Dear Me! (english translation)

Dear Me!

First of all, please, stop to worry and to be stressed. Stop to pressure yourself and to expect immediate and perfect solutions. Stop to look at expectations about your life according to other people, but live a life you chose. You only live once and it´s up to you how your life is gonna look like. Once, when you´ll look back and realise that decisions and steps that you ´d made, weren´t actually yours, it will be to late. Don´t be afraid to walk your own path and to take responsibility for your decisions.

Don´t be afraid of falling. Don´t be afraid of taking risks just because you can get hurt. Every movement brings some risk, but it´s much better to move than to stand and a progress is the outcome of a failure, too. Don´t be afraid to accept that you don´t know something. It doesn´t mean that you´re stupid, we´re always learning. In everything. In life, in relationships, in school, in work, in every activity that you´re doing. Don´t be afraid of making mistakes. They are something what moves you forward and create a space for a new perspective. They bring a new horizont.

Don´t worry that you don ´t have answers on all the questions. You´ll never have them. Don´t worry that you don´t have a clear idea of how your life is going to look like. You don´t need to have an exact schedule for your life, it will be different anyway. You´re created from love and for love, God prepared so many beautiful surprises and adventures for you. Your fear and worries are only in your head,

they´re not real. Try to limit them the most you can, they just annoy you and take away your peace.

Don´t be scared to admit that you are weak. You´re human. An amazing creature with the fighting spirit, but vulnerable and wrong many times. Let yourselve fail, but always learn from it and when you fall, stand up. Take your time. Be patient and gentle to yourselve and to the others. Have an open heart and be thankful for everything what you have. Every moment, every thing, every person, every opportunity, every new morning, every gulp of water that you drink. Enjoy the little things. Invest your time wisely and use the talents you´ve been given.

Accept yourselve just the way you are. With all your mistakes and imperfections that you don´t like about yourselve. You are not defective, your Creator doesn´t make mistakes. He created you exactly the way He wanted. You don´t need to pass in the box of perfection that you build up in your head. Always wish to improve (and also act upon that), but be sure that you´re enough.

You´re designed amazing, you wouldn´t do it better. Try to grow, not to be perfect.

Trust in your uniqueness and don´t try to be someone who you suppose to be. Have courage to be who you really are. There are many influences that want you to put in a box. Please, don´t allow them to do that. Your goal is simply to be you. Don´t be afraid to go against the flow and to choose the harder way. Nothing worth having comes easy. Be the change you want to see in the world.

The way that you accept and respect yourselve, do accept and respect the others too. Behave towards other people without making differences: remember, it doesn´t matter if someone´s a president or a homeless person – everyone deserves to be treated with love and respect. Do not judge, you don´t have any right to do it. You never know what is happing in the heart of the other person. Don´t try to change others according to your expectations, but love them how they are.

Because that´s why you´re here: to love and to be loved. You came to this world with empty hands, and so will you leave. What really matters is love. How much did you love on this earth and how did you use your time and talents.

Live in fullness! Enjoy every second. Your main goal isn´t to choose the right university, the right job, to find a boyfriend or to travel the whole world. All of these things are very important and they´re forming your life jorney, but they are ways to get somewhere. Don´t run that fast that you don´t even realise that you aren´t present in the moment , that you´re not living here and now. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, but today is a wonderfull present – live it in the fullest potential.

Never ever give up. Life isn´t always rosy, but it´s always worth the fight. Trust your heart and keep walking. Look forward, not back. Walk with your feet on earth, but in your heart, be in heaven. Never forget: I love, therefore I live. I keep my finger crossed for you. You can do it.

Love,

Your 19-Year-Old Me

About the letter:

I wrote this letter in a little German village called Riewend while volunteering in Fazenda da Esperanca this summer. I adressed it to the younger Me originally and it was one of the impulses that inspired me to start to write the blog.I came to another big crossroad in my life at that time. Suddenly, everything started to fall apart and I realised that it´s time to stop, because I actually didn´t know where I was running. After leaving the second university, I took on too much. I wanted every piece of my life to be perfect, but I couldn´t do it and I felt so bad about it. There was also a big pressure on me in way of being completely insecure and confused about the future. That´s how I became a person that looked moving and busy all the time, but internally I started to be completely stuck and didn´t enjoy the things that I used to love anymore. Simply, I burned out.

Well, I contacted the person responsible for volunteers in Fazendas in Germany, I bought the flight ticket and in 2 weeks I was sitting in the plane to Berlin already.

(Fazenda da Esperanca – originally from Brasil, Farm of Hope - is a christian community for people that have problems with any kind of addiction and are searching for a new hope for their lifes).

There was the little village with 80 inhibitants waiting for me, the fixed daily program (what was exactly the opposite of my lifestyle), one hour of internet and mobile phone a week and people that I didn´t know at all. I thank God for this spontaneous decision because I found a new family there and also a place where my heart feels like home. It was an amazing time full of acceptance, peace, grace and learning.

After many written sheets of paper, hours of thinking and a piece of simple unflustered life , this letter got a form. But I don´t adress it only to the younger Me, I need to remind myself the things that I am writing about every day and I read it milion times after returning from Fazenda. I would like to share it with you today and hope that it will bring you a little encouragement, like it always brings to me. Maybe you ´ll also stop and think what´s really important in your life. Have a beautiful day! ;)

Escola Missionária Internacional, Fazenda da Esperança