You will never be as free as you are between the ages of 18 and 25. Pick up and move, travel, anything you can save up the money to do. So do it.
Remember everyone is a self-contained ball of insecurity. Most of us just “present well”.
Beware of falling into a rut. Get up, go to work come home and watch TV; is not a life. It’s a waste. You’ll look up and find months or years of your life have passed with nothing to distinguish one day from the next.
Never get so busy with the “necessities” of life that you abandon what you really love. Whether it’s a career, a hobby, a person, a place, a dream . . . never have the attitude that “someday” you’ll get around to what really matters to you. Do it now, and keep doing it.
Ultimately, you cannot control what anyone else thinks, says, or does. If you find yourself saying, “How can I get him to quit doing X?” or “If only she would just be more Y,” stop. Take this person’s behavior as a given, and proceed accordingly. They may indeed change at some point, but you have to deal with the person they are, not the person they may become.
Relatedly, no one else can control what you think, say, or do. This means that while you have the ultimate right to do whatever you want, you also have ultimate responsibility for the consequences of your actions.
You can’t make it through life without hurting a lot of people, yourself included. You should make every effort to minimize that hurt, but sometimes, you’re just going to have to choose the thing that causes the least pain.
Not only is there no one “right” decision for everyone, most of the time, there is no “right” decision, “best” decision, or even “least bad” decision for you. Sometimes, the rock and the hard place are your only options. Fortunately, there are other times when puppies and kitties are your only options.
It cannot be said enough: Take care of that body! Even before you see any wrinkles, even before your first ache or creak, you will, among other things:
If you’re not happy with something in your life, make real efforts to change it, don’t just complain about it and wish things could be different.
Things CAN be different. If you’re not happy with a relationship, a job, where you live, your fitness level, etc., stop and think about your options and then DO something. You don’t have to wait until you retire to move to the beach. You don’t have to stay at a job that drives you crazy. You don’t have to spend time with people who don’t make your life better. Don’t be afraid to make financial or other sacrifices to change your life.
Time will pass. Just think - one year from today you could be exactly where you are right now, or you could be in a different place, at a different job, in a different body, in a different mindset. You very well could be a happier person even if it’s only because you’ve been taking action to change things.
Also, good health is priceless. Recovering your health can be expensive. Exercise (which can be completely FREE) and a healthy diet will get you the most bang for your buck and usually will reduce the amount of money you have to spend on maintaining your health.
Don’t listen to a damned thing anyone says if they’re between 15 and 25 years older than you.
Listen to everything anyone says if they’re 50 or more years older than you.
Don’t abandon what you want most in favor of what you want right now.
It sucks to have both parents gone. Dad’s been gone 12 years, Mom only 3 this month. We often say “wouldn’t Dad have…” or “this is something Mom would love.” I don’t know that I’ll ever get past doing that. It would be easy to remember only good, but I make sure I don’t put either of them up on a pedestal. They both had their faults, but we loved them anyway.
One of the most surprising things for me was when I was in my 20’s and realized that my mom wasn’t perfect, that she contributed to the stupid shit in her marriage just as much as dad did, and that it was ok. We became great friends.
If you have children, enjoy them while you can. Spend as much time with them as possible. Teach them - your family history, the three R’s, about their bodies: truly help them grow into adulthood with grace, knowledge and dignity. For it’s really true that time passes quickly, and opportunities lost are seldom regained. Love your kids well. No matter if times are good or bad, they will remember how much you loved them.
My Dad’s still around (82, and going strong), but my Mom passed in 2004.
The world’s a little more lonely, a little grayer, without her.
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
Beware of fools and their advice.
Wisdom is all around you; most have at least a little something to offer, if you listen. If nothing else, profit from their bad examples.
Learn how to sort wheat from chaff.
You will get dusty, you will get dirty, you will hate your life for subjectively long periods of time.
Paying dues is necessary when you know what your goals are, so stick with it.
If someone tells you that the lower rungs of a pyramid scam = paying dues, don’t get mad, just turn around and walk away, no matter how invested you were for the initial hook and reel.
Don’t waste your time with embarrassment. You know how you fret over little details of your appearance, your clothes, your house, your family, and you’re just mortified by it all? Everyone else has the same stuff going on, and they’re too wrapped up in their own little world of embarrassment to even notice yours. So don’t sweat it.
I’d imagine that YMMV wildly on this one. Depends a lot on you, your parents, and your general relationship. I loved my Mom because she was my Mom. OTOH, she wasn’t a good mother. Ever. She was one of those people who really should never have had kids, but because she was Catholic, she had five of us. I had very mixed feelings when she died, almost 21 years ago.
My father was a pretty good father, except for the fact that for my formative years, he was too drunk to protect us from my mother. As a human being, I liked him. I absolutely adored him for the fact that he taught me to love reading. As a father? Well, I don’t know. Again, very mixed feelings. When he died, about six years ago, again, mixed feelings. I loved him, and on many levels I liked him. But I can’t say I ever really “bonded” with him (except over the discussion of books). I respected him. I was sad when he died. I was glad he was out of the misery that were the last few months of his cancer-riddled life. I’m glad I got to talk to him on the phone one last time (a couple of days before he died). I’m glad I was with all my sisters when the news came.
I’m particularly glad that I was an adult when my parents died. No matter what kind of parents they are, I can imagine that it happening when you’re still a kid must suck on all kinds of levels.
PS: when we got the news that Dad had died, one of my sisters said “Now I guess I’m an orphan”. 
Well, this is a complex issue for me (duh) that could have its own OP and thread. But I won’t hijack this one.
Let’s just sum up my position: YMMV.
There is more to marriage than having a nice wedding.
People don’t change because you want them to or because you try to change them. Someone only changes when THEY decide to change.
If it’s too good to be true, then it probably is! Trust your instincts.
I love this line from the movie The Straight Story. Someone asks the main character, who is in his '80’s, “What’s the worst part about growing old?”. He responds:
“Rememberin’ when you were young…”
Learn to socialize. If you as a young person can sit in a room full of stuffy adults without burying your head in some electronic device, you are light years ahead of your peers.
By all means, live freely and love freely and all that other ME generation crap, but it is NEVER too early to put someone’s feelings or needs before your own. Responsibility isn’t impressive until it involves someone other than yourself.
It’s okay to be bored and/or boring sometimes. The need to be apart of the action at all times can lead to a lot of unnecessary drama.
I’ll echo the advice about saving because it is so important. It is why I’m not scared about retiring. And when you save, save. You don’t really need that new pair of shoes/ new TV. The crap you buy will be gone, but the money stays.
And in the same vein, never run up a credit card balance unless it is a one time true emergency. If it goes up for two months in a row, stop everything and figure out what you don’t need to spend.
In a non-financial vein:
Whatever crap job you get assigned, do well so long as someone is watching. And someone is always watching. Crap job to you may be vital to someone else, and when it comes time to assign the good jobs, you’ll get it.
Never be afraid to try something new. In this world whatever you know now will be obsolete in 10 years. It may feel good to be the world’s leading authority on buggy whips - until the world doesn’t need a leading authority anymore. The next piece of advice is to keep learning, which others have already covered.
I could echo most of what others have said but the only thing I can truly add is this. If your grandparents or parents grew up speaking a different language than you do now, try to learn it before they die. They have great knowledge from their experiences and when they get old they may, like mine, default to their first language. I knew enough spanish to understand my paternal grandparents stories before they died. I truly enjoyed sitting and listening to them tell me of their experiences. Seeing my grandfather smile with a glint in his eye as he spoke of his childhood and life is one of my truly enduring memories. Knowing very few others knew of his life for a lack of speaking spanish is also one of my saddest.
Now that I think of it I do want to say something else.
Only you can make you happy. No matter how hard you think life is always remember it could be worse and in many cases it will become worse. Once you realize that truth you can begin to understand that it is ok to take a few minutes and enjoy yourself (not like that perv ;)) everyday. Do something, anything, that you enjoy for at least a few minutes everyday.
I’m only 27, so perhaps I shouldn’t be posting, but I will anyway.
Material things don’t matter. No piece of clothing, car, song or album, movie or TV show, book, or anything else of that sort is worth devoting your life or a significant portion thereof to.
Experiences are vastly more important than material things… forget the flashy car and go wander around the world.