u/Apart-Ad5124

What’s like a piece of advice you’d give your younger self?

I feel like my life has been lacking some substance so I wanna hear what you guys have to say :)

I graduated high school in 2025 and I’m currently at home taking online classes. Because university isn’t financially an option for my family right now, I’m still living with my parents while my old friends are overseas, living out their university years at the ages of 19 and 20.

I see them on social media, making new friends, dating new people, and having the time of their lives and I feel like I’m wasting my best years. My social circle has disappeared, and I haven't posted on my own socials in forever because my life lacks any novelty. I can’t go out, talk to new ppl, and make friends because there’s an ongoing political unrest which makes things 100x dangerous for a young woman. Plus, I can’t afford to go out a lot.

As corny as it sounds, I often think about making a “grand comeback" or a "glow up" to prove to everyone that I’ve been living my life too. Because I feel like I’m sooo behind everyone and that I NEED to get that “comeback”, I’ve started rushing everything; trying to find the fastest way to glow up, build my dream body, master skills, finish my classes just so I can show off my degree and say, "HA, I did it."

Life isn’t a race but it seems so for me. I genuinely need to know to how rewire that.

I started learning piano in the third grade and continued until the seventh. Although I eventually stopped taking lessons, I was a 'band kid' from sixth through ninth grade, which helped me stay comfortable with reading sheet music.

Now that I’ve graduated high school, I’m ready to pick up the piano again (I’m hiring a tutor). My note-reading is a bit hit-or-miss; I can recognize some notes instantly, while others take me a moment to figure out. I can still play the songs I used to play (even though there weren’t a lot of them) entirely from memory.

My one goal is to learn a specific song I’ve been wanting to play, but I’m torn: should I stick to re-learning the basics and grinding through practice exercises first, or should I dive straight into the song I actually want to play and hope I can fill in the gaps in my knowledge as they come up.

I started learning piano in the third grade and continued until the seventh. Although I eventually stopped taking lessons, I was a 'band kid' from sixth through ninth grade, which helped me stay comfortable with reading sheet music.

Now that I’ve graduated high school, I’m ready to pick up the piano again (I’m hiring a tutor). My note-reading is a bit hit-or-miss; I can recognize some notes instantly, while others take me a moment to figure out. I can still play the songs I used to play (even though there weren’t a lot of them) entirely from memory.

My one goal is to learn a specific song I’ve been wanting to play, but I’m torn: should I stick to re-learning the basics and grinding through practice exercises first, or should I dive straight into the song I actually want to play and hope I can fill in the gaps in my knowledge as they come up.