A Letter To My Grandkids Leaving For College

As you step out into the world with a life of adventure before you, you need to know this one thing — you’re going to be ok.

There will be times where you feel like you can’t take it anymore and it’s the end of the world.

There will be times so amazing, you wonder how you were so lucky to be given a life to experience it.

There will be people you meet that will break your heart and make you feel like not enough. But there will also be people that lift you up and make you want to be a better person. And there will be a special few that will make you feel fortunate to have met them before you died.

Friends will come and go. You will outgrow them or they will outgrow you. You will lose people that are close.

Sometimes you will feel like you’re growing and sometimes you’ll feel like you’re stuck. You might get sick and die at the age of 43 or you might live to be 102.

You might travel the world or you might never leave the town you were born in.

You will be amazed, hurt, empowered, dejected, horrified, angry, indignant, righteous, joyous, crushed, and loved. And through all that you need to know one thing — you’re going to be ok.

The sun will rise again. The world will keep spinning and this too shall pass. The good, the bad, and the in-between — you’re going to be ok.

How do I know this? Because you’ve always been ok. You might be starting a new life away from the only home you’ve ever known, but you have already experienced much of what I’ve already said. And here you stand, still in one piece.

You don’t have to have life figured out at 28, or 35, or 60, or 102…if you make it that far. Here’s a secret, nobody has figured it out. We’re all just doing the best we can with what we’ve got.

Life is beautifully messy.

Here’s another secret that might help you through the messiness. It’s all in your head. Whatever way you think about a situation is how you experience it. Your perception is your reality. So if you can change the way you think about someone or something, you will change your experience of it.

This includes whatever you believe YOU are capable of. You have more potential in you that you can possibly imagine. And all you have to do to release that potential is take the first step into the abyss. You might free fall for a while but I promise you, at some point, you will grow wings and fly.

You’ve been stepping out into the abyss your whole life and haven’t realized it. When you took your first step, met a new friend, played a new sport, or had your first kiss.

You went through all that and then some and here you stand all in one piece because you’re going to be ok.

Take that in. Feel your okay-ness. Know that your experience is completely based on your thoughts about your experience. And when it gets rough out there…because it will, know that you have always been and will forever be ok.