Dear Senior Me,

If you’re reading this, you’ve made it. You are finally at your senior year at Longwood University and hopefully planning on finding a great job for yourself when you graduate. Stick to the store ideas Tyler and you had because you know that’s what you really want to do. Just remember what you told yourself the first summer after your freshman year; you’d rather be happy and not the richest man in the world than rich and unhappy everyday. Just remember that.

I hope that at this point Baylee and you are planning on getting engaged, but not married. Not until you both have good jobs. Work towards a nice job in South Hill or somewhere around home so you don’t have to worry about a mortgage or rent, and make sure that you are happy and not too stressed. Just remember what Abraham Lincoln said; “People are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” When you get stressed, breathe. Everything isn’t always as bad as you sometimes make it. Just push through it, it’ll all be okay.

The things that Cochran says aren’t what you have to do. What he says you should do isn’t what you have to be. You’ve always been you, and stick to that. You were someone long before you met Cochran or started at Longwood University, and you will always be who you are. Don’t deny it. Just keep that in mind going forward in life. Be happy and work hard, and you’ll have everything you could ever want in life.