What do you wish you had learned at 19?

How to tackle challenges. When I was 19 I was alone, working shit jobs, had poor self image, shitty friends (with a couple exceptions), lived in a pigsty. I knew what I wanted out of life, and I could see it very clearly, but I couldn't see how to get there. I would also have problems in life that I would just ignore, especially things that came by mail, which led to me losing tons of money on preventable shit.

Eventually after four years of learning by repeatedly failing I figured out that you just need to pick a piece of the problem that you can tackle TODAY and do it. Even if it's a small piece. Just keep nibbling away at it as you've got the motivation. If you don't know what to do, ask someone and actually try what they say (within reason) even if it sounds stupid.

Just pick one little thing to do a day and soon it felt like I snowballed into being a better person all around. Just do the dishes before you go to bed. Just stop by the store for motor oil on the way home. Just change the oil this morning before spending the rest of the day merging with the couch.

It even worked for relationships -- I always wanted a family but I couldn't figure out how to meet someone. Eventually I figured out that if I just started doing things and talking to people it was a lot easier to meet someone. Once I got used to talking with people it got a lot easier to say yes to going new places and flirting with people who seemed interested in me and then everything started to get a lot lot easier and I ended up finding someone wonderful.

I've got a much better life now even though I still feel like I'm faking it and don't deserve it.

/r/AskReddit Thread