When your cousin Josh was in High School he was very popular. He was captain of the football team, regional champion top gun competition cheerleader and living the dream. I asked him once, "Is there one girl among your friends that is special for you?"
Josh's answer was one of the wisest comments I have ever heard from a teenager. He told me, "Dad, I have my whole life to get my heart broken. I don't need to start in high school."
Teenagers are expected to know things that they just cannot know. It is not fair. Just think about it.
People are asking you what you want to do for the rest of your life for work. Get real? When you are a teenager you don't even know for sure what you want on your pizza much less how you want to spend 40 hours a week for 40 years. You may want to prepare some boilerplate answers for when you get the questions, but be careful with your choices. I would not tell adults that you plan to be a drug dealer, pole dancer, career criminal, or lawyer. They are sure to make judgements about your character. (My advice to my kids was to find something you love to do, then find someone that will pay you to do it. It has worked well for them it seems.)
Relationships are another area where you are expected to know things that you just don't have the life experience to know. One thing you should know as a young person is the difference between love and lust. A good rule of thumb is that Lust is about "me". Love is about someone other than "me".
Lust says "I want what I want and I want it the way I want it." If you are involved with someone whose world operates like that, run, don't walk away. This is an opera star--Me, Me, Me, Me, Me..... Any sentence that starts out, "If you love me you will..." should send alarm bells off in your head. If you see this attitude in yourself, just stop it!. Even if you get what you want you won't be happy.
Love is shaving your head and sending an email to all your friends and family , asking them to photoshop their hair out and send her pictures
when your wife is going through Chemotherapy. That is what your cousin-in-law Emrys did when Sara had cancer. (Love can also be sending your bald pictures like our friends the Yancy's did.)Love is giving your dad a kidney and saving his life like your aunt Kelly did. You have examples in your own family that are amazing illustrations of what love really is if you pay attention to what is going on around you.
Love is what your parents do when they tell you no. It is probably not a good idea and probably not good for you--even though you don't understand it and it seems enormously cruel.
Love is choosing to defer what you want because someone else is more important that what you want.
The bible advises you to, "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
(Pro 4:23)"
Learn to guard your heart. Be careful who you let get close. Remember that other people your age are just as confused as you are about most things and don't know any more than you do. Learn to recognize wisdom which is more often than not a heart thing rather than a head thing.
Understand that your emotions are real and a gift to you, but they are not the foundation for good choices in most cases. Own your feelings but don't let them own you. It is your will that will drive you to success in life, what you do matters more than how you feel. Think about the people we celebrate as heroes. Firefighters, soldiers and others conquer their feelings with their will to do remarkable things.
Watch some older folks who love each other and take some notes. Talk to them about when they first met and hear their stories. Love that lasts a lifetime involves sacrifice and compromise. A 50/50 relationship won't work. Each side has to give 100% or more.
Beware the hormone river that swirls and swells around you. It can flood your brain and lead you to choices that have long term consequences.
The manual for love has to be I Corinthians 13. The manual for lust is everywhere you look around you. I have to hand it to the Apostle Paul, and I think he would tell you even today that the greatest of these is love.
I believe in you and am cheering for your success. Guard your hearts as you learn to love.
Your Crazy Great-Uncle
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