Wear Sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it because the long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists. Or you can just not wear sunscreen. I really don't care either way to be honest. I actually recommend slathering yourself in tanning oil. It makes for a killer tan and gives your stems a nice sheen.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth, if you have any of either. In 20 years you may or may not look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked… But thankfully there's numerous and affordable plastic surgery options available today so you can recapture that if you really wanted to (caveat is that to recapture it, you actually had to possess it at one time). And even if you find yourself thinking that you were not as fat back then as you imagined... you probably really were, so quit lying to yourself and get to know Atkins.
Don't worry about the future: we're all screwed and going the way of the Dodo, so unless you have a way to fix it, I don't want to hear whatever it is you're worrying about. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday: like finding out at the gas station that you now have to pay $3.19/gallon of Regular.
Do one thing everyday that scares you. Bonus points if it terrifies the hell out of the people around you.
Sing. Even if you can't, or it's through a synthesizer… then you can get a record deal like T-Pain and insult the very definition of "singing" and/or "music."
Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, and don't put up with people who are reckless with your own. Unless you have an untraceable .45 and a silencer. In which case, you can do whatever the hell you want. Go ahead, ask me how I know that.
Floss [ice and/or in the club].
Time is not to be wasted on jealousy. Being jealous just means that whether you think you're ahead or whether you think you're behind, you still know that you suck at life in some way and should strive to be the least like yourself as possible. {Note to self}
Remember the compliments you receive, but write down the insults. They'll come in handy when dealing with some Frat fags at a bar in the future.
Throw away your old love letters, but keep copies of your ex's bank statements and credit card information. As you'll inevitably find out, love is not as tangible as money and few things feel as good as revenge in the form of Identity Theft.
Stretch. Thhhhhhhhhheeeeee trruuuuuth. Because a lot of times you won't get caught.
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life… the most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't. Incidentally, they also happen to be working 70 hours a week for less than minimum wage in a dilapidated factory and addicted to meth.
Get plenty of calcium. Because people with bad teeth are gross.
Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone. And chances are, so will most of the men in your life.
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't, maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't, maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary, for which you will be made fun of because honestly, who plays "the funky chicken" at weddings? But what ever you do, don't be a prick by congratulating yourself too much, and don't be a drama queen by berating yourself either – your choices are half chance and so are everybody else's. And chances are, you made some fucked up choices which is why you sit in a dark room every night, listening to Richard Marx albums on repeat and drinking Natty Bo through the taste of your own tears and then using them as lube.
Enjoy your body, use it every way you can… don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own. Just ask the ZTAs at Towson, they would know better than anyone and will even demonstrate.
Dance… even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room. Or on a pole in a moist, seedy strip club on the wrong side of town.
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them. But don't tell the doctors in the ER that you didn't follow the directions because doing that would ruin your chances of a financially successful lawsuit.
Do NOT read beauty magazines, they are only for beautiful people... which you probably are not.
Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good. Then you'll be out of the will and shit out of luck because life is tough like that.
Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. This is important because you can dump your kids off on them when you don't feel like putting up with your own hellspawn. They probably also have lots of blackmail material on you, and it's best to keep tabs on people like that.
Respect your elders. Stop threatening to boil them in the kiddie pool in the yard at your brother's house.
Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund (in which case call me), maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out. But in the case of the latter, get a pit bull of a divorce attorney and take that bastard for everything he's worth.
Do lots of crazy shit with your hair, because if you're like my dad, by the time you're 60 it will start to disappear and you'll wish you had some to ruin, just on principal.
Don't buy advice. Unless it's mine. Which is $10/minute. Just FYI, the people who tell you that advice is "a form of nostalgia," and that dispensing it is a way of "fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth," are basically trying to hand you a polished turd. And that's fucked up. Really, you should punch them in the face for that because who would want to be handed a turd: polished or not?
But trust me on the tanning oil… I have tan, glossy stems!!!
{A certain exotic future model-to-be graduated from the Eighth grade last night. She's my inspiration}
