Michelle Obama has written an essay for People that imagines a world in which she can dispense a quick written missive of advice to her younger self. She spends no times on the mechanics of time travel (boring!) and leaps immediately into the awkward-swamp of teenage angst.
If I could give my younger self just one piece of advice, it would be this: Stop being so afraid! That’s really what strikes me when I look back — the sheer amount of time I spent tangled up in fears and doubts that were entirely of my own creation. I was afraid of not knowing the answer in class and looking stupid, or worried about what some boy thought of me, or wondering whether the other girls liked my clothes or my hair, or angsting about some offhand comment someone made to me in the lunchroom. I would love to go back in time and tell my younger self, “Michelle, these middle and high school years are just a tiny blip in your life, and all the slights and embarrassments and heartaches, all those times you got that one question wrong on that test — none of that is important in the scheme of things.”
If you have 20 seconds to whisper something to your younger version, it would be that teenage years are an unavoidable blip — albeit an awkward and forlorn and constantly crestfallen blip. Move on through! No time in anyone’s life should be spent in angst following any “offhand comment” made in a godforsaken lunchroom.
