What would you tell your 15 year old self?

Probably to not take way too many mushrooms that one time, and not to spend a good few years smoking weed and doing very little else (well, apart from getting a 2:1 in history 🙂 ).

Not to stop mountain biking from around age 13-29, especially when I lived in Vancouver. 😡

The euro millions results.

Whilst you’ve got it flaunt it, but try not to hurt other people whilst you’re at it.

that there is a direct correlation between diet and exercise.

Don’t worry, when you’re older, you’ll be the one laughing.

oh, and that shiney 6ft x 18″ surfboard you just bought. the shop saw you coming and ripped you off, there is no way on god’s good green earth that a lardy beginner like you could ever even hope to stand up on it. sell it and get a wide 8ft’er like the one you will be sold in 2 years time!

Actually, I’d tell myself to keep skateboarding from 15 to 18. Or failing that, to buy a BMX.

look after your body, fat is easy to gain but hard to shift.

dont wait until you’re 26 to start riding a bike.

dont turn down a threesome with a belly dancer and a student nurse, you’ll regret it even though you end up dating both of them at different times.

spend more time with your dad, even when you think he’s being an idiot.

dont allow yourself to believe your parents wont divorce, its harder to handle when they do.

wash the fake blood off your hands before going back to that girl from the halloween partys parent’s place, the red hand print on her boobs the next morning are a give away.

keep in contact with school friends.

look after your back, this is pretty much the last time you’ll be able to remember where you dont wake up in pain every single day.

Oh aye, on the way home from the Star Wars Phantom Menace premiere, don’t take a shortcut through a building site. You will walk into a scaffolding pole and lose a front tooth 😳

In a similar vein, this is in today’s Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying

I would say that chillin out is fine, but you do end up not achieving anything and this will bug you later in life. If you want to be a pro cyclist you need to start training NOW – weekend rides are not enough, you may think you are good but you are not, although you have potential.

Also, you are not cut out to be a forward, even though you are one of the biggest rugby playing kid in the year at 15 you will not remain so – when you get to college ask to pay on the wing instead of volunteering yourself to be a flanker. You will be a good flanker but you won’t enjoy it thereby leading you to give up when you could’ve had a much better playing career.

Stick with the atheltics too – you aren’t as good as your mum was at that age but you could still make something of it.

You’re ok as you are not working hard at GCSE, but you will need to do a bit better at 6th form college. Also at the Oxford interview do not tell the next guy what questions you were asked because they asked everyone the same questions! That might explain why he got a really low offer and you didn’t. Going to Oxford might’ve been good for you but it might not.. hmm.. dunno about that one.

DO NOT take out a graduate loan!

DO NOT take out a credit card!

DO save up and get a house in 8 or 9 years’ time, after that they start getting stupidly expensive and you will have to pay three times the price for essentially the same thing.

In 12 years time you will get a job in Finland – do not give your car away, drive it over there. You will regret not having it and not be able to afford to buy one there.

Oh and the most important one – as soon as you are able, buy a plane ticket to America and go to a particular small town in Wisconsin and look for a lovely brown haired quiet girl who reads a lot. Introduce yourself and get in there as fast as possible, so you can get on with being actually happy and have some proper fun adventures whilst still young and carefree 🙂

That whilst you may be able to blast out grade A’s in your CGSE’s with no revision and no effort you can’t do the same with your A-levels and you certainly can’t do the same with a degree.

I managed. I must be the only person who found O levels really hard, A levels pretty difficult, and a degree* a piece of piss.

*And no, it wasn’t in Budgie Studies at Watford College of Lower Education……

Ask; How do I(you)know what you know?

My daughter(now28)still remembers that one 💡

Don’t buy an expensive motorbike with a great big loan when you get a good job, get a second house/mortgage with the money instead.

That way you’d have paid off both mortgages by now and have a house by a beach/moor.

I love my life and wouldn’t change a thing I do or have ever done

following Molgrips: don’t bother applying to Oxford or St Andrews, you won’t like it anyway.

I’d tell them to listen to wwaswas

I was listening to Was Not Was when I was fifteen (one of my few redeeming features), does that help?

Find something you are good at and really love and put all of your energies into that no matter what anybody tells you, no matter what the cost, no matter what the sacrifice. You won’t regret it.

That when the 18 year old girl you have been snogging for the last 20 minutes asks you you age, don’t tell her 15 FFS! 🙄

I managed. I must be the only person who found O levels really hard, A levels pretty difficult, and a degree* a piece of piss.

I found GCSEs a piece of piss, A Levels hard, and Uni a piece of piss. It was only a history degree though 🙂

You’ll do a lot of things that with hindsight you shouldn’t have done. I’m not going to tell you what they are, because by not doing them you’ll not become the person who knows that you shouldn’t have done them.

Happiness is like the top of a mountain; a good place to be, but you can’t actually live there.

Things tend to work out ok, although, as with farts, occasionally you get surprised.

In 1997, when Melanie M walks up to you in the middle of a nightclub and presses her phone number into your hand as asks to spend a bit of time with you over the holidays, for christ’s sake call her and hook up.

It’ll be the second time she’ll do this to you in front of all your mates, there won’t be a third.

I stand by my decision not to have a threesome with flabby abby.

Stop my next door neighbour and his friend going to 5-a-side that night and being killed in a road accident!

and stop being such a selfish **** worrying about what you did/didn’t do and enjoy NOW! (think I already knew that by 15 tho)

a threesome with flabby abby

a fine figure of two women was she?

Don’t do an architecture degree.

She went on to be a holiday rep.

The dirty cow.

Things tend to work out ok, although, as with farts, occasionally you get surprised.

Crikey… that’s possibly the most deep and meaningful post EVER 😀

In reality, I wouldn’t offer my 15 year old self any advice. The ****ups – and there have been many – are what make you what you are

well i turned 15 ten years ago to the day…

i’d tell myself to drink a bit more, hit on girls, as opposed to being the ‘cute shy guy’ (still that FFS…), and learn how to use computers properly.

if i’d done that, i might not be such a lightweight, i’d probably have had a lot more sex (although i’ve not done too badly…), and i’d get less frustrated (i work with computers all day 🙁 )

Biology is actually pretty cool and not a “girl’s subject”.
Do some revision for your ‘O’ Levels.
Buy a few shares in a company called Apple.

And wwaswas and I have the same teenage son!
“Time to get up!”
“No you can’t have a lift to school”
“Wear a coat”
“Do your homework early and you can ride MTBs at the weekend”
“There’s a reason why the internet has been disabled on your iPod”
…

We don’t have the X-box problem though.

Nothing. No point.
I wouldn’t listen to a word of it. 🙂

Probably not worth saying anything as I would not listen.

But in case I did “Learn to dance” 🙂

That when the 18 year old girl you have been snogging for the last 20 minutes asks you you age, don’t tell her 15 FFS!

Ah yes, this except switch her age to 24 and mine to 17…

uselesshippy – Member

Nothing. No point.
I wouldn’t listen to a word of it.

🙂

“In four years time, after you’ve left home, don’t start visiting back again to try and make it better. Get on with your life.”

My 15 year old son doesn’t listen to me.

Mostly I just say things so that, when it all goes pear shaped and he tries to blame me for soemthing, I’m covered.

Occasionally, he’ll do or say something and I’ll think “Blimey he listened!”.

Although these moments are usually followed quite closely by him asking me for money, it has to be said.

Stop messing around outside and go and lose your cherry instead 😆

We’re all quite hard on ourselves arent we?

No

Last thought from me;

“It’ll turn out pretty good in the end so don’t worry.”

emsz – no.

The advice I would give to a 21 year old is…

Stop worrying about things.

Don’t worry about the things you can change… change them.
Don’t worry about the things you can’t change… there’s no point.