Mind-hack for life

This will apply equally to guys and gals:

Being a teenager is an uphill struggle, perhaps the most difficult time in life. At any stage in life people are faced with dilemmas, trying to find who they are, what is their purpose, how to belong, but those older ones have some life experience under their belt, while teenagers are just starting out.

So here are some points that are going to help you moving that ‘’car of your mind’’ zero to 60 safer, faster, more efficient:

- know who has your back, stay loyal to them

- life won’t always be that hard

- stand up for the underdog

- you belong, you have a right to be here

find your own individuality, associate with those of similar mindset, because there is such a thing as ‘’psychology of the group’’ and if you don't have strong convictions about who you are, what you stand for, and what’s not up for compromise, that strength of the group can derail your life faster than you can blink

develop your intuition, because if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. You need to recognize those ‘’somethings’’ before the fact

your mind is going to play some tricks on you, it will manifest itself in ‘’always/never’’ &’’being the most of something” thinking. I.e. “I’m the ugliest”, “I’ll never find a gf/bf”, “I’m the best/smartest/prettiest/worst”,

when faced with an opportunity to make some money now vs. staying in school and making better money later, go for the second option. Why? You’ll be working from the time you'll have zits, fight with your parent, hold your first jo, and still secretly watch your favorite cartoon, until the time your face will be covered with wrinkles, and you'll be more concerned with ''being regular'' going to the bathroom, than regularly attend a cool party on Saturday night.

In-between you'll be making decisions that will affect your future.

One of the most important decisions will hit you from the get-go. And it will affect many aspects of your life, at least in the material way, so remember that:

''The better your education, the better your life is going to be.''

As for life satisfaction/happiness,, that's a whole new ball game that's totally unrelated to all the material stuff you'll get to please your instant gratification.

But here are a few pieces of advise to consider if you want to go for the ''happiness'' thing'':

- learn about people’s behavior, understand it, it is going to make your life easier, because you’ll be surrounded by people all life

- learn to speak at least 2 other languages, the world is getting smaller, the better communicator you’re going to become, the better your chances of success are going to be. In my personal opinion Portuguese is going to be the language that is going to be a must in the next 20 years.

- set some goals how you want your life to look like in 5, 10, 20 years, figure out what it will take to reach those goals

- cherish your life. It has an expiration date. You may think, that this is not going to affect you, that it will only affect everyone around you, but not YOU.

Well, you’ll only find out that your own life is finite the first time you hear that someone your own age passed. And that will shake you to the core, and give you a paradigm shift like no other.

- live with passion. It makes all things better to be happy about stuff, even though living sour and complaining is so much easier.

I wish you well. You can do it!