In January 2016, I wrote a long letter to myself with a wish for the future. At the time, my anxiety was out of control and I was very unhappy with my life. My outlook of the future wasn’t very positive, but the wish that I had written in that letter came true in September of that year. Ever since then, I knew that I could do anything I set my mind to.
Just like that letter, this is a post that I hope I will look back upon years from now, not only to keep me in check but to provide encouragement to myself. I ever have to delete this blog (because of a job), I will still have a copy of this post somewhere.
Here’s a list of things I wish I had known at the beginning of 2018.
LIFE HAPPENS
Everything is constantly changing and my young mind is included. Sometimes things are going to happen that make other things not work out the way you expect them to. I’ve found this to be especially true with school. Every action has a consequence, whether it be good or bad and we have to deal with them. But in the end, everything works out one way or another. God is in control of our lives and it’s important to remember that things happen on HIS watch, not ours. But either way, you’re going to graduate. It’s not a race, and all your failures will be something you look back upon a few years from now and realize you’re stronger than you think.
STAY BUSY
Free time can be a good thing, but too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Destructive habits can easily become tempting when one doesn’t have that much going on for themselves. It’s important to keep your mind occupied on something constructive for as long as possible. This doesn’t mean you’re constantly working, it just means go do something that will help improve your quality of life. And staying at home alone sleeping ain’t it! Go to the library, go to a museum, go sit at Starbucks with your laptop open and learn a new skill… actually YES go do that, because there’s only so much you’re going to learn in school. Just do something that you might not regret later on.
HUMBLE YOURSELF
Guess what? Not everyone loves me like I think they do. Just because someone knows me and we interact quite often doesn’t mean their opinion of me is favorable. Just because someone says hi to me in an office building or a social setting doesn’t mean they think highly of me, and there’s a ton of people out here who don’t think highly of me. Maybe I gave them a reason to, or maybe I didn’t. But the worst thing I could be doing is continue digging a hole that’s already pretty deep.
On the flip side, there’s plenty of people that hurt me even though I’m pretty sure I didn’t give them a reason to escalate towards me. The best thing I can do is let them work out their problems on their own and not add any fuel to the fire. This goes right into my next point…
DON’T BE SO LOUD
This is probably the biggest lesson I learned this year. For the longest time I had the LONGEST Twitter fingers ever. Maybe I wasn’t as bad as “the orange in office” but I was definitely out there. I was very young, and my habits continued up until about June. I would practically live on Twitter because that’s where I thought my friends were. It was always hard for me to make friends at school, so Twitter was an amazing avenue for me to meet people. Where there’s people, there’s bound to be drama at some point. Like I just said, not everyone’s going to like everyone or get along all the time. It’s human nature.
But where I went wrong for the longest time was me trying to over analyze the tiniest things and blow them up into something they’re not, for a cheap thrill between me and a few other people. I lived for “tea”. Gossiping about people, even people I’m very close to now was a hobby whether I wanted to recognize it at the time or not. I thought I was invincible, but to say I “didn’t like drama” when I was doing the exact thing I didn’t like was truly foolish. How would I feel if someone was saying messed up stuff about me when I didn’t really do anything to provoke them? Someone I looked up to? Someone I considered a friend?
Whether I wanted to accept it or not, the “tea” boiled over. I reached my breaking point and I realized I couldn’t continue doing what I was doing. Deactivating my Twitter wasn’t necessary, but I slowly started stepping away from it. I ended up feeling much better about myself, but there were times when it took every ounce of me to keep from spiraling back out of control. Now I’m at the point where I’m actually amused that people still use Twitter.
Everything comes out in the wash, but I believe in giving people second chances. I can’t judge someone based off things they said 5 years ago if I see that they’ve learned from what they did and changed their ways. However, I can’t expect people to feel the same way towards me and be so forgiving.
Countless poor choices were made on my end. I’m just realizing it now that I’m trying to get serious about my career. There were a lot of times where I straight up just didn’t know better. Image is EVERYTHING, especially in the entertainment world. There’s people who make a living out of sorting out and polishing other people’s image.
I didn’t realize a few years ago that doing unauthorized giveaways on Twitter looked crummy. It never crossed my mind that I would need to be careful of letting people know about my whereabouts. Up until I’d say last month, I didn’t realize that the whole waiting outside radio stations and constantly attending listener lounges and trying to play this “paparazzi game” as many are probably going to call it, wasn’t the best look for me. I felt it in my conscience that people weren’t pleased, and that I needed to stop. I can go on and on and on…
I’m terrified. I feel like I blew all of my chances at getting anywhere while I live in San Diego.
I’m 20, but I’m Twenteen. I’m not the brightest star in the universe, and I’m definitely not as mature as I want to think I am. One thing is for sure – I’ve become a lot more selective of what I share, when I share it, and who I share it with. I realized that I have a TON of people watching me, and the older I get and the more my goals are vocalized, the more I need to be careful of what I do. Deleting posts isn’t going to do a thing, because what has been done is done. I really wish I could erase the past, but I can’t.
All I can do is hope that people can see how much I’ve grown thanks to these experiences. Yes, I do slip up and I probably always will. The worst is over though! I need to be held accountable, and I feel like it’s my duty more than ever now to be responsible online. Not only for the heck of it, but I also have a lot of younger eyes watching and I want to lead them on the right path. I want to be someone they can look up to, and if I really want it that badly then I need to act upon it.
INSTAGRAM IS A THING
That seriously sounded like the heading for a Buzzfeed or MTV article or something. Anyways, I was never that fond of Instagram up until I realized I could express myself in ways I couldn’t on Twitter. It was definitely out of my comfort zone to even think it would be my go-to social media app.
One thing that I feel hurt me early on was the fact that I was SO set in my ways. I wasn’t as open to change as I should have been, and I wasn’t down to hop onto certain trends. Riding a bandwagon isn’t always a bad thing! I was also going through a lot emotionally when I jumped over to this ship, and I turned down a lot of opportunities that could have helped me grow early on. This included, interviews, (legitimate) collaborations, and the chance to have some of my work plugged to thousands of people.
I had to pave my own path and learn certain lessons the hard way, but I’m finally noticing growth.
It took me a while to realize I could still be youthful and have a personality on this app (and even my blog) while being professional. A sprinkle of more femininity wouldn’t hurt either. I love my current aesthetics, and I’ll never stop being a character!
INSTAGRAM PODS ARE A THING TOO
So when I started testing the waters of this “grownup influencer/blogger” side of Instagram, I really wanted to know one thing and one thing only. Please read the following in Morty’s voice:
“Why doesn’t anybody like me? Hey, I did something cool and clean and I posted it on here (with my pink/purple filter), are these wipipo people just not into that? Is it because I’m black? Is it because they really prefer to see a desaturated picture of a woman holding a decorated wine glass?”
The answer is no.
“But but but… they’re doing the bare minimum, posting pictures of their coffee next to a laptop and a pen that says ‘slay babe’ and they’re getting all these comments that say ‘OMG this is so cool’ and the girl holding the wine glass has like 20 comments with people saying ‘you’re so pretty’ ‘keep going girl!’ and am I not worthy of love? Is it because I’m too young?”
The answer is still no. Also, neither of those girls are doing the bare minimum – YOU are.
Ouch. That was a hard pill to swallow.
So I dove a little deeper, and a little deeper, and a little more deeper. I was finally in the abyss of this network and discovered what an Instagram Pod is.
Pods, engagement groups, call them what you will. They’re everywhere. I prefer to participate on the ones on Facebook. Someone in a designated group starts a comment thread, and asks everyone who wishes to participate to follow a few rules. Some threads are for likes, some are for comments, some are for saves, some are for all of the above. Members drop links to their recent photos, and everyone engages with one another’s content until the cutoff time.
Another popular app for Instagram pods is Telegram. For those who have never heard of or used Telegram, it’s pretty similar to WhatsApp except you can opt to be contacted by a handle that you can create instead of just using your phone number. One of the Telegram groups that I’m a part of has over 900 members. Bots are encouraged, but not required.
I actually love pods because I feel like I get to see content generated from people all over the world that I probably wouldn’t see otherwise. My discover tab is full of makeup tutorials, but when I go down the lists in my groups, the doors truly open up. I’ve gotten great vegan recipes from many people, seen fascinating travel photos, gotten great fashion ideas, and so much more. I enjoy seeing what other people are up to! Great friends have also been made through these groups, and even though we may live in different parts of the world and be a part of different niches, we all have more in common than the average person would think.
So I’m playing the game now, right? Well, so were those girls doing the “bare minimum” that I mentioned earlier. As awkward as it can be to say it, the more I participated in these groups, the easier it became for me to spot the comments that likely came from groups like these. It was never personal. Haha, who would’ve thought…
If you really think about it though, nothing is fake! I am not using bots to grow my account. I would rather see other people’s content and enjoy it firsthand, while I have the time.
PEOPLE ARE GOOD LIARS
They do, and what can you do? I’ve never been one to believe something until I hear it from the source, and I know that there’s multiple sides to a story. I’ve also never felt the need to lie about things, especially experiences, even when I was younger. God gave me everything I needed and I’m not going to pretend I have something I don’t, and that something could be anything.
It just pays to be honest.
YOU ARE NOT A LOST CAUSE
Given everything I just wrote, it’s so easy to make myself feel like one. But guess what? Nobody’s perfect. There’s plenty of people I look up to that suffered publicly, learned certain lessons the really hard way, and they just moved on with their lives. I’m still young, sure I brought a ton of my own problems upon myself but it’s not too late to turn around. I recognize where I can and will do better next time, and that’s all that matters. I’m already one step ahead from a lot of people simply by considering all of this.
YOUR DREAMS WILL COME TRUE
There were so many things that I wanted to happen in 2018, and many of them became a reality. I guess I spoke them into existence, and God decided it was time. I am so thankful for all of these experiences and the people I met and worked with along the way.
