Ana Yale Blaze

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. You will not enjoy the power and beauty of your youth until they fade it, but trust me, in twenty years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall, in away you can’t grasp now, how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you looked. Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying, is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind. The kind that blindsides you at 4 p.m. On an idle Tuesday. Do something every day that scares you. Sing. Don't be reckless with other peoples' hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours. Floss. Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead sometimes your behind, the race is long, and in the end it's only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements. Stretch. Do not feel bad if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at twenty-two what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting forty year olds still don’t. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone. Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you wont. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you wont. Maybe you’ll divorce at forty. Maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken at your seventy-fifth wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can, don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you’ll ever own. Dance. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room. Get to know your parents, you’ll never know when they’ll be gone for good. Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, for as the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young. Live in London once but leave before it makes you hard. Live in the country once but leave before it makes you soft. Travel. Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time your forty it will look eighty-five. Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice, is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it, is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than its worth. But trust me on the sunscreen.http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg192/anayalebl aze/Naughtycreature-1.jpg