Pursue a career doing something you love to do even if the pay isn’t as high as other careers. You’ll spend most of your waking life working. If you hate your job, you’ll hate your life.
When you go to college, you will be inundated with offers for credit cards. Credit cards are not money. It will seem so easy to get a credit card and pay for your pizzas with it. Do not even apply for these offers.
Don’t borrow money from friends, co-workers or family. It rarely turns out well for anyone involved.
Being rejected isn’t the worst thing in the world. Ask her out anyway. She may say yes, you may find something grand. If not, you won’t even recall the rejection later in life.
Starting out professionally:
Remember every industry is a small world.
Put some high quality “classic” clothes on the credit card for your first job.
For everything else:
Pick your battles.
Do not try addictive substances. If you don’t like them, you just waste your money; if you do, welcome to Hell.
And, when all else fails, thinks of it as an adventure.
Don’t bother going to grad school unless you can get into a top 10 school in your field and get paid for it.
Don’t always take the path of least resistance.
Keep going to the gym.
Do not involve yourself romantically with a married woman, or man for that matter. Even if it ends relatively well, it’s just not worth it, and no matter what the reason it’s not proper to put yourself in such a position…
When you get a ‘funny feeling’ that something is wrong or that you should or shouldn’t do a certain thing, that’s your unconscious mind trying to tell you something important.
If you ignore it, more often than not, you will be heard later to say, “Damn! I knew something like that was going to happen!”
Oh, and nobody who should be trusted ever needs to say “Trust me”.
I have to second both of these.
Also, never marry a Mama’s Boy.
Don’t marry someone because “they’ll do” and you’re tired of dating. You will NOT learn to like your spouse’s irritating “faults,” and your spouse will NOT change.
Understand that marriage will not help you address or correct any issues or insecurities you have regarding your own anxieties, personality, or sexuality.
If you do decide to get debt, get enough to qualify for a bailout from the federal government.
That’s a good one - on a related note, don’t stop doing something you enjoy, because you’ll get out of practice and you’ll wish you had kept it up. For example, I skated like I was born with skates on my feet when I was a kid; I stopped skating for years, and now I can barely skate at all.
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence.
On a similar vein, give people the benefit of the doubt. We’re all doing the best we can.
For various reasons it’s been coming to mind lately:
Date rape is NOT a good reason to get married.
Never give up on your dreams. You may have to take crappy jobs just to put a roof over your head, but never lose sight of what you ultimately love.
That hot blond tatooed guy you met? The one who told you he was the leader of all the gangs in town? You, like gave him your ATM card?
If a guy seems condescending and manipulative before the first date, don’t go out with him, no matter how cute he is.
If a guy makes rape jokes while plying you with alcohol, leave post haste.
If you start a business with friends (or anyone), make sure you rewrite the buy-sell agreement every two years. You may not be friends down the road.