Stretch. Moisturise. Start saving money.
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If you marry, marry someone because they are your best friend, you share a common philosophy on life, have common values, and want common goals in your future. Don't marry someone primarily because you think they're good looking.
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If you’re not in shape, get in shape. If you are and work hard for it, keep it up. If you are in shape but don’t work at it, be prepared to, aging metabolism is not kind.
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-Good friends are hard to find. I can count on just a handful of people to really be there for me when times get rough. There will be plenty of people willing to hang out or give you a lift, but few who will actually care about you and your problems. Most people simply don't give a shit. This is especially true with money, and I've seen it end relationships. Many people are very selfish.
-Know who someone is and accept them for that. People rarely change. If someone is cheap, then they're cheap. If someone is emotional, then they're emotional. If you can't deal with that, then don't hang out with that person, but getting angry or offended when they do something that's clearly in their nature is futile.
-People make decisions emotionally, not logically. Typically someone's viewpoint, be it on a political issue, religion, or whatever is emotionally driven. People will do what makes them feel comfortable then look for reasons to justify that behavior. Everyone operates on a heavy confirmation bias. Do average Republicans/Democrats/Christians/Muslims actually go in with an open mind and just decide to be that way? No. It can be conformity, rebellion, anger, pride, or any combination of emotions but it's at the core. Their viewpoints become part of their personality, and extensions of their personality, so if you try to debate them, many interpret it as making a personal attack.
-Love will make you do stupid things. Try explaining to a buddy that his girlfriend isn't right for him. But he's in looooove. This is the absolute extreme of emotional decision-making.
-Constantly looking around for a "better catch" in a relationship will drive your current one into the ground. You can't be ambivalent about your intentions. It's not fair to the other person, and honestly, the "new person" out there will always look so "easy" in comparison to your actual relationship problems. However, nobody is perfect and couples will always argue. Unless you're truly unhappy, don't think like you're still in the game when someone else loves you. But this will undoubtedly happen all the time in many relationships.
-If you have a girlfriend in college, be cautious when you both enter the workforce. Maybe it's me as a male saying this, but just as with the above, your girlfriend will start getting all sorts of attention from older, successful guys all the time. I'm not saying she's going to cheat on you (well mine carried on an affair for several months) but she's might start thinking about what other options are out there and "what the world has to offer."
-Learn how to dress, and don't take your significant other for granted. Keep up the romance and still treat her like she's the most special person for you, even if you've heard absolutely everything she's had to say. Women want to be desired, and if she perceives you as being lazy, those guys in suits are going to start looking good, and she might just start going to happy hour "with the girls from the office" more often.
-Get a good education. I always thought that I was smart enough to just figure everything out. And I was right (sorry for the lack of modesty) in that formal training wouldn't and didn't help me in business much at all. However, a degree from a top level school will get you in the door pretty much anywhere, while one from a mid level school will just put you in with the masses. Additionally, you'll get to know people.
-Knowing the right people is the key to success in business. Absolutely everyone at the top level can just make a phone call to their buddy to hook something up. You know a buddy from school who's a mechanic? Getting a good deal on that transmission rebuild. What if that guy was a C level executive? Let's put together the deal at 30,000 feet (common expression) then let all the underlings sort out the details.
-Don't do anything stupid which will screw up your record- especially the criminal one. Think you're tough at a bar? Great. I'm sure you'll really appreciate that battery conviction appearing on your background for the next five years. Have fun getting a job after that one. The cops aren't there to solve your problems. They're there to arrest someone. That's their entire function when they arrive at the scene- investigate to determine if there's a crime and arrest someone. If you get arrested even for the smallest misdemeanor, then you can expect to pay about $5k in legal fees even before trial. Also, the whole court process will take forever, so imagine whacking some guy when you were drunk then getting charged with disorderly conduct, & aggravated assault and battery and not being able to move on with your life for a full year. It sucks.
-Know what you want and go for it. Uncertainty is a major cause of stress. Have a plan and stick to it. If you're lonely and you're looking for love, then put yourself in a good position. Increase your odds. Play coed softball. Meet new people. You're never going to pick up a chick in a bar, because let's face it, it pretty much never happens to most people. Most meet their girlfriends through friends or colleagues. Create a context.
-Life and fulfillment are about perspective. If you're proud of yourself then you're going to be happy. However, if you're not proud of yourself then no amount of fame, money, women, drugs, or anything will fill that void.
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I've said it over and over on here, but start working out now. It's much, much easier to get started when you're 20, even if you're completely out of shape and have never done more than walk, than it is when you're 30.
There's a whole complex of institutions set up to insure you have exciting opportunities for recreation, personal development, academic development, and entertainment. You know in college when your school just puts on free or low-cost concerts just to entertain you? That goes away when you're an adult. Once you graduate, nobody cares if you're entertained, have fun things to do, have ways to develop yourself, or have ways to travel and fun activities. Learn to entertain yourself and seek out those opportunities now or you'll be one of those sad schlubs that goes to work and comes home and sits in front of the computer never doing anything, waiting for fun to come knocking.
One glass of water for every drink, take a multivitamin and down a Gatorade before bed. You'll save money on booze and the hangovers will be less terrible.
Tip a buck per drink and after a while, the bartender will ignore an entire crowded bar to get you your drink first.
The only one who can make you happy is you.
Travel while you're young because taking a monthlong trip to Thailand is something you do over summer vacation and something you never do if you're 30 and have kids and have 2 weeks of vacation, if that, a year.
If you put the amount of energy into a creative or educational pursuit that most people put into drama and the cultivation and management thereof, you'll have a rich and rewarding life that will, as a bonus, be drama-free.
You're going to spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about what people think of you--classmates, teachers, coworkers, random people in a bar--and doing things to try and make them happy or stand out or avoid embarrassment. You'll never see most of those people again and they won't even remember you exist. You might embarrass yourself in front of 30 people you will never see again? That girl you will never see again shot you down? She won't even remember you the next morning. So what? You know who else gets shot down? Everyone in the entire world.
It's entirely possible to coast through life going to work, coming home, watching TV/playing video games, going to bed, repeat. As long as you pay your bills and show up to work, no outside force will ever intervene to stop you. You have to stop you, if you wish to be stopped.
Doing things because other people are doing them is a terrible idea. All my friends who got married because all their friends were getting married are now getting divorced. All my friends who bought houses because that's just what you do are stuck in houses they're underwater on and can't leave, sometimes with spouses they hate because they got married when everyone else was.
If you live your life doing what everyone else tells you you should do rather than what you want to do, you're going to be miserable. Nothing is sadder than a 35 year old man locked into a career he hates because his parents wanted him to do it and living in a house he loathes because his parents told him to buy one still getting bossed around by his parents. But like I said above, it's entirely possible to get locked intot hat mindset where you spend your entire life doing exactly what parents, teachers, friends, spouses, and everyone else tells you, then you look around in your 30s and realize you're miserable.
Expecting a relationship to fix what you hate about yourself or depending on "finding a girlfriend" to make your life complete isn't going to fix anything and the desperation will make you less attractive.
Don't make major life decisions because of friends or social concerns. You have a chance to go overseas but might miss your friends? In 10 years, you'll only talk to a few of those people and sorely regret the missed opportunity. Have a shot at a great school out of state but all your friends are going to Local U? When you have a drama-based falling out and don't talk to those people anymore, you'll sorely regret not going to the great school.
If you've been a good student, you've probably been coddled and aren't used to failure. Everyone fails all the time. The best hitters in baseball only make contact with the ball 30% of the time. Michael Jordan said, "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." David Bowie spent years playing in bands before he became an "overnight success." Harry Potter was rejected 12 times before someone picked it up. If you're smart but refuse to face rejection, you won't accomplish anything. I know a lot of talented people, some of whom are more talented than myself, but they refuse to put themselves out there out of fear. They wait for someone to ride in on a white horse and christen them as brilliant and are furious when it never happens.
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Want real advice? Or just feel good sayings? Here's the former:
Carrying a credit card balance is never normal. Always pay it off.
Being right is usually a burden. The wrong easy answers almost always win out. Pick your battles.
Social skills, shmoozing, connections, etc will do more to determine your place in the world than hard work, skill, or talent. A moron with good social skills will get far, you'll probably call more than one boss.
Start saving for retirement early. If your company matches 5% put in 5%.
Women, men, dating, etc work on a simplistic economic system. 5's date and marry 5's, 9's date and marry 9's. Have some friend honestly appraise you. If you're a 6 and are dating other 6's suddenly dating is easy. If you're a 6 but you only ask out 9's, then you'll continue to have problems. Every guy your age thinks he can get a 9 or a 10 if he tries hard enough, he's almost always wrong. The ones that do often get divorced early when the girl learns she can do a lot better. Girls aren't stupid. They usually know what they're worth very early on and what that can get them in life. Its typically guys who don't understand this.
You're officially aging now. Start eating right and being good to your body.
Drugs don't make you more creative. They make you stupid creative. Real creativity, drive, etc comes from within. If you can't do it sober, you're not actually doing it.
Drive defensively. Its the most dangerous thing you'll do and the roads are full of morons.
Outside of some exemplary freakshows, what we call "talent" doesn't exist. Its all hard work, practice, learning from your mistakes, trying to reach the next level, etc. You'll try a lot of things, but only become good at a few. Find those things early on and practice, practice, practice. It takes a year or two of practice to do something beyond the beginner stage and 10 years to become an expert. There are very few shortcuts in life. I'm considered something of a multi-talented person. Each of these "talents" took many years of practice to make happen. It was a hard and frustrating road. Other people believe it all comes naturally. They're wrong.
Feeling happy is a skill. You need to learn it. Relying on money, other people, drugs, etc isn't going to work. Learn gratitude. Learn how to appreciate small things. Tell jokes. Be creative. Make things. Make other people smile. Make yourself smile. Find small activities that make you happy. The rat race is an unwinnable treadmill. Society will keep telling you that you need more and more money to be happy. Society is wrong. Past x amount, it doesn't help you much, but the stress levels at these points of diminishing returns are horrible.
The sooner you stop caring what other people think about you, the earlier you can start enjoying your life.
Early on in your career, you will be fungible with other people. What will set you apart is your enthusiasm.
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When your Dad calls and wants to have lunch, dinner, or maybe just talk and watch the birds in his birdbath on his back porch...simply just go. Those opportunities will not exist forever.
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My entire school life: Give less fucks about what people think of you, and much more fucks about where you want to go and how to get there the way that best fits you. Also: talent and skill takes so SOOO much time to aquire, so stick with it, a lot.
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-Use lotion on your face after you shower/shave.
-Learn how to workout using body weight exercises so that you'll be in shape and never need a gym membership.
-Drink more water.
-Eat proteins and veggies for the bulk of your diet and you'll feel amazing.
-Get in the habit of doing the things you'd rather not first to get them out of the way (homework, chores, etc.).
-Get some sleep.
-Learn to do laundry and iron your clothes.
-Go with your folks to the grocery store every now and then.
-Help your mom/dad clean the house once a week. It won't take more than an hour and they'll appreciate it. You'll also learn the most efficient way to get things done.
-Borrow books until you find an author you love and then read their work. Repeat.
-(For the fellas) Masturbate before pursuing a questionable girl. If you still want her after you're done, go for it. I don't think this works for the ladies...I'm afraid you're going to date some assholes.
-If you're smart, don't dumb down for anyone. But don't condescend either.
-Teachers are not always right...not by half.
-Parents are not always right...but you have to live with them, so suck it up. They're usually looking out for you, though, so try to cut them some slack.
-Always use protection. Always.
-Use sunscreen so you won't be miserable on day two at the beach.
-Hold off getting a credit card for as long as you can and when you do, buy groceries with it and immediately pay it off. It's stupid to pay for money, but they've set up a system that forces you to build your credit in order to buy a car, house, etc.
-Don't get married unless you absolutely can't stand the idea of living without that person. Not because you can't stand them being with someone else...that's not love.
-High school doesn't matter. The second you graduate, all of those cliques and social pressures fall away and you'll look around at a bunch of scared kids who realize they have to actually DO something with their lives now.
-It takes nothing to be nice, especially to someone other people are shitty to for no reason. You can absolutely change their entire day with a smile and a kind word.
-Always try.
-Kindly instruct instead of criticize...especially people who are really trying.
-Making fun of people is cheap humor...it's not intelligent humor. I always admired the soft-spoken, dry wit that some of my friends had.
-At the end of the day, we're all just muddling through, often unhappy with aspects of our lives and far too busy with our own insecurities to notice yours. Remember that when you're feeling vulnerable.
Edit: Wow! Thanks for the gold!
I'm getting a lot of questions about diet and body weight exercises. I'm also getting some friction from weight lifters who think a gym is the best answer. I'm not suggesting that a gym is bad, it's just not always affordable and there are a myriad of things you can do at home to stay in shape. Below are some sites on exercises and garage gym setups that are relatively cheap. There are also a TON of workouts available on YouTube, including some of Bruce Lee's isometric workouts (put to some odd music).
And Reddit's own /r/keto
Edit #2: A LOT of people are saying that you should go ahead and get a credit card early and establish a good credit record. This is a great idea if you can manage to do so without getting into debt. I know that I couldn't have and I knew an awful lot of college friends who were hip deep in debt by graduation. So, in theory, getting a credit card as soon as you can is a good idea. But if I were 18 with a magic plastic card worth $1000, I would fuck that up pretty damn quick. As I think most teenagers would. So use your own discretion.
Edit #3: Soap and shaving dry out your face. That's the reason behind the lotion. And for those of you who say it will make me break out...it doesn't. But if it makes you break out, obviously you should do something else or use a different product. These are just suggestions. Apply as needed. And for the curious, I use Lubriderm 3-in-1 lotion for men. Kind of surprised the lotion one got as much discussion as it did...people take their skin care seriously!
It was great seeing so many positive and personal responses to this list! Some were genuinely touching. And to the teachers of Reddit, I wasn't trying to disparage the lot of you. I know many of you work hard to teach kids who don't often give a shit. But I was sold a line of bullshit by many teachers and didn't realize it until much later from reading on my own. Now I'm at an Operating Thetan Level III and am closer to the great truth of the universe!
Just kidding.
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"Before I do anything I ask myself 'Would an idiot do that?' And if the answer is yes, I do not do that thing." - Dwight Schrute
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