Would Your 15-Year-Old Self Listen to You?

In honor of International Day of the Girl (which is being celebrated for the first time today), CNN asked Oprah, Melinda Gates, Arianna Huffington, and many other notable women: “Looking back, what one piece of advice would you give to your 15-year-old self?”

The group gave some solid advice — from Gates’s “Make sure you continue to trust what you know now about yourself and stay true to what you believe in,” to Huffington’s “Do not fear failure. Do not let negative experiences — and there are always plenty — get in your way” — but let’s be real: would your 15-year-old self actually listen to anything you had to say?

No.

If I could give my 15-year-old self some advice, I would say:

Maybe you should stop going to musical theater camp every summer since you can’t really sing, act, or dance?
The girls at your school who make you feel bad for not owning any designer clothes have no style anyway, and you’ll laugh at their Facebook photos mercilessly in a few years, so pleeease don’t spend all of your hard-earned money on Juicy Couture sweatsuits.
Stop cutting your crush’s name out of magazines every time you see it and pasting it in your journal, because that’s really fucking creepy.

And then 15-year-old me would be all, “UGH STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO I’M NOT A CHILD” before running off to sulk and listen to the Rent soundtrack.