Of these five pieces of advice I have here, four were from a teacher I had my senior year in high school and one is from my father. I’m going to give the pieces of advice then a couple sentences on what they have meant to me the last four years.
Commit beautiful things to memory.
This could be Scripture verses, poetry, snippets of books, quotes from people you love, or just good sayings to have at the tip of your tongue. I’ve personally done this with poetry more than anything else. (Email me if you want suggestions.) Our words are very powerful things. They shape us as much as we shape them. I think this piece of advice also means that you should always keep an eye out for beautiful things. Speaking from experience, it really is amazing how much beauty can be captured and dwelt in in the words we use. It’s probably a good idea to look to the greatest users of words so that we can get better at using them ourselves.
Notice what the people around you find funny.
Anyone who knows me in person will know that this is something I do all the time and love doing. The ability to make others laugh and laugh with them is the fastest bonding experience I have ever felt. This doesn’t necessarily come naturally to everyone, admittedly, but I believe it’s a form of love that can and should be practiced more. Similar to the piece of advice stated above, if you keep your eyes and ears (and heart) oriented towards loving the world and others, things that cause and engender laughter will develop out of them naturally, given time and patience.
Recognize that it takes a long, long time to make good friends.
One of the things that makes my best friend my best friend is that we have been going to school together for 10 years: 6 years in middle school and high school, and now 4 years of college. This piece of advice has helped me get through arguments with him, because I know that arguments and problems come with time. As it turned out, those arguments and problems that have arisen between us have actually brought us closer together. I hope he would say the same. No matter if we go separate ways after graduation, I know that I will always be greeted with a firm handshake and a pleasant hug with a laugh at times past and times to come.
Come back.
On the sheet my teacher gave us one of the last days my senior year, this was one of the last pieces of advice. My teacher grew up in Kansas, went to college in Michigan, taught for a few years in Minnesota, and has been living in Indiana for a few years now. He’s no stranger to home and all the various ways it manifests itself over the course of a young person’s life; home changes for all of us. For some of us, it’s tied to a specific location, for others, family, for others still, the smell of a city or farm brings us back to some mysterious childhood we forgot we had. In this piece of advice, I hear my teacher telling me to not only think about coming back home, but I also hear him telling me to think about how I carry home with me inside my heart and how I should try and return to that as much as I should return to all the homes I’ll make over the course of my life.
Say okay.
This piece of advice from my dad I heard over and over again from the ages of 6 to 16. I needed to hear these two words as a toddler and young boy, especially regarding dinner, baths, and bedtime as well as apologies to my siblings and my mom. I mean, who among us didn’t hear this over and over when we were young? The older I got, the less I heard my dad say it explicitly, but the more I heard him say it implicitly in his actions and in his love for me. It was first used to correct and discipline me, and then it was used to teach and instruct me. I have learned that to “say okay” once is to be obedient, but to always “say okay” is to learn how to accept things as they come with grace and fortitude, much like my dad has sought to do, even if he isn’t always certain things are okay.
Marcus Lotti
Podcast Student Leader
I am a senior English major at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan. When not leading my small but mighty OCF, hosting dinner parties, studying in the library, making playlists, running, or spending time in church, I am busy creating the worst dad jokes you can possibly imagine. As a senior, I spend plenty of time reminiscing and thinking about the many ways OCF has shaped my college experience. The only piece of advice I feel fully qualified to give is to cherish the OCF friends you have made or will make. You’ll definitely hear me say that a lot on my podcast The Fourth Antiphon, to be found on Ancient Faith Radio as well as Spotify, Apple Music, and wherever you find your podcasts!