An Open Letter to Younger Students ALICE

AN OPEN LETTER TO YOUNGER STUDENTS

By Alice

Do you ever wish you could travel back in time? Unfortunately, life is a twisting, turning, undulating road, that you can never see the end of - until the end. It is full of boulders ready to jump onto the road and littered with trees scattered across. Yet, we are not meant to know how to get around these. There is no manual, no instruction book, nothing. In this letter, I will tell you about what you should do to avoid these trees and boulders in advance.

This is the first lesson that I wish I had learnt sooner. Procrastination is your enemy. At the time, putting off some of your homework may feel like an excellent idea. But that boulder will come back bigger. This boulder will shatter the road and make getting around it much harder. I do not recommend putting your homework off until the day it is due. Your stress levels will rocket and staying up until two in the morning is not healthy. There are many tips to getting over procrastination. This is mine. Tell yourself you are only doing something for two minutes. Your brain will not associate these two minutes with pain. When the two minutes has ended, you may find yourself in a workflow state, where you want to complete the task. If you still do not want to do the task, break it into smaller ones and reward yourself when you have completed these tasks.

Never trust anyone. I wish I could have told myself that earlier. You never know of someone’s true intentions and by trusting them, you are opening yourself to their intentions. By not trusting anyone, you will force yourself to be more independent, both mentally, emotionally and financially. Sometimes secrets feel better to tell someone but “a secret shared is a secret no more”. Trusting someone is a huge risk. There is always the prospect of betrayal. Betrayals can lead to mental disorders, emotional pains and a sense of dejection. There will always be someone that hurts you, and by not fully trusting them, the pain will not be as bad, than if you had trusted them.

The third lesson I learnt, is that you cannot be perfect. Perfect does not have a meaning. There is no such thing as a perfect person, a perfect face or even a perfect life. Mistakes do not define your self-worth. You do not become less of a person just because you make a mistake. As commonly quoted: “Mistakes have the power to turn you into something better than you were before”. You will learn quicker what to do and what not to do. By getting something wrong, you are re-examining an issue and finding other ways to develop other solutions or approaches. By admitting you made a mistake, you gain more respect for yourself. I wish I could have understood that. Making excuses for your mistakes shows that you are not taking responsibility for something. If you need help, it is okay to admit that you need help. People rarely mind helping someone if they are struggling.

Exercise is key. Exercising increases your life expectancy and lowers the risk of diseases. You can reduce the risk of major illnesses – strokes, type 2 diabetes, cancer, by up to 30%. You will age better by doing more exercise and lower the chance of getting Alzheimer’s. As well as helping prevent diseases, exercise can improve your skin health. By exercising, you can increase your body’s production of natural antioxidants, which protect cells. Exercising can help your memory and the overall health of brain; when your heart rate increases, it forces more blood and oxygen to your brain, which can stimulate hormones that encourage the growth of brain cells. Your hippocampus can grow during exercise, which can improve your memory.

The final lesson that I learnt is to do what makes you happy and be happy with yourself. The happier you are with yourself, the more confident you will become with yourself. We cannot all look like celebrities, and by embracing ourselves, we know our true self-worth. Not the selfworth that others set us with. You will be able to have a healthier relationship with someone. You will not be plagued by trust issues, insecurities and low self-esteem. Being happy is contagious and the happier you make yourself, the happier you will make others. When a tree blocks your road, happiness helps to combat stress and boosts your immune system so that the tree is easier to get around. Happiness can also increase your life expectancy and could make you more successful. Happy people have a higher probability of doing well in job interviews and are more positively evaluated by others.

I hope that you found this letter useful and that it showed you lessons that will help you in your life and you will be glad you learnt. This letter should mean you do not have regrets of what you wish you could have done and what you wish you could not have done. I hope you will not feel the need to travel back in a time machine and wish you could have done something differently.