No one can live your life for you.

When I was young I often asked myself this, and today I'm convinced that being able to answer this question as early as possible makes all the difference.

Think about it for a moment: if someone asked you right now, what would you say? “I don't know”, “good question!”, “well, lots of things”? These are the most common answers, sadly even among adults. Without a destination you drift like a boat with no course, wherever the wind pushes it: where the others go, or wherever chance takes you. With a destination, on the other hand, every choice makes sense: what to study, what to give your time to, what to let go of.

“I meet a great many people who, if I ask them the question ‘what exactly do you want to do when you grow up?’, cannot give an answer, because they reject everything they know, yet ignore all the remaining possibilities.”

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Try this. Take a sheet of paper and write at the top: “What exactly do I want to do when I grow up?” Then give yourself an hour to answer. It doesn't matter how much you write; what matters is that you take all the time you need to think it over and that your answer is precise: what you want to do, how, where. When you've finished, keep the sheet and read it again in a few months.

You start at a new school. On the first day you watch the others and, without realising it, you start talking like them, laughing at their jokes, dressing the same way. You do it to be accepted, and that's understandable: nobody wants to be left alone. But know this: if you keep doing it, over time you risk no longer knowing what you really like.

At your age friends matter, and a lot; the point is not to lose yourself just to stay in the group. Remember: a true friend wants you as you are.

“Not everyone will approve of you. You were not born to please everyone. You were born to become real.”

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Try this. For a few days, when you're with your group, watch yourself without judging: do you change your tone of voice, the way you stand, even your opinion, just to be approved of? You don't have to correct anything: for now it's enough to notice. And if you catch yourself saying “yes” just so as not to upset someone, say “no” at least once.

Have you ever read a whole page and, at the end, remembered nothing of it? Your eyes were reading, but you were somewhere else. It happens to everyone, more often than we think: we eat without tasting, we listen to a friend while thinking about something else. Being present means truly being there, with your head and your body, in whatever you have in your hands, even the simplest thing. Nobody teaches us to be present in the moment, nobody teaches us to really listen. Those who understand that presence in life is worth everything know that it is learned through practice, and as we become more and more present, everything changes inside and outside us. The way you study, play and spend time with others changes, you become a person free to choose, and you rediscover that Life is wonderful!

“While washing a plate, one can be completely present to the movement of the hand, to the feeling of the water, to the particular sound it makes. This means not being lost in thought, but taking part fully in the simple act one is engaged in, which thus becomes a moment of living awareness.”

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