In a small town, half the adults already predicted your future. Smile, nod, and keep writing your own.

In a small place, people will have settled how you turn out before you had any say in it, usually on the basis of your family, a rough patch, or something you did at thirteen. Those predictions get made cheaply and repeated often, and repetition is the only weight they carry. They are commentary rather than forecast, and they have no way of coming true unless you supply it.

When somebody tells you what you are going to become, be polite and keep walking. Put the effort into your next concrete step instead of the argument. Years of ordinary evidence outrun any correction you could make now.