What's the Best Piece of Advice You've Ever Taken?

Nov 15, 2010 15:00

Here's a question for you: What's the best advice you've taken? Let me define "best" to mean ( Read more... )

Leave a comment

Comments 11

wishflthinkr November 16 2010, 00:00:47 UTC
Someone told me to study abroad, and it was certainly one of the best experiences of my life, and I may not have considered it had someone not directly told me to.

Reply


kenshi November 16 2010, 00:25:25 UTC
"There's no such thing as a convenient time to have children, so if you ever plan to have them you might as well do it while you're young and have the energy."

Now that my kids are teenagers and I'm still in my early 40s, I thank my lucky stars I took this advice when I did. I shudder to see so many of my early mid-life peers chasing toddlers and changing diapers.

Reply

pdbonlj November 16 2010, 04:44:17 UTC
This is so very, very, very true.

My siblings and I tut-tutted at our cousin getting knocked up at 18... but now she's 23 and had all her kids, and we're 35-40 and chasing toddlers...

Reply

kenshi November 17 2010, 01:00:28 UTC
My kids will both be off to college and out of the house when I'm 47, and thank Ghod for that.

Reply

burntbythesun02 November 18 2010, 05:53:14 UTC
Of course, I assume it's a bad idea if the only way to have kids young is to have them with someone you don't want to have kids with or spend your life with...

Reply


pdbonlj November 16 2010, 04:42:39 UTC
I've got two.

1) My dad telling me "It's worth what you can get for it." when I was eagerly tallying up my brother's MTG cards in the official price guide.

2) My dad telling me to drive such that I never made anyone else touch their brakes. And that everyone else on the road was actively trying to kill me.

Reply


foreverbeach November 16 2010, 09:53:13 UTC
"Pay Michael first!"

My grandfather (who just passed away two months ago at the great old age of 94) taught me when I was about 12 always to calculate 10% of my pre-tax income and set that aside every single paycheck. He called it paying yourself first. It was to go into a savings account and was never to be touched under any circumstances until retirement. I've followed that advice my whole life, when my paychecks were $120 per week (back in the late 80s bussing tables at night in the Summer) and even today when they are sometimes obscene amounts of money.

I would have saved money regardless, but not with that kind of rigid discipline, and I probably would have dipped into it from time to time.

Reply


perich November 16 2010, 19:40:39 UTC
(1) "Don't compare your insides to someone else's outsides."

(2) "Steer into the skid."

Reply

boffo November 16 2010, 20:06:51 UTC
(1) "Don't compare your insides to someone else's outsides."

I'm not sure what that means, other than the obvious fact that your liver doesn't look much like my face. Can you please clarify?

Reply

perich November 16 2010, 20:21:01 UTC
Don't compare your internal thought processes (which are wracked with self-doubt and confusion) with other people's external confidence. Other people go through the same doubts you do. But you can see your doubts and you can't see theirs.

Reply


Leave a comment

Up