Everybody’s Free Motivational Videos

This week’s motivational videos, has been left to Tuesday so that I can contribute it and support You Tube Tuesday run by Josh over at Its Tiger Time.

I am a father of a teenage daughter. I would love it if she decided to start blogging. Why, you ask?

I believe blogging gives teenagers a brilliant platform to show creative expression through poetry, lyrics, song, video and of course the written word. I believe blogging provides a very positive developmental activity better than most other things available to our youth today.

To me it’s a simple formula:

Blogging + Teens = A Great Thing

Blogging also offers a way to release emotional stress and just helps you to feel better. With so much time spent online anyway, playing games, or in things like Facebook, why not turn attention to blogging which enables free expression and easy communication with others.

So Josh leads the way by showing other teenagers that it’s cool to blog. Josh you ‘ROCK’ mate. And I hope because of guys like you we get lots of great blogs from other enthusiastic bloggers. I await the day when I get that call, ‘Dad, set me up a blog’. Teen Blogging is a powerful combination.

So back to today’s video. Wear Sunscreen was written as an imagined graduation speech by Chicago Tribune Columnist, Mary Schmich. It is an inspirational piece that has been republished all over the world.

In 1991 Baz Luhrman, better known as the director of such films as Romeo & Juliet, Moulin Rouge etc., released the song “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” in which this column is read word for word.

“Even before we released our recorded version some 18 months ago, it was clear that Mary’s simple observations had a very strong effect on all who read them,” Luhrmann said.

This clever composition which started as a column in the Chicago Tribune soon became an international sensation, prompting a Billboard hit song by Baz Luhrmann, a YouTube video that has been seen by millions of viewers, and a book that has sold more than 230,000 copies. It is full of advice that is honest, funny, and inspiring!

So for Josh and all you that join in on You Tube Tuesday just ENJOY!

Here are the words.

Everybody’s Free  (to wear sunscreen)

By Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’97… wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be IT.

The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

You are NOT as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself, either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you’re 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

Josh organises You Tube Tuesday at Its Tiger Time every week.

It is a day set aside for sharing your favourite video.  Feel free to join in and have fun seeing how creative you can be!   If you participate, please remember to leave your link in the Linky Tool that is available on his site.

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