{"id":2099,"date":"2013-07-26T13:38:13","date_gmt":"2013-07-26T17:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/?p=2099"},"modified":"2013-07-26T13:43:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-26T17:43:14","slug":"five-things-i-wouldnt-do-if-i-was-twenty-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/?p=2099","title":{"rendered":"Five Things I Wouldn\u2019t Do If I Was Twenty Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0I have this thing with age. This hang-up with the reality that I am pushing fifty and my life really didn\u2019t amount to much.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Courtesy of Creative Commons – Matt Bilton<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019m not saying I don\u2019t appreciate the life God has blessed me with.<\/p>\n

What I am saying is I pretty much wasted precious years of my life on stuff that really didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

Here are five things I wouldn\u2019t do if I was twenty again:<\/p>\n

1) I wouldn\u2019t have wasted my time with boyfriends.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Since I was a teenager, I was boy crazy. I always needed to have a guy by my side. Even if they were absolute jerks and yes, I\u2019m being kind.<\/p>\n

2) I wouldn\u2019t have allowed fear, insecurity or other people\u00a0from\u00a0stopping\u00a0me\u00a0in pursuing my dream.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

My father grew up in poverty, so he basically brainwashed me into having a job and earning money.<\/p>\n

I remember when I was\u00a0in professional acting school and pursuing my dream as an actress and singer, my father told me to stop playing and get a real job. He said acting and singing weren\u2019t going to pay the bills.<\/p>\n

So, instead of pursuing my dream, I stopped and got a part time job as a receptionist in corporate America.<\/p>\n

3) I wouldn\u2019t have lived someone else\u2019s dream.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

My father\u2019s dream was for me to take over his restaurant.\u00a0Well,\u00a0that’s what he said, but that’s not what\u00a0he meant.\u00a0He would use \u201ctaking over his business\u201d as leverage to manipulate me. He had no interest in giving up his little kingdom for my sake.<\/p>\n

4) I wouldn\u2019t have dropped out of college.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

One of my biggest regrets ever. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead of focusing on finishing college, I dropped out and eloped with my ex-husband at the age of nineteen.<\/p>\n

Ladies, no guy is worth giving up a college education\u00a0and basically, your future. \u00a0<\/p>\n

5) I wouldn\u2019t have been concerned about what people thought of me.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this is something I still struggle with today. I wish I could say I\u2019m at a better place. But I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n

I do see the futility\u00a0in obsessing over what people say or think about me. I mean, why does someone else\u2019s opinion of me have to matter so much? I don\u2019t know. But, it\u2019s completely annoying. I really don\u2019t want to care about what other people say or think of me.<\/p>\n

This was an obstacle in my earlier years and continues to be today.<\/p>\n

I think about what I would do differently if I wasn\u2019t so concerned about what other people thought of me.<\/p>\n

I probably would take more risks.<\/p>\n

I would try new things and do what I believed in, even at the risk of what\u00a0others thought about it.<\/p>\n

When you live a life focused on what other people\u00a0think of you, you\u2019re not really living.<\/p>\n

You are trapped in a prison of people\u2019s opinions.\u00a0 You forfeit who you are and\u00a0your one short life on what other people think or say.\u00a0What a robbery.<\/p>\n

It’s not worth it.<\/p>\n

Do you struggle with any of these five things? If so, which one?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0I have this thing with age. This hang-up with the reality that I am pushing fifty and my life really didn\u2019t amount to much. I\u2019m not saying I don\u2019t appreciate the life God has blessed me with. What I am saying is I pretty much wasted precious years of my life on stuff that really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[10,90],"tags":[143,112,517,258,518],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2099"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2104,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions\/2104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}