Kings Dominion, fall 2012.

My 10-year high school reunion is tonight. I’m thrilled.

I can’t believe it’s already been a decade. I remember wearing the tye die tank top in the photo above, walking through the neighborhood near our freshman dorm, and smoking a joint with my roommate.

“Dude,” I coughed. “When my sister is a freshman in college, we’ll be 30.”

“Whoa,” he retorted.

At the time, that idea seemed so far away that it would never actually come true. But now it’s less than two years away.

Before I take tequila shots with a bunch of people who didn’t know my name in high school, I’d like to reflect on who I was when I graduated. In the moment, I’m sure I felt like I had finally grown up. In reality, I was just an insecure teenager with a driver’s license.

If I had an hour with that 18-year-old doofus, what would we talk about? Would he be impressed by me? Would he judge my mustache? What would I say to him?

Probably these things…

1) You’re supposed to feel confused, self-conscious, and clueless.

No one has their shit figured out, especially at 18. We’re all just dumpster fires hiding behind beautiful Instagram photos and Facebook posts.

It felt like you were the only insecure kid in high school. But you’ll soon realize that everyone else was just really good at hiding it. I didn’t start feeling truly confident in life until I was 23. And that was after failing college and trying to kill myself.

As a life coach, I work with people of all age brackets. I know 50-year-olds who are still figuring out what they want to be when they grow up. You’ve got plenty of time.

You’ll never “arrive.” There is no solution or formula to life that makes the rest of it smooth sailing.

So just keep putting yourself out there and trying new things. Your values and interests will change as you do. But you have to take action and go out and explore.

2) Don’t go to college until you can specifically state what you want to work on and why school is the best choice for that.

You were a trash student, dude. A 2.2 GPA in high school.

Why do you think putting tens of thousands of fake future dollars on the line would make things easier for you? On top of that, you’d have no supervision and access to all the booze, drugs, and women you could imagine. Does that sound like it would produce high levels of commitment and productivity?

Swallow your pride and stay home for now. Get a job at a restaurant, start saving money, and build creative skills. It will suck to see your friends go off to four-year universities. But you’ll be grateful in four years when you’re not paying $1000 a month for a piece of paper you’re not using.

3) You’re not really valuable right now, but you absolutely will be.

I don’t mean you’re useless as a human being. But at this time, in both the dating market and the general economy, you don’t have much to offer.

It sucks to hear, but if you start slowly building your skills, you’ll be super attractive years from now. That goes for women, businesses, and collaborators.

Right now, girls tend to be attracted to fun. You’ll see that when you go out drinking.

But as you go deeper into your 20s, they tend to be attracted to confidence, drive, and security.

So, if you start working out, developing skills you can sell, and treating yourself and others with respect…you’ll be unstoppable.

4) Be as kind as you can as quickly as you can.

The phrase “Nice guys finish last” is bullshit.

What it actually means is don’t sacrifice your values to make others happy. But do care about the happiness of others.

The more you make people feel welcomed, heard, and cared for…the more they will want to be around you and take care of you too. The most important thing in life (aside from your physical health) will be the relationships you build over the years.

Stop talking shit about people. Stop complaining about things you can’t control. Always seek the lesson and value in every situation.

That is the ultimate kindness: seeing life as something happening for you and not to you.

5) Don’t listen to me.

I can talk for hours about all the things I wish I did more of and less of.

I could tell you to take great care of your body, become financially literate, ask out more women, start playing chess or doing jiujitsu, build a writing habit, and never make a Twitter or Instagram…

But you’ll figure all of these things out from sheer necessity.

The best way to learn how to do something is to learn how not to do it. I can give you all these insights because I’ve done so many things poorly.

And to deprive you of mistakes and regrets you’ll experience would be to limit your ability to grow and learn.

Go out and do stupid stuff. Create cringe memories. Overdraft your checking account.

The people who know the most are typically the ones who have been through the most. Put yourself through the wringer and you’ll have no choice but to be the best version of yourself.

Now go, my son. Smoke a bowl and play guitar for four hours.

You’ll find your way eventually.