What advice would you give your 19 year old self?

Nurses General Nursing

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Im 19 years old and pretty much just thinking about the future and where I will end up in my career. I was wondering, what would YOU tell your 19 year old self back then? or if so, now? or later on?

As a 19 year old, this thread is both fascinating and terrifying....

I can already see the potential mistakes I'm making, and I am trying to remedy them before they become major regrets--i.e. throwing out the ideas of joining the Navy or going to med school because there's a (very supportive of all my decisions, kind, loving, slightly older and more put together than I) boy that wants to marry me sometime in the next 10 years. I have an unhealthy obsession with that number, not him.

Ok. /End sappy-gooey-story-time rant

Keep the advice coming!

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There's lots of things I would tell my 19 year old self, but then my life would be different. Yes, I wouldn't have had heartache, but I also wouldn't have my boys or the life I have now. *shrugs*

I always think "If I could go back..." But that one thing is always in the back of my mind. Nothing would be the same and that would hurt more than the past.

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There's lots of things I would tell my 19 year old self, but then my life would be different. Yes, I wouldn't have had heartache, but I also wouldn't have my boys or the life I have now. *shrugs*

I always think "If I could go back..." But that one thing is always in the back of my mind. Nothing would be the same and that would hurt more than the past.

Exactly this! I often think about "what if...", but if you think about it, if any of us were given the chance to go back and change a single thing, nothing would be the same now. My husband and I talk about this a lot actually. If either of us had done anything differently in the past, we probably would never have met and we wouldn't have our two girls. So I try to embrace the mistakes I've made, learn from them, and move on.

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You shouldn't have listened to your mother. Go to medical school, get into the pre-med track now.

God bless her, but she is just as flawed as you are. Not everything she says is the word of God.

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DON"T EAT THAT !

Get the RN while you're still living at home for free-free

Get critical care experience at a top notch facility while you're young & cute and get things handed to you

Take the free ride to med school. Living in Cuba for 3 years is NOT like going to hell.

Don't obsess over 5 extra pounds, it will be a joke in 20 years.

DON'T EAT THAT EITHER !

Start a retirement fund with your first nursing job and contribute

Your metabolism will die on you, act accordingly

Your friends are wrong, you DO marry a mans family.

Marry B the first time he asks you, that sting of rejection will still be there 15 years into your marriage

Add exercise to your daily life NOW.

Treat H better and answer his messages. He will be dead in 2 years

You will be 40 in a blink

Empty your savings and buy every share of microsoft you can afford

STOP eating so much. You don't get to a certain weight and stop getting bigger.

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Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.
Oh yeah, and start putting money away into an IRA now. Don't wait until you're 30!

Seriously!!! Do this. Do it now! Don't stop doing it. Believe me when I say that.

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There's lots of things I would tell my 19 year old self, but then my life would be different. Yes, I wouldn't have had heartache, but I also wouldn't have my boys or the life I have now. *shrugs*

I always think "If I could go back..." But that one thing is always in the back of my mind. Nothing would be the same and that would hurt more than the past.

Me too, so therefore, 19 year old Far, when you see that really tall sarcastic guy that keeps picking you up with one hand but who is a bit bossy, marry him anyway and don't change one thing.

My kids are the best thing I've ever done and couldn't have them without the Big Angry Guy I'm married to now. We made good kids.

If any regrets? We should have made more.

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Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.

1. Don't get fat! Eat less. Eat better. Start exercising regularly.

2. Get a 2nd major so that you can have an alternative career if you want it -- or combine that interest in history with a nursing career and become an expert on nursing history.

3. Find a way to re-connect with G. in your senior year. Maybe something good could actually come of it and you won't spend the rest of your life wondering, "What if?"

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Don't marry him just because all the other options don't look so great right now. Life is long and you have no idea right now just how long it is. In 15-20 years, your mindset, and the world for that matter, will not be anything like it is right now. Making big mistakes that change the direction of your life matter! Make school number 1 and don't stop until you have finished. Don't put marriage and kids first right now; there is plenty of time, and it's not always what it's cracked up to be anyway.

I didn't listen and now I get to do all this at 50.

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Don't stay with that man. Those niggling little worries that you suppress because you think nobody else will ever have you and you don't have the self-confidence to live without him? The flashes of temper, the denigrating your career and education choice, the discounting your likes and dislikes, the insistence of always being right and in charge? They will not go away, and in time they will get worse, and then way worse, and then you will really be in the soup without even having felt the water getting hot. There really are better guys out there, and you really will meet them. Really.

OK, so you will stay with him for the better part of 15 years and have two wonderful kids before it gets really intolerable. That will be bad for those kids. You will, in time, meet the love of your life. But the kids will never quite get over it. If you had kids with somebody else, they'd still be awesome and they'd all be happier.

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As a 19 year old, this thread is both fascinating and terrifying....

I can already see the potential mistakes I'm making, and I am trying to remedy them before they become major regrets--i.e. throwing out the ideas of joining the Navy or going to med school because there's a (very supportive of all my decisions, kind, loving, slightly older and more put together than I) boy that wants to marry me sometime in the next 10 years. I have an unhealthy obsession with that number, not him.

Ok. /End sappy-gooey-story-time rant

Keep the advice coming!

Lulu Belle! Did you not just read all the posts about discarding your goals for boys?? (Said in awkward motherly voice that I haven't quite mastered because, well, I'm not a mom.)

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Don't stay with that man. Those niggling little worries that you suppress because you think nobody else will ever have you and you don't have the self-confidence to live without him? The flashes of temper, the denigrating your career and education choice, the discounting your likes and dislikes, the insistence of always being right and in charge? They will not go away, and in time they will get worse, and then way worse, and then you will really be in the soup without even having felt the water getting hot. There really are better guys out there, and you really will meet them. Really.

OK, so you will stay with him for the better part of 15 years and have two wonderful kids before it gets really intolerable. That will be bad for those kids. You will, in time, meet the love of your life. But the kids will never quite get over it. If you had kids with somebody else, they'd still be awesome and they'd all be happier.

Yes, I should have gotten out of that past relationship before it got violent. But I got out before my boys were old enough to remember so I think I did okay.

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