Friends with younger people & older people

I believe that whenever you meet a person and become friends with them, whether they are younger or older than you, you can learn a lot from them. Personally, this applies very well to me: I have fortunately been able to make friends with a lot of people in my life, and many of them are either younger or older than me. Although most of them are people who I am not that close with (since, well, I have close friends who are the same as my age), including those who I’ve met once but never have the opportunity to meet a second time, I have been able to learn from them a lot of lessons, and today I would like to share with you guys some of the things that I have learned from these people. Before I start this post today, I would like to remind you all that this is only based on my personal opinion - meaning that you can agree or disagree with me in some certain parts.

First are some lessons that I’ve learned from talking with older people. The first thing is this: when it comes to life experience, they are surely going to be wiser than you. This should come as quite obvious, right? - they have been living on Earth longer than you, meaning that surely they have had more things going on in your life compared to you. While it’s for sure that no one is completely wise and gives good advice, you can always come to them if you want life advice, especially things that you haven’t been exposed to in the past, like dramas or relationships. Because of this, don’t try to act smart when being near them - be respectful, and have an opening ear, because things that they are seeing may be very beneficial for you later on. The second thing that I’ve learned is that longtermism is very important, and you need to spend your youth wisely. So for those who haven’t heard of the term “longtermism”, it is basically the idea that you need to think about things in the long term, rather than the short term, which is something that as teenagers, we tend to do. High schoolers have a high tendency to do things without thinking of the future consequences, such as breaking the laws or playing games without caring to study, but by being exposed to older people, I’ve come to the realization that none of it is good at the end of the day. I know that in our younger years we are meant to be crazy and impulsive, but when we get older, there are things we’ve done that we can’t just undo, which will make us regret things until the end of our lives. For example, by playing video games and not studying, we are only serving our short-term entertainment, but we are caring about the long term: we are not going to be successful in life (well, except in some very few cases). These older people are ones who have learned the lesson the hard way, so as younger people, why shouldn’t we listen to them and apply that into our lives?

Next up are things that I’ve learned from being friends with younger people. The biggest that I’ve learned is kind of difficult to explain, but the idea is that if you want to be able to lead younger people, you need to satisfy two things: 1) you need to be able to hear and understand what the younger kids want; and 2) you need to be confident and assert dominance over them. For the first thing, as kids, they all have different interests and all want to be heard. In order to be trusted by them, you must be able to understand their interests and treat them as adults. Yes: children don’t want to be treated as children, so act like they are mature people, because then they feel like they are respected and are going to trust you. But for the second, whereas you want to treat them as mature people and get their interests and opinions heard, if you are not confident and are not acting like you are even older than them, then they are not going to treat you like a leader. Be empathetic, but be dominant at the same time: raise your voice, and be one who can lead them. And for the second thing: never underestimate them: they have a power that a lot of adults and people the same age as you don’t have, and that is the power of imagination and creativity. In the minds of younger kids, the sky is limitless, and, argue with me or not, they may come up with solutions that are absolutely amazing! Therefore, hear their perspectives, and never treat them like they’re not as worthy as yourself.