You’ve seen the question come up on social media, I’m sure. It makes the rounds every year or 2, so if you didn’t catch it the last time, don’t worry – it will be around again.
“If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?”
For years, my piece of advice didn’t change. Given the chance, I would have told myself one single word:
“TRANSFER.”
I changed my major halfway through my sophomore year from something perfect for Rhode Island to something perfect for New York City.
Rather than transfer to a school in New York (and therefore moved back home), I stayed put and quite possibly doomed myself to never using the degree I worked for.
Transferring could have gotten me more internships in my field that were worth something and a shot at actually being a sports journalist like I planned.
Transferring could have prevented the on-off-on cycle that culminated with an elopement and a divorce.
I could have saved myself a lot of headaches and regrets.
Then again, transferring wouldn’t have led to a lot of decisions I’ve made and had I not made those decisions, I wouldn’t have gotten to where I am right now.
Granted – my day job situation is misery and my living situation, while comfortable, is not where I thought I’d be by now.
But even with that, and even with all that is going on in the world right now, somehow I’m right where I’m supposed to be. If I had transferred, odds are highly in favor I wouldn’t have met Bronxie, or the friends I’ve made, or learned as much as I’ve learned about myself as I have in the last year and a half.
What I have now is absolutely worth every tear, every second guess, everything, and I’d do it again knowing it would all lead to hearing Bronxie say he loves me right before we fall asleep.
Answering that question now, I’d tell Young Danni that it’s going to get hard and a lot of things are going to suck, but stay the course – it will all be worth it when you see where we end up.
This post is part of a blog hop with the members of Illuminate, one of my writing communities. Please take a moment to read some of our other participants:
Happily Ever After* 
Reblogged this on All winding roads lead to bad decisions… and commented:
A fellow Illuminate writer. Enjoy! xo
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Oh the things I would tell my younger self. 🙂
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This is so great. It is fun to read about someone else’s internal thoughts and the circular nature of if/but thoughts.
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Thank you! I’ve thought about it a lot, and just about everything else I could/would have missed I concluded I’d be ok with never knowing. Bronxie is the one that I can truly say is worth all the crap.
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Ok not the only one but def the one who makes it worth it all
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I feel like I actively block-out looking at the past this way to avoid panics. But I see how it can help to maybe see what I can change now moving forward. Good stuff!
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Thank you! It took a lot of therapy to get to this point – looking back used to cause a lot of distress over “the road not taken” type things, and that was a really hard cycle to break.
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