The Manifesto I Should Have Adopted a Long Time Ago

Written by Lauren HartmanPhotography by Calder Sell 

1. Exercise. Dance at Zumba until your calves burn. Laugh at yourself in the mirror. Then go dig out the frozen strawberry cheesecake leftover from Christmas and eat it with a spoon until your stomach begs for mercy.  
2. Ignore the pretentious finance bro from your freshman year dorm floor and stick with your liberal arts degree. Learn to write and think critically and see the world from a different perspective and ignore your bank statements.
3. Go to the movies alone. Buy yourself dinner afterwards.  
4. Read trashy romance novels. Don’t hide their covers beneath those of the overrated classics you bought to make yourself feel like a real English major.
5. Take long hot showers when you feel sad. Stand under the spray until your skin burns. Wonder if this is what it feels like to burn in hell. Cry a little. Then stare at yourself and your flushed skin in the foggy bathroom mirror afterwards. Feel a little better.
6. Pet more dogs.
7. Actually read the readings for lecture. Underline the important parts. Maybe even add a star or an arrow or an exclamation point by a line that you want to remember.
8. Set your alarm clock for 7:00 AM and plan to get out of bed at 7:15. Actually get out of bed at 7:35 because you missed 7:15 and 7:20 and 7:25 and 7:30 and can’t do anything on a number that isn’t a multiple of five. Try not to cringe too noticeably when your roommate sets the volume on the TV to 17.
9. Watch The Bachelor. Feel good about yourself because at least you haven’t gotten to the point of confessing your dirty secrets on national television with the hopes of gaining enough Instagram followers to quit your job for a year or two.
10. Go out to brunch with your roommates. Ask them stupid things like what they would do first if they won the lottery and if they would rather be stranded on an island alone or with someone they hate and what their least favorite song is. Argue over whether it’s a drinking fountain or a bubbler.
11. Feel lonely and homesick on the bad days but thankful for your friends and your major and the city around you on the good ones. Try not to panic too much when you realize graduation and full-on adulthood are looming closer and closer with every homework assignment you turn in. Journal every night about what was so interesting about your Gender and Women’s Studies body shape reading and the wild messages you and your roommates sent to unassuming boys on Tinder and what three things you’re grateful for on that day.
12. Commit every detail to memory because you never believed your mom when she said time flies but yet here you are, a kid in the body of a young adult, realizing that maybe she knows more than you thought she did. Call her to tell her thanks.