my light of eärendil to the yutes

The new Dove Self-Esteem for Girls campaign asks people to share What I wish I had known at 13.

My advice to any youths out there is, try everything. Good or bad - just try it. Of course I don't mean try becoming a teenage mother or something silly like that. But I mean, try sushi, try beef tripe, try piano and guitar and dance, try befriending that outcast everyone makes fun of, try suffering the fool, try being the fool, try knitting, try raising that hand, try applying for things you know for sure you wouldn't get, try foreign movies, try putting ketchup where it doesn't belong, try to wear things that don't go together, try to grow your hair out, try chopping it all off, try to read James Joyce when it's not assigned, try to sign up for foreign exchange programs, try to work at as many odd jobs as possible, try to date out of your league, try choosing Vietnam instead of Hawaii, and try durian ice cream. Yes, it's gross and it stinks, but liking it's not the point. It's like the point of taking Calculus in school, for most of us, is not actually learning Calculus; it's learning to learn. (It annoys the heck out of me when people, young or old, say, when am I ever going to use that?)

If you just try to experience everything there is to experience, the opportunities will unfold themselves in unexpected, and perhaps spectacular, ways. That's what I wanted to know at 13. And what I want to believe now.

Oh, a P.S. for the youths - also never run away from failures and never live in fear of mistakes. It's taking me a long time to believe it, but you really do grow more from failures and mistakes than your victories and successes. As long as you recognize it for what it really is, every failure is added ammunition in your tool belt for future use. You will need it somehow, some way down the road. It's like that Light of Eärendil that Frodo gets from the Elf Queen. When he first got it, he was probably like, "Great, more excess crap to carry with me on this long as heck journey." But later, when he gets attacked by giant spiders, he was like, "Aha!"

By the way, everytime I say youth, it reminds me of that exchange in My Cousin Vinny between Fred Gwynne and Joe Pesci. "What is a yute?" Haha.



Yeah, I know I am a total badass for connecting the dots between LOTR, Doves soap, durian ice cream and My Cousin Vinny.