Someday you’ll give a speech
And the world will listen.
Not just tech conference associates stuck in a row
But lost people seeking guidance in the same way we once sought it.

Someday you’ll stand up and talk
Not about minutiae, but overall experiences.
You’ll discuss your choices and how no choices are wrong
But some give more opportunity to learn than others.
And the world will applaud your optimism
And speak of such a wise soul, not remembering that you haven’t always been older
And that you didn’t have all the answers, and that you made mistakes purely and fervently
And you had to learn these lessons the hard way to talk of them so casually.

But the world will forget these things and hear only the smooth ivory words of polished experience. Their rough wooden phrases of inexperience will scrape at their lives until it’s raw
Like yours used to
So you spoke over those words so many times in your head that they stopped hurting
(Any more than a rough bludgeon can sting than a smooth one)
And you had enough distance to see how you grew, and you’d never do anything differently.

Act now as you would act then. Make decisions that wise men make, and count it as a credit to your later self, taking an early withdrawal of knowledge from the stores you will gather.

If it hurts now, it makes a good story.
If it works now, it’ll make people listen when you talk about the other ones.
But the best weapon you have in life is yourself.

Your sharp, arrow-head of intellect.
Your fast, silvery tongue crowned with words of weight.
Your arms that lift with the gust of ambition.
And these are yours forever, so long as you’ll let them be.

The story is waiting, whatever one it is. Your speech is being written every day.
The world is holding its breath.
You’ll be ready by then. But start being ready now.

By Nika Harper