As George Bernard Shaw said, the trouble with youth is that it’s wasted on the young.
When you’re 18 you seem to spend all your time either working, studying, out with your friends or engaged in activities – sports, hobbies, or pastimes – that will probably bring little lasting benefit to you. There just doesn’t seem to be time for anything else.
Oh! the time that I wasted when I was 18! Didn’t you waste time when you were 18? We all did. Just a few years out of childhood, we suddenly have this adult body and brain that we don’t know what to do with.
Yet it would only have taken a little time to sit down and think. To think about what we wanted to do with our lives. To plan things out. To decide what kind of things we were good at and what kind of things we weren’t. What things we liked and what things we didn’t.
Research has shown that graduates of 21 or 22 that sit down and write what they want to accomplish in their lives are generally more successful than those who don’t.
Yes, a little planning ahead, a little concentrated thought and self-assessment, taking up just a couple of hours at the age of 18 can make a big difference to your life. The trouble is that by the time you realise that, you’re probably in your thirties or older.
