7 Life Lessons We Can Take From The Hills

7 life lessons we can take from The Hills

Life lessons we can take from The Hills

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the debut of the MTV reality show The Hills. For some it just served as background noise, for others it was a guiding force for our 20s. After all the women of The Hills were also navigating their careers, romance, friendship and the question of how many headbands is too many except unlike us they had cameras on them, writers it turned out and outrageous salaries for 20-somethings. But the fact that we are still talking about the show today means it definitely resonated.

Life lessons we can take from The Hills

We still all remember that fight in the night club (who gives someone a letter in a club when it isn’t the early 1900s?) or that mascara running down Lauren Conrad’s face when she got in yet another fight with a friend or the enigma that was Justin Bobby. In addition to learning how to give major shade with our eyes while drinking iced coffee and looking perfectly beautiful while mascara drips down our face, we learned a lot from this masterpiece of a show. My gosh there were entire scenes that just consisted of people staring at eachother and THEY WERE SO DEEP.

Here are 7 lessons we should all keep in mind.

1. Do put your career first:

Lauren started her career off with an awesome internship at Teen Vogue but then she tarnished a bit when she skipped out on going to Paris to spend the summer with her boyfriend whom she then broke up with (I mean we’d get it for Stephen Colette, but Jason?) Even Anna Wintour knew her as the girl that didn’t go to Paris.

2. Do cast away friends that bring you nothing but drama:

When you are young you have more room from drama but as you get older, honestly you just would rather be at spin class. LC eventually learned that some friends (named Heidi) weren’t worth the trouble. You could also be like Whitney and just stay out of the drama completely.

3. Same goes for boys…

They may seem perfect but sometimes it is just not your dude, especially if homeboy wears combat boots to the beach.

4. Find a style you love and stick with it:

OK, the fashion was different back then but LC has always had a style she loves so here are a few mini-lessons.

1. You can never have too many headbands: Before there was Blair Waldorf there was Lauren Conrad. Literally, for the first seasons we wondered if her head would actually fall off if she didn’t wear a headband.

2. Keep a few going out tops. Even when you are 40, you need a few (but definitely get rid of the bubble dresses.)

3. Pick one. You can do the statement earrings or the necklace and the big-eyed sunglasses but you can’t do all three.

5. When you trip, make it beautiful:

A rare lesson from Whitney but the girl really does know how to fall. When she was thrown in last minute to a live TODAY Show shoot and had to wear a Guy Laroche gown, while walking down stairs and smiling (that’s ALOT) she tripped but got right back up and smiled through it. She definitely cried after, as anyone would, but she was so composed and graceful that it was actually a shining moment.

6. Sometime you gotta be the villain

Especially if you are Kristin Cavallari and you are cool with it and they are paying you (and then do turn into a wholesome mom of a pro football player.) You would also be fine with it, trust me.

7. Cry it out

Sometimes you just gotta cry because adulting is really hard. If anyone showed us that, it is Lauren Conrad. Yes she was making millions as a 20-something and could literally pull off any hairstyle, but she was still dealing with crazy fame-hungry friends, weird guys, annoying jobs and…nope that’s it.

Meredith Lepore

Meredith is the former editor in chief of the women's career site, The Grindstone. Her work has appeared in Marie Claire @ Work, The Jane Dough, DailyWorth, SheKnows.com, Business Insider and Learnvest. She earned her Masters in Magazine, Newspaper and Online journalism from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. Meredith resides in New York full time and enjoys reading, jogging, SoulCycle and playing with her small dog, Otis.