RetroFedFrom the day you were born until today, what was the best piece of advice you still follow?
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Crackhappy
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Dad: “Look both ways before crossing the street”
Me as a child: “But this is a one-way street”
Dad: “You look both ways because people are idiots”
My dad had a saying, “you’re dead right”. Doesn’t matter if you’re right, you’re still dead if they come the wrong way
Immediately put things away once you’re done with them, otherwise they start piling up.
In shared spaces when you’re cleaning up/tidying/whatever, do one more thing than just your own things, no less, but also no more than that. Everybody forgets to do some of the shit they’re supposed to deal with sometimes so it’s probably your own crap anyways or compensates for that, but don’t go clean up everything that others leave out/unfinished or you risk becoming the person who’s always cleaning up after others.
Regarding marriage and relationships
I saw a reddit thread many years ago before I met my wife asking for advice from long-time couples.
I was single at the time, and was pretty comfortable with that, not that I wasn’t interested in being in a relationship, but it wasn’t a priority for me and I never had much luck picking up girls.
Most of it was the usual stuff about communication, and sharing housework, respect, and all of that.
But the one that stood out to me was
“Don’t forget to date your wife”
A good many years later, I managed to stumble my way bass-ackwards into dating my now-wife. A few years later we were married.
And for a lot of couples, dating kind of slows down at that point. One or both of them stop putting in effort, and they just kind of stagnate and drift apart.
That’s far from the only reason relationships fail of course, but I think that’s a bigger part in a lot of cases than many people think.
So I always keep my ear to the ground for cool events, restaurants, shows, places to go, things to do, etc. and make sure that there’s always something coming up on the horizon for us to look forward to. Sometimes it’s a simple dinner at a restaurant we’ve been to countless times, sometimes it’s a big elaborate day out where we get dressed up, find our way to a couple different nice bars and restaurants, walk around a museum, see a show or to an orchestra performance, etc.
I try to have at least one thing planned a month, not always successfully, but more often than not, and we sometimes squeeze in another little spontaneous date night or two here and there. Most of the time we’re out doing something fun as a couple at least once a week.
Good job. I share your approach. I just took my love, my life and my wife out for a date a couple days ago. All her boyfriend wants to do is fuck but I take her dinner and a movie.
Adulterers must be stoned to death in public.
Executing people is always unethical. But in this case it’s not even necessarily adultery, it could be polyamory (or some other ENM).
Don’t give more information than you need to when talking to authority.
Late to work? Say “sorry I’m late”. Don’t give a reason unless asked. Need to take a day off? Say “I’m taking Friday off” or “I am taking a sick day”. Unless asked for a reason don’t explain further.
Stopped by a cop for speeding? Answer plainly with one word sentences. “Do you know why I stopped you?” “No.”
People often dig themselves holes by offering too much information when simple information would have been sufficient. I’ve seen it happen in real time, where a coworker was denied time off because of the death of a pet because the boss didn’t think that was reason enough to take time off, when the coworker could have just said “family emergency” and explained no further.
Its a great little piece of advice that has served pretty well over the years.
Still extremely relevant: Don’t talk to the police
Also, remember what day it is.
Every day is STFU Friday.
“Be excellent to each other”
And party on dudes.
Death doesn’t care if you had the right-of-way
Do not point out things to someone when they can’t fix them right now. For example, don’t tell me I have a stain on my jumper when we are out in the office with no change to fix it. I will remain conscious about it the rest of the day.
Another was misunderstandings are the norm not an exception. They are happening just as often as successful communication.
Point them out to me please. That knowledge can prevent me from the stress of finding out when it’s too late. Knowing you have a stain or some such can at least prevent you from doing something to expose it for example.
If a client asks, “You want to meet for lunch today or tomorrow?” Knowledge is power.
There’s one piece of advice I got from a Mickey mouse comic of all places. When I was a kid I read this Mickey mouse comic where he gets kidnapped and has to escape, but it’s cold outside and he doesn’t have any clothes, so he wears a mattress for warmth. Everyone laughs at him, but he keeps thinking something like “as long as I’m warm, they may laugh at me”, and for some reason that piece of advice stuck with me forever.
This is exactly an Spanish idiom: Ande yo caliente, ríase la gente
Spanish is my native tongue, and the one I read that comic in.
Don’t panic.
“If you don’t care about yourself, noone else will”.
I still struggle with that, but the advice itself is solid.
“They don’t pay your bills. [Stop worrying about what they say]”
Every day, make one thing better.
I like this a lot. It’s been my philosophy but not my motto for 50 years.
Take heart, because nobody knows what the fuck they are doing. Some of them are just decent at faking it.
My favorite toast, preferably with those of stout heart and unsound mind is: Here’s to us. Who’s like us? Damn few. And they’re ALLLLLL dead.
Kiss the girl.
More specifically “Give in to temptation; you never know if it’ll pass your way again.”
If we relax the rules a bit here, most of the “Notebooks of Lazarus Long” apply. Many of Heinlein’s comments held a lot of value and have helped me be happy with who I’ve become in the 36 years since I started reading the words he put on pages.
Enjoy your life whenever you can, and hopefully find someone to enjoy it with. The end comes sooner than you know.
Despite Heinlein’s rampant misogyny, I have definitely enjoyed some of his works. I find the aphorisms of Lazarus Long somewhat apropos given our current circumstances though.
Often I’ve just taken what came across misogynistic as a badly implemented form of lensing from the time.
Filtering out euphemism heavily, and not saying he wasn’t, but overall many of his stories for the time were very modern on strong women in books.
I’d instead say that instead of directly labeling him misogynistic, it’s more accurate to say just “asshole of equal opportunity”.
His women were frequently critical to story (not just devices for saving). Gender and sexuality were some of the most absolutely open and not only accepted but outright fought for violently in many cases.
While the picture of what it looked like may be dated, he grumpily would argue for women’s rights in his tales.
I would also say that I base from his fictional writing. If your basis is from another venue then I may be lacking data. I’ve tried to read into rumor and such about overlap of shit with Rand but find much conflicting things and just have given up interest in trying to untie that.
Invest in your education first because nobody can take it from you.
Buy the crappiest reliable car you can stand to be seen in. (If you need a car at all)
Invest in a house as soon as you can. Buy the crappiest house in a nice neighborhood.
These have helped me treat a Depreciating asset (like a car) purely as a tool for utility and helped me recognize that a nice car is ego on display. For me it applied to computers and cameras too. I could definitely afford to drive a nicer car and I’ve learned to turn the pang of shame in parking my crappy old beater next to my BILs’ hot cars into a trigger of self assurance: “I’m living by my internal values” … “damn right!”
Everyone is doing the best they can, with what they know.
– From a meaning-of-life website circa ’97
Made a lot of sense about practising acceptance. Some people may have just stubbed their toe in the morning too.
Don’t make promises when you’re happy; don’t make decisions when you’re sad.
“Don’t shit where you eat.”
Its revers ,i think
“Shit where you eat.”
Dont eat where you shit
Remember that any advice your parent’s give you is a minimum of 20 years past the ‘best by’ date.
Parents
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.
you will never be given time; you have to take it.
So.. take your time?
Don’t drink your calories. Changed my life completely and put me on a path to losing 35 Kgs.
Absolutely this one. My friend told me that and wow, the difference has been incredible.
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Met an old guy in the 90’s who was one of the OG Hells Angels. He said, “Getting old ain’t for pussies.” He wasn’t wrong. All the stupid things you did when you were younger so find you when you get older.
Not sure if it is the best, but it is a simple piece of advice I follow religiously. I think the reason this makes sense is that the cognitive load of trying to remember to do it is higher than just doing it straight away.
“Failure is always an option” -Adam Savage.
This means 2 things to me. 1st, it’s okay to fail, you don’t need to be perfect at everything all the time. I know this one logically but still sometimes manage to let fear of failure prevent me from trying new stuff. 2nd, you learn so much more from failing than you do from succeeding. Scientists have long talked about having a Journal of Negative Results. It’s just as important to share what works as it is to share what doesn’t work, so others don’t waste time/money repeating an experiment that you already know first hand won’t work.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
In general, I try not to make any promises at all, and don’t really trust any promises made by others. Humans are fickle creatures, and the world is an even more fickle place by comparison. Sure, I can try to do this thing for you tomorrow, but if I said I’ll definitely do it, and a tornado suddenly touched down and tore the city apart, I wouldn’t be able to make good on that promise, now would I?
I am with you on this. If you say you will do something then that is a promise, if you break that promise then I can not trust you to follow up next time you say you will do something. But it can be forgiven (but not forgotten) depending on the excuse and could also be nullified if the excuse is your example.
Not showing up on time is also a broken promise, but I do not think ppl realize that.
One person told me (the more correct terms would be argued) that you should lie to please the other because “that is how you build connections”. That really disturbed me, you can not build meaningful relationships with lies and empty promises, unless you do not want to be trusted and do not want to be closer than “they know my name and we can have fun in the moment when doing x”.
It’s “its”, not “it’s”, unless you mean “it is”, in which case it is “it’s”.
To clarify on this, there is no possessive apostrophe with ‘it’ like their is with nouns. “Its” is a possessive pronoun like “his” or “hers”.
Life: Being poor ain’t no excuse for being filthy
Work: if you’re gonna go down, take people with you. (thanks HR lady!)
We become what we think about • Earl Nightingale
We are what we pretend to be • Kurt Vonnegut
To be somethin’ you gotta go through somethin’ • Betty Wright
Be hard on the topic but soft to the person!
Every storm passes.
Me with anxiety: Do you know what happens after a long period without a storm?
you start seeing one that does not exist…i have a habit of thinking everything has gone too right…so something has to happen…usually i end up making it happen!.
“If you ain’t doin’ shots, get the fuck out the club.”
If you ain’t hunting fish why the fuck you in my ocean?
Is this the same as “shit or get off the pot”?
Or is this literal advice about going to clubs?
Half of life is showing up.
“Never skimp on anything that goes between you and the ground.”
Everett approaching a situation, challenge, or anything really; just try to leave with it slightly better. You can’t check the world but you can pull a few pieces of trash out with you on your hike kinda thing.
Wear Sunscreen
Oh, no. Not the sunscreen song.
Fake it till you make it
Ai is trained on historical data, so it’s always outta date.
Install gentoo
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Install Gentoo and never look back.
Gotta do what’s good for you, and nobody else.
Keeping an eye on your goal leaves only one for the way.
If it’s worth doing right it’s also worth doing half-assed.
To me this means it’s better to let go of perfectionism lest it becomes paralyzing. Strive for the best conceivable result all you want but be content with the best achievable result as well.
Keep some money saved aside for
buying chocolatebad timesThe only good Nazi is a dead Republican.
Working hard is pointless and everyone should go fuck themselves.
Don’t be an asshole and if you have to ask yourself, “Am I being an asshole” then you’re probably being an asshole.
There are plenty of people who worry about being an asshole and end up never standing up for themselves. I don’t think it’s as simple as “if you’re worried you’re the asshole, you probably are”.
Well no. Of course not. It’s significantly more nuanced with a lot of gray area. It’s an aphorism it’s supposed to be short.
But ummm thanks?
So, about that asshole thing…
Dude. You knew what my comment was, you knew it was an aphorism and you still decided to leave that pointless pedantic obvious comment.
The aktually guy is exactly what you sounded like. So from one asshole to another, once again:
“Just say no to drugs.”
I know people take umbrage with the baggage surrounding the phrase, but as a general maxim it’s served me well.
Its a saying playing on the ancient greek Kairos (knowing when to act). But introduces ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ as its driving philosophy in the intervening periods of waiting. Dr Seus, a doctor of some repute, said of the Waiting Place, a most useless place for people just waiting, however it has been established by Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea that ‘Keeping Calm and Carrying On’ is a far more effective waybto think about the intervening periods waiting to act.
I’m not exactly sure who told me. I heard it ridiculously early in my life, and whoever said it was rather muffled and hard to hear. But I follow that advice every day!
You’ll almost never regret saying yes to opportunities