I wish every teenager knew this | Cherie Roe Dirksen

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.~Douglas Adams

Don’t you sometimes wish you could hijack the DeLorean from ‘Back to the Future’ and go back in time to give the younger you some meaningful and helpful lessons in life (never mind a sharp upper cuff)?

Well, you’re here now — older and wiser with experience under your belt — and the pipeline dream of procuring time machines probably just isn’t going to happen.

The brighter side is that we can enlighten future generations of the deeper meanings behind some really profound truths.

Here’s a list of things I wish I knew when I was a little know-it-all:

1. Thoughts Create Things

Yes, if only I knew about the Law of Attraction at 16 years of age — all the mischief I could have wrought. Well, maybe it was for the best. Seriously though, how cool would it have been to know — back then — that your thoughts are prerequisite to actually manifesting whatever you want in your life!?!

2. You Can Do or Be Anything

Yup, some of you may have had hippie parents telling you this but for some of us it just wasn’t the case. You needed good grades and to get a job that pays well — you know, the 9-5 job and the white picket fence deal?

My parents, God bless them, probably were only handing down what they believed to be precious information that they had learned from their parents. ‘Get a steady job that pays the bills, there is no money to be made in mucking about with paint or playing the guitar’. Oh, how wrong they were! The sky is the limit with your dreams — go for it, guns blazing into the setting sun shouting ‘Yeehaw!’.

3. You Always have a Choice

Life is all about choices, we make them to get in and out of trouble (scrap trouble — challenges is a better word). You never set yourself up with anything you can’t get yourself out of — within reason, of course. So, a message for mini-me would have been: Try to view things from a different perspective, there is always a solution to a problem if you are quiet enough to hear the inner wisdom that is always inherent. Life doesn’t just randomly happen to you if you take responsibility for your choices.

4. To Forgive is Divine

If only I had known back then that to hold a grudge means extra baggage for you. This can even, in some cases, manifest as physical weight. Forgiving, contrary to the saying, doesn’t always mean you forget — if the lesson taught you anything, don’t make yourself vulnerable or open to certain situations again. Always be mindful of your lessons but learn how to forgive and walk away too.

5. Taking Things Personally is Disempowering

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and tastes but there is no ‘blanket’ rule over what is the truth as there are almost 8 billion different perspectives on earth right now.

I was told, in my younger years, not to listen to peoples opinions of me, especially if they caused me any distress. I didn’t truly get that when I am insulted I am actually agreeing with what has been flung on my doorstep. If only I learned to dodge those landmines sooner, I would have a lot less BS to scrape off my boots later on down the line!

6. Conforming is Boring

I wish I could seriously implant this into the brains of the youth of today, it’s just that important — especially with the crap that’s being pumped at them through social media! Don’t try to be who you are not (and please don’t try to mimic a Kardashian). Everyone wants an original not a copy. Duh! Thinking out of the box is not even an option — burn the box! No more boxes, boxes are for things not ideas or people (just ask Schrodinger’s cat).

7. Being Weird is just so Damn Cool

Well, this one just flows so nicely from being a non-conformist. It’s just completely stimulating being different. I mean, come on, look at all those Barbie’s and Ken’s out there — yeah, it’s a nice bit of eye-candy, but really? For real?

Nah, I prefer someone with a bit more kick, vooma and soul — even if the facial features are slightly askew, hell, isn’t that what makes people intriguing? Give me a David Bowie or a Thom Yorke any day — talent is my sexiness barometer.

So, little Cherie from the past, this is what I would have loved to have been able to time travel to tell you about.