Perhaps you’ve seen this posted on someone’s Facebook page.  Perhaps you have posted it.  I’m sure it has been making the rounds in one form or another for a good while, but I shared it recently and, when I read the responses, I realized that – for each response – there is a story.  There is an experience that lead to each one of these replies, good and bad.  If you are 17 and reading this, take this opportunity to learn from our life experience.  If you are anywhere north of 17 and reading this, just start now.  Pick the ones that resonate.  Take ownership of you starting now.  The responses ran the gamut from compelling to self-deprecating to silly, but I have pared the list down to the ones that gave me pause.  My goal is not to come across as some sort of life coach guru.  I didn’t start enjoying life until I turned 30, and it was because I threw the shitty freight train that was my life into an engine-seizing reverse, and basically rebuilt that shit brick by brick.  The result is that – 15 years later – I fucking love my life.  Rich, poor, fat, thin…it’s all good.  I want you to fucking love your life, too.

She’s not your friend.  This was my answer.  A lifetime ago, I had a best friend.  We had great fun.  There were times when we laughed, and laughed, and laughed.  I listened to her advice, which was an endless hemorrhage of all that I should and should not do.  I mean, she had my best interest at heart, right?  I’m afraid not.  I look back on situations – as far back as high school – situations in which she created tension on my behalf, just because it was fun for her to watch as I scrambled to please and appease the people who thought I had slighted them, and she created situations that put me in literal danger.  I was culpable in that I allowed it, and it took her unceremonious friend-divorce to give me clarity to see what everyone else did for decades.  She is a burden that has been lifted from my life, and I don’t blame her for doing what she did.  Jealousy is a powerful motivator.  If you have someone in your life who makes you cry more than laugh.  She’s not your friend.

You can do this.  You are 17.  You don’t even know all that there is to do, but I promise that whatever it is, you can do it.  The key is knowing what it is you want, and going after it with an unquenchable thirst and unapologetic dedication.  If you don’t know how to get from where you are to where you want to be, just start.  Accomplish one thing at a time, but never stop moving in that direction.  If the job doesn’t exist, create it.  Often, we underestimate the power of intention.  It’s already yours.

Keep some Transformers sealed.  Now, while this was meant quite literally by someone who is arguably the greatest fan of Transformers in the history of Transformerdom, I think it kind of carries with it a broader bit of advice.  Keep some of the good shit where no one can touch it.  Don’t make it easy for someone to break it.  The value will increase exponentially over time, and only the people who deserve the cool shit will get to play with it.

Not a good idea.  This is an easy one.  Do you think you will regret it later?  You probably will.  Don’t do it.

Don’t marry the idiot.  It might seem like a good idea at the time, but if you have even the slightest hesitation, don’t.  That shit that is funny and a little annoying now will become fuel for a rage which cannot be properly expressed or represented by any character or series of characters in the English language.  You will be embarrassed by that person every time you leave the house.  Nothing will ever be as fun as if you were just by yourself, and you being married to a goon takes you off the market for the person you are supposed to be with, and that will become terrible and cruel.

Stay in college. Travel.  Education and experience are things that can never be taken away.

Hug dad every day.  He won’t be here forever.  Let him know he matters.  I didn’t do this enough and eventually I was watching my brother carry my dad’s shoes and suit into the funeral parlor to wear for his eternal sleep.  Those shoes.  Those empty fucking shoes.

Start retirement fund now.  Start now and let that interest compound.  Retire when you are 40.

Not one puff, ever.  Don’t even light one.  It’s not cool and you look ridiculous with a cigarette in your hand – sucking in all those carcinogens because all of your friends are doing it.  Also, it will kill you, but not until it permeates every pore of your being and every cell and fiber of everything you own, leaving you smelling like an ashtray and looking like you were soaked in lye and slow-cooked to a leathery vintage.

You’re a good daughter.  Or a good son.  At 17, unless you murdered the neighbor and raped his wife, you are not a bad person.  Maybe you are a surly teenager or maybe you have bad grades, but neither of those things – or things of similar age-appropriateness – makes you a bad person.  You are eventually going to accomplish things the weight of which you cannot even conceive in your youth, and your contributions do and will continue to make a difference.  You matter.

Do it.  No regrets.  I don’t think this needs embellishing.  Choose your own adventure, kids.  The possibilities are infinite.