Oh Oprah, you teach me without even knowing it.

So I was at the gym today and caught some of Oprah- she was having famous women talk about what they would tell their younger selves and what they know now that they're "older". It got me thinking about what I would tell my younger self- and it was all the same mush- love yourself for who you are, beauty comes from inside, blah blah...
And then I had a bigger revelation. We can tell our younger selves these things because we've learned them from being who we were.
If we were all confident, loving, self affirmed teenagers we probably wouldn't be who we are today which is usually happier, healthier and proud of what we'd accomplished. I think I would be snobbish, stuck-up and lonely if I didn't have the baggage and yucky teenage years to have taught me about loving myself, helping others feel loved and what confidence is. It we start out with everything, we've got a lot more to lose rather than gain.
So, I guess I'm happy that being a gawky teenager sucked, because all the goodness I've found inside and out feels that much better.