My dad the mathematician has been in a polyamorous marriage for over 25 years, a group marriage for nearly 20. When I was contemplating entering my first poly relationship, his advice was: “The optimal number of people in any relationship is 0.6. After that, it gets progressively more complicated.”
“If we weren’t meant to pick our noses, we wouldn’t have fingernails”.
Not sure it’s the best or most useful advice I’ve ever received, but it was certainly memorable.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. I don’t know that my husband’s dad ever told him that, so I get to be the bad guy when he thinks something sounds wonderful and I know it won’t be.
My father always warned me about buying a house that was lower than the average elevation. He said that THIS is the house that will be flooded. I’ve bought two houses in my lifetime, and rented several apartments, and I always followed this advice, as it seems sound to me.
He also said that if I ever went overboard, and saw the boat/ship going away from me, not to despair, it has to move a bit away to turn around and come back for me. I’ve never gone overboard. but this probably has deeper implications.
I was all excited about some deep discounts that some store was advertising. He clued me in on how some stores are famous for buying stuff, marking it up way more than is the industry usual, and then discounting it from the overpriced markup later. I was aghast, and couldn’t believe that any store could do that. However, experience both as a shopper and as a retail worker has proven him to be correct.
My dad said a lot of things that I don’t think are true, like that you can’t count on a man with his hands in his pockets or with gloves on (I assume because they’re lazy) or that nothing for decent people happens after midnight. But he also says at least two wise things:
A man’s (or woman’s, but my dad’s almost 80) favorite word in the world is his own name - know it, don’t forget it, and use it when you speak to him.
You can tell a lot about people by the way they treat animals.
My dad and I have a…complicated…relationship. He frequently tells me I’m going to hell for not being Christian, and totally, completely does not understand me at all.
But several years ago, while in a phone call discussion about the fact that I was working several jobs (one full-time and a couple of part-time), he said to me, “sugar, maybe if you stopped working so much, you’d figure out what you were running away from.”
That has stuck with me, and every so often (like recently), comes back to me to remind me to work on my inner stuff and not focus so much on the outer stuff.
My old man taught me one thing that has stood me in good stead: never lie, cheat or steal. If people know you to be honorable and a person of integrity, your life may be difficult at times but you will sleep soundly at night.
The most important things in life are education – that is, knowledge – and family. First of all knowledge is something that, once you have it, can never be taken away from you. Second, friends, jobs, and money can come and go, but family is the foundation of your entire life.
My very Southern grandfather used to say “it’s past ten o’clock- time for decent folks to go to bed, and rogues to have their sacks a’traveling.” I’d say that’s a pretty fair assessment.
My dad was a Master Mason and a past Master of his Lodge in Los Angeles.
One day when I was about 7, I was working with him in his workshop. I picked up a screwdriver and started to use it. I was off center from the screw head and ended up stripping out the Phillips head.
He calmly removed the screw, started another one, showed me how to hold the screwdriver at a perfect 90 degree angle to the screw, and then said, “Son, always be square with your work.”
Later in life I realized it also applied to your job ethics. He was right, too. A lesson from Masonry I won’t forget.
You people are lucky! My father, highly respected in the town, never tought me any sayings. He did teach me how to swear and sometimes that comes in handy.
If my kids were posting in this thread, they’d be talking about how their old man was telling them this weekend “Never talk to the police. They’re not there to help you, they’re there to enforce the laws, and sometimes make your life hell.” I don’t think my parents had any pearls of wisdom like that.
Ooh, I like this one. The best advice I remember getting from my dad was just a few months ago, when I wanted to leave a workplace that was treating me horribly but was concerned about what this would mean for their business. My dad said to me, “You have to put yourself first, because no one else will.” While it’s not applicable in every situation, in that particular situation, it was exactly what I needed to hear.
