Eat vegetables.
If I should give anyone an advice for the future, vegetables would be the magic word. The long-time benefits of vegetables have been proved by all scientists, however, the advices that I am going to say now is only based on the time I had in Sahara to think about Life. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy your youth. The power and the beauty of it. Actually, never mind. My grandmom once told me that I will not be able to understand the power and beauty of my youth until they've faded. But trust me, my mom is looking at picture from 20 years ago, and she recalls in a way that she can't grasp now how much possibility lay before her and how beautiful she really was. YOU are not as fat as you imagine
Don't worry about the future; or actually, you should worry, but I have learned that worrying is as effective as trying to solve Kip's math questions by chewing bubble gum. The real problems in Life is apt to be things that never crossed your little worried mind, you know, the kind that surprised you at 3pm on some random Wednesday.
Do one thing EVERY DAY that scares the shit out of you.
Speak up.
Be carefull with other people's hearts. Don't waste time with people who are reckless with yours.
Go with the flow.
I have learned from my mistakes; don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you are in the front, sometimes you are behind. The race is long, and in the end, it is only with yourself.
Remember every time people praise you, or give you a compliment. Put it down in the suitcase that you carry throughout your Life and take them up sometimes and look at them. Forget the insults. (if you learn how to do this, then write me!)
Keep the letters that your friend sends you. Throw away the bills and the old letters from the bank. However, remember what Anna Garner said; reuse, reduce, recycle.
Do exercise.
Make a plan for your Life, but DO NOT feel guilty if nothing goes as planned. I have met really interesting people who do not know what to do with their Life. Life changes, so does the plans.
Drink milk or eat cheese, get a lot of calcium. Be carefull with your knees. You will miss them when they are gone.
Maybe you will go to university, maybe you won't. Maybe you will get married, maybe you won't. Maybe you will have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you will divorce after 15 years of marriage, maybe you will dance " Do You Know The Muffin Man" on your 80th wedding anniversary.
Your choices will always be half chance. That is how it is with everybody else as well....
You owe one great instrument, a perfect camera, a perfect mean of transport, a perfect instrument. Enjoy your body, your eyes, legs and nose. Don't be afraid of it....just be afraid to loose it.
DANCE! (even if you have nowhere to do it, do it in your room, or in your head)
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them all the time.
Do not read the glossy beauty magazine. They will only make you feel less worth, more poor and make you feel ugly.
Life has an end. Everything has en end (except for a worm, it got two).
Get to know your parents, talk with them, walk with them, write them, surprise them. You never know when they will be gone for good.
Be nice to your siblings. Maybe they are very different from you, maybe the took the last icecream ten years ago, maybe the got more than you. Nonetheless, they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Winter comes, winter goes. But a new winter will come again. So with friends. Understand that friends come and go, but you will always hold on to some few precious once...no matter the distance. Just work harder to bridge the gaps in Lifestyle and geography, because when you get old, you will need the people who knew you when you were young!
Travel. See the World. Explore a new culture. Study - but outside a classroom. Live in a refugeecamp once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live on the countryside once, but leave before it makes you soft. Learn from other cultures, and still stay with your own.
Accept the certain truths of Life. Prices will for sure rise. Politicians will suck up to you and lie. We will all get older, yes even you. And when we get older, we will fantasize about the time when we young, prices were reasonable, children behaved nicely and respected their elders...and politicians never lied.
Listen to peoples advice, but be carefull with what you use of it. Advice is just memories and nostalgia. Dispensing it, is one way of fishing the past from the trashbin, clean it, round the corners, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it is worth.
Nevertheless, use one of my advices. Eat vegetables.
It is always nice to see your friends when you are travelling - AK in Greenland.
Max and I tried to go to a nearby hill every evening to see the sunset. We were planning to be deep and philosophical and think about; however, we realized that that was impossible because of all the children in the camp that could see us from everywhere (because we were sitting on a hill-top)... They came to throw stones (WITH US), play football, ask for caramels etc. I tell you, this is what volunteer work about. To see and realize that children in Sahara, Israel, Syria, Greenland, Norway, China and Denmark are all the same. It is only when we get old that we get too indifferent from each other; not only when it comes to other countries, but also within our own countries. Within our families...maybe within ourselves.
