "Look at where you want to go, not where you're going."

10. "True north is where your heart wants to be, and the past is your map to know who you are."