It started out innocently enough.

Yesterday, one of our Collegewise counselors emailed the rest of us and asked if anybody would care to share their senior quote from high school.

People shared them, nearly all of which came with a laugh about how seriously we were taking ourselves, or how dated those quotes seemed now.

But that wasn’t all.

For the rest of the afternoon, we also shared high school photos and memories, many of them funny and self-deprecating.

Bad hairstyles. Questionable fashion choices. Involvements ranging from football and pole vaulting to math club and computer hacking.

We had one “Best Hair,” one “Most Likely to Become a Poet,” and three “Most Likely to Succeeds” (one counselor won two of those awards).

One Collegewise counselor got a varsity letter as the football team’s statistician (and admitted that she did it almost entirely because of her crush on the quarterback).

Another counselor disliked high school so much, he said so in his senior quote.

One photo appeared in a high school yearbook of a Collegewiser balancing a toilet plunger on his nose. Yep, that one was mine (it’s a long story).

What made it so enjoyable was that nearly all of us felt like we were describing people who we barely resemble, physically or otherwise, today. We were driven, hard workers—there were glimpses back then of who we might be and become one day. But we were kids. High school wasn’t just a different time. It was a different universe for all of us. Time, wisdom, and, yes, college changes people. And the further away high school gets, the more it’s just a story about a kid that connects only loosely with the adult of today.

It’s tricky for a high school student to differentiate between what matters today and what won’t make a lick of difference tomorrow. But try to remember that effort and intentions last longer than any single day, moment, photo, or failure. Forge ahead. Keep investing time and energy into the stuff that matters. And file the rest away for a good story someday.

Parents, this is important for you to keep in mind, too. Don’t expect your student to think and act like you do (you probably don’t resemble who you were in high school, either). They’re kids now, something that won’t be true for much longer. Let them play that current role safely and responsibly. Love, guide and encourage them. But otherwise, try to sit back and enjoy the upcoming transformation.

It’s true what they say. Someday, we all really do look back and laugh.