Things to Know

I think this will apply to your whole life, but it's never too early to have the right mindset. 14 is a big number and its a time where you get to learn to be an adult person. Right now you might feel like the difference between 13 and 14 is small, but I can promise it's huge. My advice is not to let yourself get caught going through the motions of life as if you're just floating down a river someone else dug.

I've been to islands in Vietnam where bees make honey with dragon fruit. I have hiked up waterfalls in Thailand, been ATV-ing across paddy fields in Cambodia, and eaten Subway in China. I have flown a helicopter. I've done impromptu skin-grafting for someone. I've ziplined into a lake of alligators (though that one was an accident). I've hiked parts of the Appalachian trail. I'm headed to Australia for 18 months on a mission trip.

I'm also only 19 years old. I'm not rich, in fact I work as a preschool teacher and make 8.00 an hour. I went to a small Highschool in Kentucky where people are just glad you can't see the cigarette smoking flowing out of the bathrooms anymore. I have 7 siblings, and I grew up in multiple houses where sometimes my sister had to live in my closet or one of us spent a couple months on the couch every once in a while.

The point I'm making is that if you want something you can have it. You don't have to read above and think "oh, they're so lucky. I'll never do that" and you certainly don't have to wait until your 40 to have those types of experiences. It costs 150 dollars to intro flight a helicopter. You can make that in a week. It costed 3,000 dollars to tour Asia. I made a goal and it took me 6 months to save that money. If you work hard you can make things that seem impossible entirely possible. It's something I didn't realize until I was 17, if I had known sooner I think I would have started making impossible goals sooner, so when I graduated I would have been prepared to do even more!

So you're going to be 14. My advice is make a crazy goal, one that seems like just a wish. Financially and logistically put the effort into how you would achieve it, whether thats starting to save money, or volunteeromg somewhere or looking up countries you might want to see or places where the train conductors work or whatever. Then you have to do it. I don't care if you do it this summer or if you have to wait till you graduate. Do it before you are in college and enjoy every second of it. I promise, if you can achieve that one crazy goal then you'll know for your whole life that you can actually do anything, and so you will.