At 25, I find myself with a nagging itch to advise late teenagers, soon to be adults, of all that awaits them in the near future.

Since 25 is a time a lot of us experience a quarter-life crisis and have experienced enough to know the reality of life and disappointments, it is a great time to sit down and re-evaluate the life or adventure we chose to embark upon.

Here are the major pieces of advice I have gathered over the years after deep introspection and insight:

Keep searching for the path to fulfilling your desires

As an 18-year-old who moved to Canada to chase her dream of becoming a successful author, I did not think I would have to work full-time jobs that would drain me mentally, emotionally and physically for almost 5 years after. I really thought I would make it, like a lot of newbie authors do.

Unfortunately, some days I did not feel like writing because I would be so tired coming back from a 10-hour shift at some metal recycler (yes, I’ve been around) that I would delay it to the next day, and then the next, and then the next.

I did not conjure up enough of a desire for change sometimes because I was too tired. I felt I was not where I wanted to be and did not know the way out.

Everywhere you turn on social media, you can see scamming gurus claiming they can end your life of poverty and snatch you out of the 9 to 5 rat race by paying them thousands of dollars as if they have anything to lose.

What I came to realize with time is that you don’t need fancy gurus telling you what to do or how to run your life, but it would definitely help to find yourself a mentor, or someone who has done what you want to do and isn’t charging a lot of money. Or reading books about how to manage your time and energy better.

Do not fall into the trap of thinking that there aren’t options out there.

There ARE, and you WILL find them if you look hard enough.

Acknowledge and face your fears lest they control you

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have had a subconscious fear of writing ever since my debut novel flopped. Over the years, after getting married, dealing with chronic health issues, and giving away my time to many jobs, I realized I have built a distraction bubble so big that it was tough to get out of sometimes.

And it filled me with almost daily anxiety until it was too difficult to ignore.

What you need to understand is part of the reason I became sick in the first place was because I was not doing what my mind, body, and soul were asking, begging me to do.

My mind needed me to write. To convey. To create. To do anything besides just consume information like an AI software. If you ignore or distract yourself from something long enough, eventually you will become anxious enough to take action or too scared to write a word and never start.

Only you can know what decision you will make, but please heed this message: It does not take SO much of your time to commit to 250 words on a page. Or even 10 or 15.

Please make time for it or life will make you make time for just about everything else. And your dreams will be in the gutter.

Plan wisely if you choose to veer off the traditional path

This outlines the plan I created when coming to Canada:

1. Become a successful author

2. Retire or chase other interests as I see fit without having to be drowned in student debt

Funnily enough, I learned a lot more in the last 5 years about life, relationships and money than I could have possibly learned in a college classroom by taking this risk. But I still could have made a better Plan B or C or even D.

I could have taken up a certificate in some industry or wrote online instead of just focusing on my novel (CERTAIN NOVELS REQUIRE A LOT MORE TIME AND SPACE THAN WE HAVE). I could have created and sold a digital product or tutored people or done just about anything else to make money while gaining more time for myself.

So why did I not do it?

IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS SO FOCUSED ON THE DAMNED BOOK I WAS WRITING AND INSISTED ON NOT DOING ANYTHING ELSE.

Do not be so stubborn as to not see the truth of a particular situation when it’s sitting right before your very eyes.

Try other things. Do not settle on a 9 to 5.

Take 100% responsibility for your life

This one is huge.

There are people who wake up every day just to blame their circumstances, their mental health conditions, their parents, their friends, their mailman, their neighbor, their teachers, and just about anyone else they can blame so as not to look at themselves and say:

“I did that. I made a mistake. This was mostly my fault.”

I spent years blaming everything else just so I didn’t have to face myself and my decisions.

Even when I started doing all the right things, I sometimes had to grapple with the wish that I had done these things sooner.

All of this useless mind chatter is not going to get you anywhere.

The best way to shut it off long-term is to take 100% responsibility and say to yourself whenever the thoughts do spring up, “I made some mistakes but I did my best with all the knowledge, skills, and responsibilities I had.”

This is by far the most impactful piece of advice I have received in my life, especially from my older brother whose presence and wisdom I am grateful for everyday of my life.

Know and understand that regret is pointless

Please understand that since the dawn of humanity, human beings have never had and will never have 100% certainty of the outcome of a certain decision had they taken a different path.

Although I mentioned above that I could have done different things to save time to write, who knows if I would have even succeeded?

Sometimes life does not go how we plan, and many times this is a NECESSARY part of our success in the future.

We need failure to learn how to succeed. The only way you can succeed at anything is if you fail at it a hundred or a thousand times. Or to learn from others who have more experience how not to fail.

You can either try it yourself and fail till you get to the peak of the mountain, or gain the wisdom from someone else to find a shortcut.

Forgive your parents and anyone else who has hurt you or failed you in some way

Years of resentment and suppressed anger can do a number on someone’s health. I have experienced it firsthand.

When something goes right for us, we make it a point to be everybody’s best friend. But when something goes terribly wrong, nobody wants to be our friend.

Because we become resentful. Blaming. Angry at the things and people we can’t change. Upset at the things our parents couldn’t or didn’t do for us.

As Louise Hay, Motivational speaker and cancer survivor, once said:

How foolish for us to PUNISH OURSELVES in the present moment because someone hurt us in the long-ago past. I often say to people who have deep resentment patterns: please begin to dissolve the resentment now, when it is relatively easy. Don’t wait until you are under the threat of a surgeon’s knife or on your death bed when you may have to deal with panic, too.

One must develop and nurture compassion for others, even when they cannot see or acknowledge your pain. You need to return to it many times to keep yourself on track along your spiritual journey to healing.

Know that you are worthy of other people’s time and attention

To admit this now is funny and a little vulnerable for me, but it is the truth, so I will gladly share it.

There was a time when I did not want to go out and meet people ever since coming to Canada, not just because I thought it would be pointless, but because I also kept myself up to the standard that I needed to use my time to finish my book first before going out and making friends.

What a ridiculous notion that was.

With the loneliness of the isolation that ensued after COVID-19, anyone would have gone insane. All of us felt unlikable at some point or another during the pandemic. It’s natural.

But sitting on a computer at work for 8 hours a day, only to stay home on weekends and sit on a computer to write for another 8 hours a day, is NOT A GOOD PLAN.

It is lifeless. Take care of yourself and know that SOMEONE out there, 1 PERSON at least, would love to hang out with you. DO NOT allow your sanity to wilt and disappear.

Love takes courage

This was a big one for me to learn. I had never been so anxious as when I fell in love for the first time at 18. It was initially not long distance but then became that way due to life’s responsibilities. It took me 3 years to understand what was happening to me and I am here to share it with you.

Love opened up my deepest, darkest wounds. It brought them all to the surface, all at once, without warning, and I had no life-jacket on to dodge its waves. I had what was called relationship anxiety.

If you know someone in your life, either well or just as acquaintances, and you harbor deep feelings for them, and TELL them about it, then embark on the adventure of a relationship with all the uncertainty that encompasses it, then please know, you are of the few that can face the joy of love without running from it.

I did not know when I read vampire and werewolf romance fanfictions or watched these Turkish (Syrian dubbed) melodramatic soap-operas when I was 14 that love would be so scary!

But it is. Because it can end at any moment.

You may trust that it won’t, but you’ll never truly know.

You’ll never know if the person you are with is going to spend the rest of their life with you. You don’t know if they will wake up tomorrow and have other plans. Or if you will have other plans.

But you keep at it despite the doubts and the fears that grip you sometimes, and tell you to run away from it all. Why?

Because to deprive yourself of such a bewitching, wordless experience because of anxiety would be worse than not living at all.

Do not deprive yourself. Get the help you need. Love with all your heart. As the saying goes, it is better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all.

(Just a tip: This blog Conscious Transitions, written by Sheryl Paul, a counselor and relationship anxiety expert, was one of the most helpful resources I had to navigate this difficult time of new love.)

Set Boundaries and enforce them well

As a previous, self-identified people pleaser, I did not always understand what a boundary was. I used to scoff at the word as if it was something only white, therapy-obsessed girls mentioned in relationships (my apologies, white girls for my ignorance). I realized over time through experiences I won’t share here that it is the framework, the guide which people close to you must follow, to understand how you want to be treated.

Whether someone respects your boundaries or not is your responsibility to resolve. No one else.

Someone can choose to mistreat you but if YOU continue to allow them to, without any consequences, then it is your fault for not speaking up sooner, or doing something about it. Not theirs.

Nonetheless, human beings are definitely not perfect and sometimes we all deserve compassion from the people around us. If a loved one does cross a boundary, you can try to have a conversation with them about how it made you feel and how important it is for you that they do not repeat the same action.

It is not important WHY they chose to cross that boundary, because there should not be a justification for doing so.

What mostly matters is what they are going to do about it now to fix things.

Detach from the outcome

In Islam, there is a saying which every Muslim person out there has heard at one point or another. Paraphrasing, the statement is concerning how life is “Maktoob”.

Life is written

So life is not entirely in our hands, no matter what some manifestation gurus tell you. Not everything we strive for is meant to be.

In the Quran, in the story of The Cow, there is a saying:

وَعَسَىٰٓ أَن تَكْرَهُوا۟ شَيْـًۭٔا وَهُوَ خَيْرٌۭ لَّكُمْ ۖ وَعَسَىٰٓ أَن تُحِبُّوا۟ شَيْـًۭٔا وَهُوَ شَرٌّۭ لَّكُمْ ۗ

Which essentially means:

Perhaps you dislike something which is good for you and like something which is bad for you.

This is advice which is not just geared to Muslims, it applies to everyone.

Do what you can and leave the rest to God or the Universe (whatever you believe in), as we don’t always know what is the best for us or what we truly need.