Never volunteer to wash someone’s urine-soaked clothes.
Trust me on this.
Oh, and never stand between a woman and a thermostat.
Do something that makes you proud of yourself. 100% of who you are is what you do.
If you have something really unpleasant to do, put it off. Later put it off again. You will be surprised to learn how many things that seem necessary to do really aren’t, and eventually people will forget about who did or didn’t do what. The older you get, the better this works.
If you really like a book/movie/TV Show/etc., and you’re wondering what everyone else thinks of it, DON’T ask/look around. If you haven’t heard opinions from trickle down, chances are the general consensus is that it sucks. And when you find that out, you’ll never be able to look at it the same way again. Don’t do it.
“Look carefully through all the claims pressing upon you in your complicated life,
and decide once and for all what it is that is the one really important and
overmastering duty in it, and should be the one dominating aim.
Then remember that if you succeed in that, the others, so multifarious,
are really no more than the fringe of the garment, and that you need not spend
so much anxiety over them, provided that the one most important is faithfully attended to.”
Anna C. Brackett (1836-1911)
If you get an opportunity to pee, do it, pee.
Never trust anyone. Humanity, as a whole, bites. People will knock you over, kick you when you’re down, and no one walking by will help you up. Everyone else is looking out for themselves, it’s a dog-eat-dog world, and nobody owes you a damn thing. You and you alone are responsible for yourself. Get screwed over and it’s still your fault and your problem to fix.
Live your life with that in mind, and the worst that’ll happen is the world will mostly live up to your expectations, with rare but very pleasant surprises. Live your life thinking the world is great and people want to help you, and you’ll have constant, unpleasant surprises.
The best way to live the life you want is to live it.
I came up with this one from traveling. I’ve heard all kinds of people lament over how they would like to travel, but just can’t because of work/money/kids/school/whatever. This is bullshit. Almost all of us could travel if we really wanted to. We just want other things more. Or we are too scared. Whatever. The point is, this is a choice you made, and if you want something different you gotta start making different choices, not wait for the magic “right time.”
Amazingly, once you start making choices to do the things you want to do, you suddenly start doing the things you want to do. It’s that simple.
So stop dreaming. Stop planning. Stop waiting for the right time. There is no right time, there is only right now. And most of all, stop assigning blame. And go live the life you want to live. Today.
Says the unmarried guy. 
I learned this as a delivery driver - never go back for something later. If you’re driving by it now, deal with it now. If you find what you’re looking for now, buy it now. You might not come back the same way, and that item might not be in stock or on sale later.
If you have to shoot, shoot to kill. Don’t miss. Keeping shooting until the target is neutralized or you get a click instead of a bang.
Don’t pay too much attention to “life advice” platitudes. These things are only useful insofar as you’re able to draw ideas from them and apply those ideas to your current situation. If you’re capable of that level of abstract reasoning, you don’t need the damn platitudes in the first place; just figure it out for yourself.
(Seriously, I’m not trying to threadshit. If I could give my childhood self just one piece of advice, this would probably be it; it would have saved me many formative years of trying to interpret what I thought was the wisdom of my elders, but which inevitably turned out to be overly-situationally-specific ways of saying “don’t be a dumbass.”)
So…how do you make money appear so you can travel, just by deciding you want it? How do you get the time off of work, just by wanting it? (I know you’re in the Peace Corps but not everyone can do that…I’m personally not up to their physical fitness standards, even though I’m relatively young.)
This I like.
Some coworkers used to call me ‘Eeyore’.* They say I am quite the pessimist. I prefer to think of it this way:
In any situation, think of the worst-case scenario that could occur. (project failure, getting fired, being dumped, whatever).
Come to accept this outcome (and truly accept the possibility; don’t give yourself some fantasy ‘but only if…’ alternative to the outcome). Conditionals are not allowed.
Whatever resolution the situation comes to, if it is not your worst-case scenario, then this is cake. A bonus. Points to say ‘attaboy’ and have a drink to celebrate. If your worst-case does happen, at least you were ready for it. (That’s the catch to step 2 - you have to believe it. Take this feeling down to your bones and be okay with it. Should I have mentioned that previously?)
*=Actually, this is one of the few nicknames I’ve actually liked. Sue me.
Not to be cliche, but I’ve heard this one before:
Name it, claim it, dump it.
1/ Name it: SPECIFICALLY define the cause of your unhappiness (bad job, crappy relationship, poor finances, whatever).
2/ Claim it: SPECIFICALLY identify YOUR cause / input / reason to this situation. I took a job I was overqualified for and now I’m mad about…, OR: I put my dick in the crazy and then moved in with her even though I knew she …, OR: I like to gamble on sports and I know I spend too much but it’s okay because… Whatever.
3/ Dump it. Once you have identified the cause of the problem, do whatever you can to eliminate it. Now. At once. Put the remote down and DO IT. (Caveat: Build safety nets: Don’t move out of the crazy’s house if you have no place to go, don’t quit the job without another one secured or massive savings, don’t bet the farm on that one last game…)
Oh, yeah. Oakminster: Fuckin’ a right.
In this vein, I saw this quote on a fortune cookie once, and it has been my mantra ever since:
Risk may cause failure, but success cannot come without it.
(Beautiful, and it motivates me when I think I just shouldn’t bother to try. And I read it in a damn fortune cookie… ha)
Don’t stick your dick into the crazy.
Well, you might get a second job. Or sell your car and start taking the bus to work. Or move to a crappy apartment. Or whatever. You may need to quit your job. Or use all your vacation time (my mom recently saved up 3 months of vacation over the course of years and spent it all volunteering at an orphanage in Guatemala.) Or you may need to find a job in a field that allows you to travel. Or get a job overseas- any native English speaker with a BA can get a job overseas with some work. Or find a sugar daddy. Whatever.
The point is, you *can *do it.
If you don’t, it’s because other things were more important to you. In that case, cherish those things. But own what you choose in your life, don’t stand there whistfully thinking of what life cheated you out of when in reality it’s probably right in front of you. You can change your life tomorrow. Whether you do or don’t, realize that is your choice and make the most of it.
I find the opposite also to be true. There are all sorts of things that you’re never going to want to do and they aren’t going to go away so you might as well buck up, stop whining and get them over with. Sitting around crying ‘woe is me’ isn’t going to get you anywhere. The perfect job or lover isn’t going to find you in your living room, you don’t get to sit on your ass and not work until perfection comes along and if you want an opportunity you have to do everything you can to make it happen. In the end, the difference between those that lived their dreams and those that just dreamed them is that one of them got up and did it. Somewhere back there someone said something about the way to start being the kind of person you want to be is to just start doing the things that kind of person would be doing. Before you know it, you are that person.
Also, don’t take yourself so seriously that you can’t laugh at yourself and your mistakes or admit that you were wrong. That ability gets you through all sorts of embarrassing moments.
Empathy and action for the needy/exploited is only half the lesson of compassion. The other half is about compassion for self. Especially as it relates to the all important internal dialogue.
So often, it seems to me, when we most need/seek compassion the hardest to reach is compassion for ourselves.
I find the opposite is true. Trust people. Yes, they will occasionally not live up to your trust, but in the meantime you can be happy. Getting knocked over and kicked when you’re down is no big deal. Throwing yourself down so no one else gets the chance is a horrible way to spend a life.
One I use a lot… “YOU ARE NOT YOUR JOB”
I ask people “who are you?” and 99% of the time I will be answered with a job title. Your job is the means to an end to live your life, not your life. Remember that and things get a lot easier…
also:
- Good food, good friends, good times… Only the first of these should cost any money
- The toes you tread on today, may be under the ass you have to kiss tommorrow
- Never f__k with the person who is handling something you are about to put in your mouth