Opinion: Next-gen wisdom just a tweet away

I’ve taken up tweeting with my two high school age granddaughters. It’s a good way to keep in touch with their busy lives, learn to talk their talk and find out how they are feeling. It’s a technological activity I never thought I would be interested in or even be able to master in order to participate.

Now, I am doing both and smiling at this new thing about myself. I hope that an even newer technology doesn’t come along too soon – I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to catch up. But this has probably already happened.

The other day, my oldest granddaughter – a deep thinker all her life and a budding journalist – retweeted a list of the things she wished she had realized earlier in high school. There is so much wisdom in the message that I find myself again pondering it, and I want to pass it along for your consideration.

As you read these, originally posted by @HighSkoolProbs, experiment with changing a few of the words to make them applicable to your profession, career and marital status.

I’ve changed the sentence structure, capitalization and punctuation to protect the innocent. This is a long song for a tweet, but here is what the little bird sang:

1. Don’t worry so much about what other people are spending their time doing.

2. Social media is a lie. It’s all fake. It might seem like your friends are having the time of their lives, but it’s so easy to pretend to be happy online when, in reality, you are downright miserable. Just because someone’s Instagram is prettier than yours, it doesn’t mean their life is any happier or better.

3. You will completely lose touch with a lot of your friends who you promised you would never stop talking to. And that’s OK.

4. If you want to sit at home and watch Netflix while eating ice cream and hanging out with your mom on a Friday night, then do it. Don’t feel obligated to go out with friends, if you know you would be happier just sitting at home.

5. Grades are important and colleges are going to care. It might seem like a lot of work, but it will pay off. And those people who get good grades do study (no matter how many times they say, “I only studied for like an hour the night before and got an A!”).

6. Choose your friends wisely. If someone makes you feel bad, don’t hang out with them. Just straight up tell them you don’t want to spend time with them anymore. Life is too short to be friends with people you hate.

7. I know you are busy, but don’t forget to tell your mom, dad, brother, sister, grandma and grandpa that you love them. They love you, too.

8. Be a nice person. Hold the door open for someone. Smile at that cute guy in your class. Talk to that random kid you sit next to. You never know what might walk into your life next or whose day you’ll make.

When I checked this tweet again recently, I learned there have been 1,100 retweets and 1,500 had declared it as a favorite. What this doesn’t count are the more than 30,000 readers of this week’s Springfield Business Journal. I hope it’s gone around the world by now, because as another little birdie tweeted, this “literally hit the nail on the head.”

My tweet?

“A lot of older peeps still don’t know these things!” As a much older bird, I admit waning energy slowly allows me to let go of so many of the artificial obligations that can drain the life right out of us. But I sure wish I had realized these truths while still in high school. The world might be a more peaceful place if every kid did.

So talk to that random customer, person next to you in line, lady at your table at an event new man in the office, you never know what might walk into your life next.

Or whose day you’ll make.

Dianne Elizabeth Osis is founder, president and chairwoman of Springfield Business Journal and SBJ Publishing Inc. She may be reached at delizabeth@sbj.net.