10 Life Lessons I Wish My Older Sister Taught Me

Learning things the hard way is never ideal, but sometimes it’s necessary.

As someone who has always had to learn life lessons the hard way, I know how necessary it can be. I’ve never been the type to take someone’s word for something; I’d much rather find out for myself. I wouldn’t say it’s a lack of trust in other people… Actually, yeah it kind of is LOL. I have been manipulated many times due to my own naivete, so I have learned to make my own judgments.

Despite my urge to seek truth for myself, there are a few lessons I wish my older sister had taught me. If I had known any one of these things beforehand, it could have spared me a lot of pain and lost time.

Lesson #1: College isn’t for everyone.

It costs thousands of dollars, a minimum of four years of your life, and sometimes even your first born child. Okay, the last one isn’t true. But the first two certainly are. Adding up all of my loans over the eight years I was in and out of undergrad, I got myself into roughly $80,000 worth of debt.

It’s also a lot more work than people lead you to believe.

You shouldn’t rush into college directly out of high school if you’re not sure that it’s what you want to do. I wasted three semesters and took three more off after that before I was certain that I wanted to be in school. And then I left after a year and a half for mental health reasons, only to take nearly two more years before I returned to finally finish. If college was “easy” I wouldn’t have needed to take so many breaks in the first six years.

Lesson #2: Your first love won’t be your only.

I feel this one goes without explanation, but let’s just hop into the shallow end of it. If you lose your first real love, you will find it again someday. Whether it was incompatibility or just the wrong time, it won’t be the only love in your life.

Typically this saying is that your first love won’t be your last, but as I was lucky enough to reconnect with my first real love, he technically is my “last” love. But I will say that I had plenty of opportunities for love with other people in the years we spent apart. You too will have more than one love in your life, should the first one leave.

Related life lessons post: Red Flags In Relationships

Lesson #3: Peer pressure only exists if you let it.

I expected to be “peer pressured” way more about drugs and alcohol as a teenager than I actually was. Adults drilled it into our young minds that some kid in a leather jacket will encourage us to skip school to hang out behind the bleachers, and offer us a joint.

Truthfully, I can count on one hand the number of times I was invited to do any type of drug in high school.

Either I was lame and had no friends, or adults are a little unclear about how peer pressure works. Maybe both.

Lesson #4: Partying is okay – in small quantities.

When people think “college”, they immediately think of parties. It’s like a rite of passage for average college students. So of course, I spent a few months going wild and crazy when I was at IU Bloomington. But all it did was ruin my GPA.

When I cut out “parties” completely, suddenly I became bitter and angry. I realized that it’s okay to have fun and relieve stress, as long as you keep your priorities in line too. Find the balance that works for you, and don’t overdo it.

Lesson #5: Alcohol only numbs the pain temporarily.

The reason I started drinking was not because I wanted to have fun with friends, but because I was heartbroken and depressed. My solution was to self-medicate, and for a while it felt good. But every morning I would wake up and feel not only hungover, but also even more torn up than I was the day before.

I used alcohol to get through the harder times in my life.

From death to heartbreak, depression to divorce. Alcohol (or other drugs) can make it go away for a few hours, but eventually you have to wake up and deal with your problems like an adult.

Related life lessons post: Overcoming Depression: Why Mindset Matters

Lesson #6: It’s possible to fall in love with the right person at the wrong time.

I don’t know how many times I’ve fallen for the wrong guys. At the time I thought they were perfect for me, only to find out we had too many significant differences that would keep us from ever having a lasting relationship. Eventually I met the right guy. And of course our timing was off, as I went across the country for school.

Eight years later he was still the right person, and it was finally the right time. Usually the right person comes along at times that seem inopportune, and it just feels wrong to allow yourself to be with that person. But what use is it to be miserable in life? Fate doesn’t knock often!

Lesson #7: Your high school friends aren’t always forever.

I can’t even begin to count how many of my high school “best friends” I don’t even talk to on a regular basis anymore. There’s the required birthday texts and Facebook wall posts, but generally I don’t keep in touch with most of them. In fact, I think I talk to my sister’s high school friends more than my own.

Once you get to college, you meet new people and have different experiences in separate cities.

As my friends and I began to burst through our cocoons, I started to see how different we actually were in our own elements. In the end, we grew apart and found new friends.

Lesson #8: Your experiences matter more than your GPA.

No matter what anyone tells you, your GPA will not be what gets you the job after college. Having real life experience will be more important to employers than your grades. What do you know about the world? How do you interact with people who are lower on the social ladder than you? How do you handle criticism?

Getting an A in a social studies class isn’t going to matter if you don’t know what to do with the information that you regurgitated on your final. Applied skills are more valuable than a 4.0.

Lesson #9: Don’t close yourself off just because you’ve been hurt in the past.

This is a big one. My first heartbreak was one of the lowest points in my teenage life. I locked myself in my dorm room for weeks and refused to go out in the daylight. When I finally made myself available to the public, I started to shut out any guy who tried to build even a friendship with me, because I was so afraid I would just get hurt again.

Getting your heart broken sucks, but dwelling on it is no way to live life.

You should keep an open heart and learn to love again. With your experiences from the past, you will be more prepared for the next round of suitors! Or better yet, you’ll open yourself up to new opportunities and friendships. You’ll find that love isn’t the only thing that matters in life.

Related life lessons post: This Is How Long You Are Allowed To Grieve A Breakup

Lesson #10: You are beautiful the way you are, but it’s okay to change.

When we change ourselves to become who we want to be, people claim we are fake. But change isn’t always a bad thing. It’s okay to want to be something more than you are now. It’s okay to want to change the way people perceive you. And it’s okay to want to be someone who feels more like you.

We grow up acting the way our friends and parents and society tells us we should, and we eventually reach an age when we realize that it’s not who we want to be. You can be anything you want to be, so be the kind of person that you want to be! Their opinions of who you are does not compare to how you feel about yourself. As long as you’re being true to you, that’s all that really matters.

Related life lessons post: 8 Lessons Single Girls Need To Remember

What life lessons do you wish you didn’t have to learn the hard way?