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Everyone else out there is doing the best they possibly can, given their situation and skills. I must remember that just because something is obvious to me that it isn’t obvious to everyone. And if they are out to get me, letting them bother me is only playing into their hand.
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Try to keep the big picture in mind. Don’t sweat the small stuff. When something upsets me, I think to myself “will this matter to me 5 years from now? Will I even remember?” If the answer is no, I let it go.
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No one else is responsible for your happiness. No one takes advantage of you without your permission. If you are unhappy, either remove yourself from the situation or accept that you have made the choice to be there. Attitude is everything.
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Things that are good wouldn’t seem as good if we didn’t have the bad for comparison. To paint a beautiful picture, you need dark colors to contrast the bright ones. When in hard times, remember “this too shall pass.”
I’m sure I’ve contributed this nugget before, but it bears repeating. In this life, you will learn lessons by making mistakes, and you will have to pay for each mistake. If you can pay for your mistakes with money, count yourself lucky you got off so cheap, no matter how much you had to pay.
1 Pick your battles wisely. Some things aren’t worth a hissy fit and a rise in blood pressure. Learn when to let things go.
2 Being polite isn’t being the same thing as a doormat. And being rude isn’t the same as being assertive.
3 Being offensive doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re a great genius or rebel or artist who’s just misunderstood by society. It could mean you’re just a jerk.
4 Don’t worry about whether the music you are listening to is cool or not. No matter what you do, someone will say it isn’t cool. Life is too short to worry about coolness and hipness and the ninnies who try to specify what fits those categories. Listen to the music you like, as long as you aren’t playing it outside my house at 3 am.
When you are trying to increase the skills you have, there are two ways to go about it. You can work on what you’re weakest at, or work on what you’re strongest at. Always go with your strengths, not your weaknesses.
When a waitress tells you you can’t have a frozen Marguarita because “all of our drinks are made fresh”, LEAVE IMMEDIATELY.
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Even if someone’s ex girlfriend says, “I totally wouldn’t mind if you dated him” it still doesn’t mean nothing bad will happen if you date him while all three of you are living together as roommates.
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Some people are just crazy or assholes, and the sooner you learn that and leave them by the wayside, the better off you’ll be.
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Its possible to exist in a workable relationship with an asshole (not a sexual relationship, mind) as long as you know their “rules” and what makes them tick. This is only usually for co-worker type relationships where you cant easily just walk away and let them hang. If you must deal with them, then learning how they tick is good because then you can use them to benefit you whenever possible, and keep them from harming you. Allow them to benefit from you only when it doesn’t harm you or others.
3b) Just because someone is an asshole doesn’t mean they can’t ever be of use to you. Don’t burn bridges. But dont hang around with them more than you absolutely must. Assholism rubs off. (and its killer to get out of fabric.)
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Always strive to make a good impression with everyone you meet. You never know who might put in a good word for you down the road.
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Don’t be fake, don’t say you know things that you don’t, don’t say you’ll do something that you don’t honestly intend to do, and don’t portray yourself as doing or being something you’re not. For example if you want to give people the impression that you’re a hard worker and you’re motivated, work hard and be motivated.
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Always be prepared to back up what you claim.
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Don’t pick fights/projects/tasks/goals you don’t intend to finish
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With #7 in mind, try to always have an escape plan, because you never know what might happen. No plan is infallible.
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Always treat every friend as though they could become an enemy. If you’ve got dirt (and who doesn’t) and skeletons in your closet (likewise) don’t air it unless you don’t mind everyone else in the world knowing about it. They may be your best friend today, but no one is infallible. Chances are any knowledge you share about yourself or others WILL get out to a wider group than you intended.
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Almost everyone has an agenda. This will influence their advice to you accordingly. Strive to figure out their angle so that you can adjust their advice to fit.
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Don’t talk about your serious relationship problems with your friends under the impression that you’ll get great advice. First of all no one knows your lover as well as you do. Also remember #10). Talk to your friends and listen to advice, but don’t act on it without thinking it through a LOT yourself. (More than one day!) All serious decisions in your life should come from within you. You’ll have to live with the consequences, so only you should be the one to truly decide. That being said if ALL your friends hate your lover, that’s a red flag.
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It is often better to make the wrong decision than to waste time being indecisive, especially if it’s over something small, like what to have for lunch.
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If it smells bad, chances are it is bad. Dont eat it, even if you’re really hungry and poor. Being sick costs more than whatever it is you’re about to put in your mouth.
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Don’t waste your life thinking you’ll have a second chance in the next one. Even if you believe in life after death/reincarnation/whatever, if you’re always chickening out of opportunities or avoiding things that are a little scary, you’ll be letting your life pass you by. Take a chance on asking out that super cute girl/guy, and don’t put off that trip to Thailand you always wanted to take. Live life like you only have one chance.
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Find a couple things you’re good at and enjoy, and really get good at them. Cultivate your skills. Always grow and learn.
- If you have some sort of chronic ailment that you can “just live with” don’t “just live with” it. Go to a doctor, or the health center on your campus, or the ER, or the Urgent Health Care facility, or anyplace that can help. Living with pain for years is not a good idea, even if you are poor.
1a) If you have chronic ingrown toenails that get infected and ugly pretty much constantly, just have the fuckers removed and the matrix killed. No really, it sounds like overkill, but if you’re in that situation, it’ll be the best thing that ever happened to you.
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Go to college. Even if you think you can’t afford it, go to college. The government wants to help, private organizations want to help, the Universities themselves want to help. Jr Colleges are cheap and a great choice if you can’t afford the bigger schools.
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Read at least one good booka month. It’ll help with your writing skills, your vocabulary, keep you entertained, and exercise your brain. Everybody is always on about exercising your body and keeping your body fit. You always have time to read a page or two of a real good book.
Young does not necessarily mean stupid, and old does not necessarily mean wise.
Trust your gut instincts, intuition, hunches, whatever you choose to call them. This is a psychic muscle which does increase with use.
All dogs have teeth. All cats have claws. All roses have thorns. Therefore, you should respect the strengths you do not see.
Know when to walk away.
Potential has its time and place. Mates with “potential” have the potential to really disappoint you.
Don’t dwell on it. Learn the lesson, and move on.
Do not violate the trust that has been placed in you.
Now they tell me!
Save for retirement, but don’t forget to live at the same time. It’s great if you have a million dollars when you retire, but not if you were miserable for the 40 years it took to reach it.
Quit looking forward so much. Life is quick enough as it is, so spending all your time looking toward something means you’re not enjoying the time now. Don’t spend all your time wishing it was the weekend, wishing Christmas would arrive, wishing you were retired.
Don’t complain that your life’s dreams aren’t coming true if you’re not doing anything to make them come true. I don’t know how many people I’ve heard say, “I’ve always wanted to write a book,” upon finding out I’m a writer. Well guess what? So did I. I’ve written 4 of them now and I’m working on a 5th. If you’re not really interested in it, admit it to yourself and get on with it. If you want it bad enough, then you’ll want it bad enough to make it happen.
Corollary to the above: if it’s worth doing, it’s probably not easy. Whether it’s writing, playing the drums, or parkour, don’t be surprised if it takes some practice to get good at it.
Never forget why your company hired you: to make them money. The sooner you realize they don’t really care about you, the sooner you’ll learn to quit putting them at the forefront of your life. Work to live, don’t live to work.
Marry your best friend.
Respect your SO. Don’t tell your friends private stuff about him*, talk bad about him in front of other people, or talk down to him ever. Why are you with him if you don’t like him? *male pronoun used for simplicity.
Celebrities are just like everyone else. They aren’t better, smarter or nicer just because they’re talented and/or good-looking. Celebrity-hood is fleeting. It only lasts as long as people keep making a big deal about the person.
Never put anything in a place where you’ll be sure to find it later. You’ll likely never see it again. Or if you do see it again, it will be too late.
If you want to make sure you can find a thing, hide it. You’ll trip over it several times a day until you put it where you’ll be sure to find it later.
If you want loyalty from others, just give them credit for their accomplishments–especially to the boss. Do it at a separate time from, (or better, instead of) claiming credit for yourself.
No one sees themselves as “the bad guy.” Understand motives; if necessary, ask.
Writing persuasively is easy to learn, and will help your career more than almost any other skill. You have the simple advantage that most people can’t be bothered.
And, registering opposition to an earlier post: Buy new cars, not used ones, especially not very used ones. Maintenance costs. There are cheap new cars; some with ten year warranties. Taken care of, that car will get you through a significant fraction of your life (assuming you don’t live in one of the car-dissolving–winter states, and even there they’re much better than they used to be).
The more a person regards himself als victim, the more likely he is to be a
perpetrator. People talking about how much life owes them, and how they won’t stand anyone’s shit for one more lousy second, usually are either working themselves up to a state of agression, or they’re excusing past acts of unpleasantness to themselves. This is the best give-away for assholiness there is. Avoid these people.
The more closets you have, the more clutter you aquire and the harder it
is to find anything. Having less storagespace, forces you to ask yourself: “Do I need this? Will I use it (again)?”
Focus more on loving people, then on being loved. If you love others, dealing with them will be its own reward, and they are quite likely to love you back. And even if they don’t, it’s not a big deal.
If you focus solely on being loved, you will also not see a large part of the other person, because you’re too busy thinking about yourself. In that way, you’re far more likely to have bad elationships and bad friendships. Chances are you will feel unappreciated get bitter, and that will chase people away.
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Don’t judge people by their academic accomplishments. Everyone has something they’re good at; just because they’re not good at the same stuff you are doesn’t mean you don’t have a lot to learn from them. Quite the contrary, actually.
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About that clutter in your house: yes, those things do have some value, and maybe you might need them some day, and, in the (unlikely) event that you do need them, you would have to spend money to replace them. But in most cases, there is much greater value in getting them out of your house and having room to neatly organize the things you do need and will use. There is tremendous psychological value in having clean, empty spaces in your house.
Other people are as smart as you are, and they are likely to know more about something than you do.
Listen more than you talk. You might just learn something.
When you start a project, don’t skip the boring preparatory work. It will make things easier and faster later.
Good tools are worth the cost.
Actually, I’ve learned all of this rather early in life, but it’s still solid advice that could have easily taken a long time for me to learn.
A Wise man learns from his mistakes. A wiser man learns from the mistakes of others.
Pick your battles. Indeed. If you complain, and whine, and argue about everything, people will stop listening to you regardless of your authority or the consequences of them doing so.
Petty insults, outbursts, and meaness will get you no where and no one will be better off for it.
Don’t let schools be your window into the world of anything. Don’t assume there aren’t any interesting books out there just because the ones you were forced to read in school were boring, dry, and trivial. If you were introduced to music through school, chances are you’d think that were boring too. Books are mind expanding. The sooner you start reading, the better.
You can live happily, and very cheap if you can learn to enjoy classical music, radio talk shows, and a good book. These are some of the greatest and well constructed forms of entertainment ever created, learn to love them.
With having said that, thrift shops are your friend.
Don’t be so paranoid and scared that you miss out on life. Going out and having a good time isn’t as dangerous as people make it out to be.
Learn about the poisenous snakes in your area. There probably aren’t many different kinds, and after you learn this, you can rest assured anything else you see is harmless.
In most cases, you’re better off finding something to be funny rather than offensive.
This one I do wish I had learned sooner: Sitcoms are not worth your time. They are the lowest form of entertainment ever to grace your television set and watching them is as good as wasting your time. There are very, very, very few exceptions to this. If you want to be entertained, spend a few minutes reading reviews, checking message boards, and keeping your ear to the ground regarding whats good, and whats “the same old crap”. Make sure what you’re reading, watching, and hearing is the best of the best, or at least is something right up your alley. Spend the extra half an hour to an hour researching how to spend your time with entertainment. In the end, you’ll be a richer person for doing so.
Be incredibly slutty because you never know when you’ll lose the chance and go from the oasis to the desert, banished forever.
A-men! And one easy way to help you figure out what you value most, is takingthis test.
Almost nothing is engraved in stone - there are very few decisions you can make that can’t be undone, although there may be a cost.
And in corollary, when you’re trying to make a decision that’s really bothering you, ask yourself what’s the worst that could realistically happen? For that matter, when you’re killing yourself to do something, you may want to ask yourself what the consequences would really be of not doing it, or doing something easier and just a little less perfect. Often times “good enough” really is good enough.