What advice would you give to your younger selves?

[Trenchfriend]

An inspiration, that came to me from youtube.

Pay more attention, if girls around you are interested in you!

 

[tonyb]

Perhaps the most common lament (and greatest waste of psychic energy) of older people is “if only I knew then what I know now.”

In my own case, I really gotta learn to forgive myself for the stupid, silly, selfish, etc. things I did decades and decades back. I long ago learned the lessons, so rehashing all of that is hardly the best use of my remaining time.

 

[Frunobulax]

I would advise my younger self to join the service. It's something I regret now.

Also, "Leave the gun, take the cannoli."

 

[Lean'n'mean]

I would advise my younger self to do what I did.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Don't."

 

[MisterCairo]

An inspiration, that came to me from youtube.

Pay more attention, if girls around you are interested in you!

If they had written on their foreheads " hey doofus, I like you" in both of Canada's official languages I would still have missed the clue...

 

[MisterCairo]

Study science more, and if anyone dares you to write the law school aptitude test, do not fall for it...

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

I’d say: “Selves.....Don’t listen to anything you thought.
That’s what got you where you were when you thought “What would you tell your younger selves”.
B

 

[belfastboy]

Perhaps the most common lament (and greatest waste of psychic energy) of older people is “if only I knew then what I know now.”

In my own case, I really gotta learn to forgive myself for the stupid, silly, selfish, etc. things I did decades and decades back. I long ago learned the lessons, so rehashing all of that is hardly the best use of my remaining time.

It is a bitter irony is we view our mistakes/missteps from a post event perspective when we have gained the knowledge/consciousness that we did NOT have prior to the misstep. We then beat ourselves up thinking we should have known but the fact is we didn't. It is a fools errand to engage in this and I wasted far too much life energy doing such. What I know now.....learn the lesson inherent in the experience.....move on and don't repeat it.

 

[ChiTownScion]

"Never run after a woman, or a bus. Another one will be right along shortly."

 

[tonyb]

It is a bitter irony is we view our mistakes/missteps from a post event perspective when we have gained the knowledge/consciousness that we did NOT have prior to the misstep. We then beat ourselves up thinking we should have known but the fact is we didn't. It is a fools errand to engage in this and I wasted far too much life energy doing such. What I know now.....learn the lesson inherent in the experience.....move on and don't repeat it.

Thoughtlessness is the culprit, usually, in whatever form that takes — impatience, selfishness, impetuousness, etc., etc.

Maybe we didn’t know better, which is not to say that we couldn’t have known better, had we given it a little thought.

 

[M Brown]

Stay single

 

[Turnip]

As the great philosopher Ritchie Blackmore never said:

„I don’t have a message, other than to drink a lot and I don’t have a direction. I just play and that since more than 50 years.“

 

[belfastboy]

Thoughtlessness is the culprit, usually, in whatever form that takes — impatience, selfishness, impetuousness, etc., etc.

Maybe we didn’t know better, which is not to say that we couldn’t have known better, had we given it a little thought.

Many (most) of mine were directly linked to maturity issues.....and the thing about maturity is that it comes when it comes usually dependent on experience. The mind only knows what it knows and searching for it is usually fruitless because it has not been experienced and therefore the knowledge has not registered yet.

 

[tonyb]

Many (most) of mine were directly linked to maturity issues.....and the thing about maturity is that it comes when it comes usually dependent on experience. The mind only knows what it knows and searching for it is usually fruitless because it has not been experienced and therefore the knowledge has not registered yet.

Yeah, but we’re capable of imagining what might happen should we do this or that or the other thing, if we bother to think about it.

Alas, bad things happen only to other people. Until they happen to me. I believed that smoking was endangering my health. I’m not a science denier. But I on some level thought myself among the exceptional. Until I wasn’t.

 

[Nobert]

Stop worrying about motives, and what it means about you if you do this or that. It doesn't mean anything. Everything you've ever thought or any idea or ambition you've ever had will die with you. We are just the sum parts of what we do.
Don't confuse a running away with a running toward.
Get a nice haircut while you've still got the hair for it.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Got all day? …Okay, I’ve tried to boil it down to a relatively short list: (In no particular order. I don’t claim that any of it is original.)

• Don’t think “I’m not a grown up yet. It’s too early for me to attempt that.” Most success stories happen to the relatively young. Don’t under-estimate yourself. Take a risk. You may well fall short, but aiming low surely won’t get you there. ←Very American, that. (I was much too hesitant in my twenties.)

• Talk less, listen more. Really listen. It's harder than it sounds.

• Know what you stand for.

• Don’t become a professional cynic and naysayer. It becomes too easy of a crutch. It also drives people away from you. Don’t confuse negativity with “appearing smart”.

• Invest a little bit each month in the stock market; mutual funds, for example. Don’t gamble with it ---it's not a game--- but invest for the long-term. Compounded interest, son. (I came from humble origins, and investing was not something we were taught.)

• On women: It’s complicated. Be accessible, be involved in a lot of things, have dreams and ambitions, be funny and kind, hold down a job… Then they will find you and even seek you out. Choose a woman of character over one who is all show. Be faithful. Don’t be a jackass. Being hurt romantically does not make you a victim; it makes you an adult... or it should. (Amazing that my father told me NONE of this. It’s a wonder that the right woman found me and we’ve now been married for thirty years.)

• Mistakes are not the end of the world. Setbacks are not fatal. This too shall pass. Let it go. Treat yourself like you'd treat a friend.

• To be interesting, be interested.

• Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.

• Life is short. In the blink of an eye you will be staring your 62nd birthday in the face.

 

[Juanito]

When one of your life long best friends advises you to buy as much Microsoft stock as you can after he finished up his internship in 1989 says so, do. Same for the other friend from grade school that said the same about Amazon in 1995.

Take that trip after high school, after college, and after graduate school.

There's a girl you will meet in 1989, take her up on her offer. Carrie E. wherever you are today, God bless you!

Stick to your guns and do not get married while in college. In fact, never get married and never, ever have children.

 

[Zombie_61]

It's an interesting notion, but my younger self rarely listened to anyone so it wouldn't do any good.

 

[Just Jim]

I'm not sure what I'd tell younger me to do or not do; it isn't that I have no regrets, because of course I do, but if things changed I'm not sure I'd be me. I might suggest he begin focusing on Zeno and Seneca and Epictetus, and Lao T'ze, and Nietzshe sooner. It will make the rest of it easier to deal with.