I'm a firm believer that everything in life happens for a reason, and that even the worst things that happen in life to us happen to teach us something. This doesn't give us an excuse to do no work and simply let life carry us, but instead to place things into perspective.

Let's say you're hurt because your crush doesn't like you. Using the philosophy of everything happening for a reason, the reason your crush doesn't like is because there's someone so much better for you around the corner. It can be hard to picture these things, and you may roll your eyes and think I'm talking nonsense, but if you have to force things they may not always be the right things to do.

You do crap in a test, you learn to revise harder. You miss the bus, you learn to be on time. You get your heartbroken, you learn how to mend. Our lives are made up of the mistakes we've made and the things we've learnt from it. So if you're in a down place at the minute, or something bad has happened, just think. What can you learn from this event? What can you do to change the past? Nothing. So keep looking forward, and you'll find out someday why that thing had to happen.

So rule sixty of surviving Teenagehood: if it's not today, then it will happen tomorrow.