If you want to wish me a happy birthday, please do so by leaving a comment on this post telling me about the best advice that you ever received.
jamming thoughts together
jamming thoughts together
If you want to wish me a happy birthday, please do so by leaving a comment on this post telling me about the best advice that you ever received.
pophénie 
Happy Birthday!
At the risk of sounding like I’m sucking up, advice that you passed on ~15 years ago stayed with me… I still tend to order the meal, drink, or dessert that any establishment names after themselves.
I’ve also been well served by advice/guidance from a Senior Chief that I worked for in Maine. He told me he’d never come down on me for decisions I’d made if could explain how I got there *but* he’d roast me if something happened because I failed to make a decision.
One of the most humorous bits of advice came from my dad, who told me *not* to come to him about marital advice.
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My Dad. “Don’t bellyache!”
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As a shy and private person, I discovered meaningful and joyful results when I started following the advice of a mentor who told me that to make an impact, whether in a personal or professional context, the first step (and possibly the only step needed) is to simply show up.
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Hydrate. Don’t forget to eat. Deal with hotspots before they become blisters. (All of these work as both literal & figurative advice.) 🙂
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When a friend is in need or having a difficult time, the most helpful thing you can do to support them is just to show up. Don’t worry about whether what you say is the right thing or the most helpful thing or if you can do more than other people. Don’t worry about how, or even if, your friend responds to your effort. Say something, do something, be there without judgment or expectation. Show up, if you can. (And don’t judge yourself harshly if you can’t.)
That is my summary of what I learned from the book There Is No Good Card for This (Crowe & McDowell), which I consider required reading for human beings.
I have long been a fan of Spider Robinson’s framing of the same idea:
“Shared pain is lessened. Shared joy is increased. Thus we refute entropy.”
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The past is the past, not much you can do to change it. Don’t let it weigh you down. Also, reading The Four Agreements changed my life for the better. I re-read it every couple years and find it beneficial every time. Happy Birthday!
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(1) One of the best early pieces of advice I got was from a teacher in high school who made it very clear that the most important thing you can ever do is to be able to honestly tell yourself ‘I don’t know’, because that is where learning begins. It is a very basic one, but one that has stuck with me as important to pass on.
(2) The concept of ‘That which does not kill you makes you stronger’ is a lie. That which does not kill you came very close to killing you, or at least stretched your resources very thin; or you wouldn’t think of it like this. ‘That which does not kill you, intended to kill you’, you could get stronger after you recover from the experience, when you have downtime to be able to strengthen yourself, but it isn’t the thing that almost killed you that made you stronger. It was you.
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Just do the one next thing.
(for overcoming overwhelm at all the things to be done)
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