Life Advice?
13Hey, guys. This is my first post on here, but I’ve been reading stuff on these forums for a while now. I’m gonna take a wild guess and say I’m the youngest person on this website (15). I’m currently a sophomore in high school, so I’ve got a lot of decisions to make about my future, so if you guys have advice you can give me, that would be great.
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Advice from the brain: If you can get a degree, get one. I was held back my whole life because I was lacking the sheepskin permission slip for success. If you can’t get a whole degree, take some classes, so you can check “some college” on applications. Advice from the heart: Love everyone around you like there’s no tomorrow, because sometimes there isn’t.
@moondrake If you can grab an AA on the way, get that, too. It’s only two years, it’s a degree, and it’s a foot in the door to a state college.
Watch the entire video. Much wisdom here!
@ruouttaurmind Holy shit GoaT! I completely forgot about that song.
@mfladd I still say there’s wisdom there.
Don’t listen to the people who tell you to define the success in your life by accomplishments. If having $$$ is what makes you happy, great. If sitting on the floor with a pile of LEGO is what makes you happy, that’s great too. Be flexible. Happiness is not a destination but how you get through the journey.
Work and school:
Minimize the amount Of student debt you have to carry once you hit college. But go to a good school if you can. Make sure your degree or area of study is a growth area that’s reasonably well paid. Start learning what working life is like in your areas of interest and what your career prospects might be starting now. Read up on the work areas you are interested in.
Sometimes a really good school is worth extra the student debt.
In school, hang out w the smartest high/achievers and the people who have a lots and lots of friends at least some of the time. Always try to learn from the people you are around.
But don’t just dump your current friends to hang out with these other people. If your high school is really socially stratified, do that in college. It’s way easier then. These successful people have social and personal skills you can learn from. Learn how to be socially at ease, and confident, if you don’t know that already. It’s a learned skill.
Learn how to fix stuff and how to take care of vehicles.
Learn about money and budgeting and saving and investing starting now.
Learn how to put aside the instant reward in favor of the long reward.
Time off from all that work:
keep your head. Don’t do stuff that you know is insanely stupid. Don’t be the one who takes the most risks in doing dangerous stuff - unless you can make a career out of it, like a mountain climber. Then take those risks for professional reasons. Don’t take big risks just for the kick.
Don’t be self-destructive. If you aren’t happy or at ease in life, start working on that now. That means learning how to deal with horrible emotions and life problems. And that all sucks. And everyone has them.
If you need a therapist, get one. It’s just like any other form of learning or healing many ways - so use it. Not using resources because you wanna be “tough” or whatever hinders you from going forward. Don’t waste time in this area. If you need healing, use resources, get started on that.
Be nice to people - everyone. Even if you despise them, either be civilized and polite, or have nothing to do with them. Get better at social life and friendships every year. It’s a learning thing. Getting better means knowing when to put up boundaries as much as it does how to be pleasant or to be a good friend or how to be close to people.
Don’t be mean. If you were mean, or were inadvertently mean, or perhaps caused harm, don’t wait. Reach out. Apologize. Apologizing does not mean the other person is “right” and you are “wrong”. Who is right or wrong is a separate issue.
Learn to be good friends with people who are great people, but they disagree with you on politics or whatever. Be friends with a wide variety of people.
Don’t get way into drugs or alcohol. Leave that for the ones who will have to, unfortunately, recover from it.
Always keep an open mind, there is always a new perspective that can illuminate even horrible things. That you are learning more doesn’t make truly horrible things less horrible. But some things will turn out to be better or worse than you thought. Adult life contains a lot of shades of grey in many areas.
Learn that you don’t come across to others exactly that way you think of yourself. We can never see others fully. We can also never see ourselves fully.
Develope grit and resilience. Almost all successful people are good at both.
Learn learn learn learn learn. Every day learn in all areas of life.
Have some fun. In fact, have a lot of it.
@f00l
Learn how to apologize or make peace yes, but I should have added:
Don’t be anyone’s pushover. Learn how to spot amd avoid manipulative situations and manipulative people. Learn how to stand up for yourself, your friends, and what you believe in. Without being obnoxious about it. Learn how to deal with bullies.
You can’t completely avoid manipulation; and manipulative tactics are getting more pervasive and less obvious every day. Just do your best.
Sadly: learn, as best you can, how to protect your privacy and your digital privacy. Don’t let google or your cellco or isp know everything about you.
One of the most common traits in successful people are they they are responsible and hard-working, but also a bit easy going. They deal with problems without getting torn apart of thrown off track. Cautious and realistic moderate optimism and decency are huge success factors. Yeah there are a buncha exceptions: people who aren’t happy or easy and are still successful. But it’s a very common trait in the successful.
It means seeing the odds and the opportunities at the same time. It means not being controlled by emotions, but not suppressing them either. It means taking things in stride, or keeping yourself going during very bad times.
Learn all you can about how your brain, your health, and your emotions work. Since you can’t exactly have them surgically removed, and you gotta live with them.
I should mention that I was born in the 1950’s and am still quite bad at a lot of these things. Nobody’s a star in all of it.
I might be still getting better tho. Or not. ; )
Don’t go to the University of Texas.
@Barney
@Barney is wonderful and purple, but she’s entirely wrong about UT-Austin. She’s even a bit deranged. Perhaps she needs purple treatment.
/image “Texas Longhorn”
@f00l That is one butt-ugly cow.
@Barney
That is one butt-ugly awesome steer.
/giphy "Texas Longhorns"
@f00l Are you sure that longhorn doesn’t have spigots? Why don’t you get up a little closer and take a look?
@Barney
Maybe it’s a cow, not a steer. I didn’t look closely. I was checking out the horns.
@f00l Yep, it’s pretty easy to figure out that you went to UT.
@Barney
Only for a term. That’s enough to be a Lorghorn; but since my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents all graduated, and both brothers attended, I guess it’s in the blood.
PS I got very little sleep last night. Like 3 hours. All my errors are excusable.
@f00l Only for a semester? Gee, there’s hope for you yet.
@Barney
I started attending games at Memorial Stadium in Austin when I was in a stroller.
I bleed burnt orange to a degree. Deal with it.
@Barney But they come in purple. A wine roan (also called a purple roan or mulberry roan) Texas Longhorn bull
@moondrake
All good.
@moondrake @fool It’s a conspiracy.
@Barney
And a good one.
@f00l Nope, nope, nope.
Back on point: if you want a career that doesnt need a degree (automechanic, artist) don’t get one. Don’t feel forced into the college route. But if you do want a degree (even tech school for automechanic, because like others said, sometimes that stupid parchment is the tripping point) then start applying for scholarships now, some let you start in 8th grade and save them for you. If at all possible avoid student loans. You can get multiple little scholarships, and there are a ton out there. Some so little known they sometimes dont give what they have away because no applicants (heard last year one had 10 $500 scholarships and only 8 applicants. Not sure if true or just a story counselors tell).
Off point: my son just accepted to TX A&M, because he was born there and we have TX 529 we bought 17 yrs ago that made it affordable w other savings and scholarships, but we’ve lived out of state the last 14 years and never visited. He’s starting at Tarleton. Any advice from locals?
@mollama
You said he was accepted at A&M but is starting at Tarleton? How does that work?
What is his likely area of study?
@f00l He “didn’t quite make the cutoff” for a spot in freshman class at TX A&M College Station, but TX A&M has 8 “associated campuses” Tarleton being one, there are campuses in Corpus Cristi, Texarkana, etc. He was admitted to go to any one of them without a separate application: this all came in the single letter from College Station, then about a week later we got inundated with letters/flyers/cute pop-up cards from each of the campuses welcoming him to each of them (technically the delay was the College Station letter directed you to a website to indicate which, up to all 8, of the campuses you’d want to go to, but that was all you had to do: log in, click 1-8 radio buttons and hit submit). If he goes to the satellite campus and gets at least a certain GPA (I think 3.5 but can’t remember for sure) then he is “guaranteed” a spot at College Station for his sophomore year (otherwise he can finish the 4 years at Tarleton).
A couple of state school programs are like this. My husband did Penn State similarly 30 yrs ago but it was required 2 yrs at satellite and can’t remember what he had to meet to get to Main campus.
By the way, for all the UTX fans, he got in the Austin campus there. It was a big discussion as to which, but in the end it boiled down to cost to try to ensure he’d make all 4 years without student loans.
Physics major. He is somewhere between Sheldon and Leonard in personality/affectation so we enjoy that show a lot and hope he has fun at A&M like the characters (we know they aren’t students, but it’s a college environ) do.
So again back to my question as to what anyone knows about A&M (college station or Tarleton).
@mollama
I think Tarleton is a fine enough school, but it’s known for graduating teachers more than anything else.
If he intends an academic or research career, Austin would have been a better choice. What undergrad program you come out of has an influence of what grad school you get into; and the good career spots tend to go to people who came out of the best grad programs.
I agree that student loans are a huge factor, but for academic careers the schools on your CV matter a lot.
@kidsandliz would know more about the academic side of things.
Stephenville is a nice, small rural Texas town. If he likes the outdoors there will be things to do.
I’m sure there are some college town things there, but it’s a pretty small place. There won’t be a big culture life except on campus.
The school will prob be fine, esp if he gets to xfer to College Station.
Beware driving the highways around Stephenville. It’s dairy country, they have 18 wheelers and farm equipment on the roads all the time. Some roads are famous for their wrecks.
Above all he should be really careful about rural driving at night.
Prob the students in Stephenville come to FW or Dallas for fun.
I would imagine most of the fun will be on campus, which is good because safe. Stephenville is a pretty safe place to be, and not horrendously expensive the way Austin is.
PS College Station is a whole diff ball game. Very intense academically and in school feeling. A&M is a great school. Everyone’s there to work. High standards.
Don’t judge, don’t do things you don’t feel right about because it’s what other people are doing, learn to cook well.
Dr. Wayne Dyer said there are two rules in life.
#1. Don’t sweat the small shit
#2. It’s all small shit
Try not to worry about things over which you have no control.
@lisaviolet I had a boss that said “there is always too much to juggle, so you are always going to drop stuff. Just make sure what you drop are balls and not grenades.”
That crush you have? Go for it. I regret deeply not acting on more of those when I was younger.
@ACraigL Sometimes it hurts catching up with old crushes on Facebook. Especially when their husbands are total tools…
@ACraigL Yes, but also don’t get thoroughly entangled with a relationship at a young age that it hurts relationships with friends or makes you lose focus on your own future.
In short, go for it, but don’t over-commit.
@ACraigL, @cinoclav if married, I hope your wives aren’t readers of the @meh forums, lol.
@elimanningface u stay away from my forums.
@elimanningface I’m not pining over anyone now, just saying that I could have made more of my high school experience if I had worried less about rejection and/or judgement from others.
Back away from the keyboard very slowly. Do not make eye contact with the monitor. This is the best advice I can give you.
It took me until halfway through college to realize that it’s important to be yourself, even if people don’t mesh with it. You will be so much happier and make such stronger friends because of it. High school doesn’t matter nearly as much as people make it out to be. I’ve ran into people from high school that I never spoke to while I was there and every single one had the same thought. “I wish I had done things differently and cared less about things back then”.
Don’t take advice from random people on the internet…
That said, good info above. Life is hard and not fair. The best stuff is usually worth the time and effort to get.
Find a hobby that you can turn into a business
Oh…and take care of your health. Find an activity you enjoy to stay in shape. See the doctor regularly. Follow up on any health issues that come up.
It’s cheaper in the long run.
@Alecks While a lot of folks do go to college, and for a huge number of jobs, you’ll want that degree, it’s not for everyone.
Maybe you are interested in a trade- you’ll still be taking classes somewhere, but not to the extent of a college.
I’ve got a relative who didn’t go to college, and is quite successful now as a sales manager for a big car dealer. If you’re a people person and have a knack for selling, it might be something to try as a job over the summer or if you go to college.
Do keep in mind that community college is an option, and that you can transfer from one to a regular college or university to save on costs.
(P.S. You’re doing amazingly well compared to how our second-youngest user introduced himself).
Building off of @dashcloud - if you plan on going to college, don’t wing it and assume you’ll figure it all out once there. Maybe you will but you’ll have a much better time there and afterwards if you have some idea before enrolling.
@elimanningface
@Alecks
Don’t think of college as an adventure. Once upon a time people could do that. Now life is just too competitive. Think of college as a place where you go to broaden yourself, hone your skills, open your mind, and prove the beginnings of competence.
It’s work, but it’s fun work. Remember what you are paying for it.
You will still have adventures while you are there. People always do, except perhaps at junior college, or if they are working and attending school at the same time. Worlds will open to you during that part of your life, college or no college.
If you plan it right, you can make nice money without college if you want that. I know of some mechanics, HVAC people, small business people, and sophisticated highly skilled shop people who do very well. And no or little student debt.
Either way, think carefully about $ and the future. Even tho we can’t predict, we can make intelligent guesses.
Bro/Sis - wear sunscreen. /youtube
By coming here and asking this crowd for life advice, you’ve already proven that you’re pretty smart, @alecks. Welcome!
Oh, advice besides the dumb pun… Find out what you enjoy and do it.
@alecks - listen to @djslack. If it wasn’t for him (or her), I wouldn’t have known to rattle a box of crackers before buying them to determine if there are broken ones inside.
Tired…no advice at the moment…one more day as goat!
If you are thinking about going to college study for the entrance exams (many ways to do this: there are books, youtubes, websites, and of course paying for a course from Kaplan, for example - figure 4-6 hours a week for several months to really have it nailed). Those are limited universe of information achievement tests - not IQ tests. The higher the score you get the higher the scholarship you can get which means less student loans.
Realize that whatever you choose to do now, that does not mean you can’t change your mind later. Many, many students change their major one or more times. And many go back to school later in life to change their careers - for example me, my dad, several of my cousins… it is not the end of the world to do this. I teach college and many, many students think whatever decision they make now is the one they have to live with for life (nope); they are afraid they will make the wrong decision. I have had 3 distinctly different careers.
If you don’t want to go to college right now, then think about what you will do that will earn you far more than minimum wage - some trades you can earn a good living but they require training and/or apprentice programs. Whatever you choose DO NOT EVER EVER EVER GO TO A FOR-PROFIT SCHOOL. EVER. Most of them are far more expensive than private schools, have crappy completion rates, no job placement services, lie to you, you will end up borrowing the maximum allowed as they have no other scholarship money they give out other than PELL grants, and many places will hire you if you have a degree from one of them… community colleges, state schools, decent non-profits are far better and for the most part far cheaper. Did I mention they lie? They admit everyone, have quotas and get fired if they don’t sign up the required number of students. They don’t give a damn about you personally, they just want you to sign on the line.
It is probably better to be (and you will get more scholarship money) in the top third of grades/test scores at a school than in the bottom third. You will likely then be offered admission to an honors program, the school cares more about what happens to you, you often get priority with signing up for courses, and it is less of a struggle to get good grades as you are on the top of the heap and not on the bottom. In school, if you are full time, don’t work more than 20 hours a week. Studies have shown your grades start to suffer when you work more than that.
Make it a priority, starting with your first job, to put some money into retirement. If your job has a retirement program sign up and put in at least enough for them to match (that is free money). The power of compounding of money over time starting as soon as you are working builds far more money than starting to save at 40… Poverty in old age is not fun.
If you can’t pay cash for it don’t buy it (well except a house, schooling). Don’t take out school loans to buy it (that you will seriously regret doing when it is time to pay them off). Do without and save. In the long run you will be better off.
Choose your friends wisely. Good friends don’t try to talk you into doing something stupid/illegal. Friends being nasty to you says more about them than it does about you. Try not to cave to peer pressure. Often if you say no, some others will join you because they were scared to say no first but not scared to say no second.
Get flu shots.
Things, generally speaking, do not buy you happiness (and if people are going to dislike you because of what you own or don’t own, that tells you just how shallow they are). Experiences and friends do (“buy” you happiness). Most embarrassing moments don’t matter 5 years later and most don’t matter even the next day. Make the time to tell people important to you that you love them. Frequently. My younger brother was murdered when I was 28. An uncle I was very fond of had a heart attack while snorkeling and drowned. A friend of mine got cancer and was dead 18 mo later. I will always regret I didn’t tell them things before they suddenly died, make the time to see my friend before she died when I was in town - she lived 450 miles from me. This is the stuff that matters in life.
Everybody fails at things. Fewer people pick themselves up and try again and again until they succeed. Usually there are few to no shortcuts in life that don’t have a serious downside. It is worth stopping and thinking about the intended consequences and unintended consequences of decisions you make. If you do not like the consequences of a choice, then the next time make a choice that is more likely to have an outcome/consequence you like. You might have to argue with the voice in your head that wants you to repeat the mistake, do the thing you are trying to talk yourself out of doing. Sometimes it helps to think, in advance, what the arguments you will use on yourself to get yourself to make the “better” choice after you have screwed up.
Try not to get stuck in “my parent(s) want me to do this and I don’t want them to tell me what to do so I’ll do something else instead” trap. Often they have screwed up as a kid and are trying to prevent you the same heartache. Also if you think through what you are going to do and it happens to agree with what your parent(s) want to you to do, consider yourself lucky. You won’t then get into an argument with them or get in trouble. That is a plus.
Stop each day and think about something you are grateful for, that makes you happy… even when life sucks, it is worth making the effort try to put a bit of joy in your life. Won’t make your life suck any less, but you, at least, will have a moment of happiness. When life sucks, often making an effort to help others makes you feel better about yourself and sometimes, if you are lucky, they can help you in return (but don’t help others expecting anything in return).
Backstabbing others makes you unpopular. So does butt kissing, being a tattle tale, being mean (both directly to people and behind their backs)… high school can suck that way as so many people are insecure and try to feel better about themselves by putting others down. Nope. That tends to backfire. In the workplace doing those things often sets you up to be fired (besides being unpopular).
Don’t be too proud to do menial labor. I have an MBA and a PhD. I have also scrubbed the bilges of tankers in a shipyard in hot summer (and was the only female doing that), done manual labor in walmart’s parking lot in the deep south in the hot sun, have worked from 7am until midnight 7 days a week for weeks in a row, and cleaned a cow barn daily… it is what it is. When you work for someone they own you for those hours you are at work and it is your job to do the best job you can for whatever it is they are paying you to do (provided it is legal), with a smile on your face, even it sucks. If it sucks then find another job, give them 2 weeks notice and move on. It is easier to find a job from a job. Do not trash employers (current or the ones you left). The world is smaller than you think and it can come back to haunt you.
No matter what likely there will be people richer, “luckier”, have more cool stuff than you will have. Being envious just makes you unhappy. Some of life is a crap shoot. You can do everything right and the sky can still fall. So if that happens you pick yourself up and concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other while you try to dig yourself out of whatever ditch (or deep pit) you landed in. Sometimes you have to say to yourself “there are good reasons why I am trying to do/started doing X; that fact that I can’t think of any of them right now is not good enough reason to quit”.
And don’t forget to laugh. Laughing is good. It is hard to be unhappy, sad, miserable… when laughing. Oh and pets are a good source of unconditional love. But they are a responsibility, can put a crimp in your style at times, wreck your stuff (but then again so can kids), can live more years than you are alive right now (two of my cats are 16) and can be expensive.
Appreciate a pretty day, a blue sky, wind in your hair, sun on the water, rain storms, the sky at night… Be kind to yourself and to others. And for perspective think about the fact that we are a small dot on the earth, people lived for thousands of years before us and and likely will do so for thousands of years after us. Ask yourself, what would you like to be remembered for? Then try to accomplish that.
Oh and I forgot. Don’t post stupid stuff on the internet, nor complain about work. Anywhere. Get friends to untag you if they caught that funny photo of you having fun being an idiot with a drink in your hand. That has sunk too many employees, students (over half of the colleges search social media for students they plan to admit or give money to; potential employers do that too and some hire companies who specialize in doing that).
Do what you love, love what you do, and you will be much happier for all the days of your life.
Read desiderata. Think about it
http://mwkworks.com/desiderata.html
The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.
Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.
@thismyusername to be fair though, our parents did raise us so aren’t we kind of obliged to care what they think of us? Oh yeah, and cause they love us, bla, bla, bla
@elimanningface mom, quit posting on my wall please.
@thismyusername Well, you have to care a little. If you do things that make other people think of calling the cops, probably you should care about that. But for the most part, yeah, screw them; what do they know?
Just wing it.
…
Ok, maybe that only worked for me because I found programming, otherwise my life would probably suck right now.
@katylava it’s so weird seeing you without a flask next to your name.
@carl669 It’s so weird not seeing a flask in your hand.
Be nice to people. Try not to hold too much anger. That only ends up hurting you in the short and the long run. Walk away from situations that don’t feel right. Do what makes you happy if you can do it without hurting others. Laugh. A lot.
student loan debt is a criminal racket.
@meh
I’m not much older (OK, almost a decade older
) and will acknowledge I haven’t lived enough to say my advice is tried and true but if there’s one thing I will stand by it’s this:
Be fair to people, and hold yourself accountable when you can’t be. Remove yourself from those relationships if need be.
Also, I can’t take credit for this, but it’s something I strive to live by: Forgiveness is love. Those closest to you, are those who will always forgive you unconditionally, those who you love the most are those you will forgive the most from. Forgive wholly, or not at all.
I doubt anyone has read this far, but after 62 years here, I have three things I’ve learned from the best people I know:
When you do something, do it right. If you’re tempted to say, “That’s probably good enough,” it isn’t.
Be kind. When everyone around you is saying shit about someone, even if that person (Looking at you, Trump.) deserves it, say something nice.
Sometimes it’s hard, but try to do what’s right. And you know what’s right.
Everything after those things takes care of itself.
@Alecks my two cents, this is the advice I’d give my high school self after kicking my own ass if I were to ever build a time machine.
Apply yourself to your studies in high school. Do take honors courses. Do take as many Advanced Placement courses as you can. High school is your ticket to college if that is where you want to go and your grades and your pre-earned credits are your ticket to keeping your costs and debt down. Be sure to get involved in extracurricular activities too, they’re great for helping figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life. And whatever you do don’t let anyone tell you what to be. If you don’t want to go to college, don’t. Maybe your dream is to be a welder or a mechanic, follow your dreams.
Wait, I do have real advice for @Alecks!
Be honest. Be compassionate. Speak plainly. Treasure the people in your life.
These are all related to forging and nurturing strong connections.
Honesty really does get better results, as long as you are also compassionate. Honesty is also about being genuine (not pretending to be someone you’re not) which helps you find the right people to treasure. And the right job, school, community, etc. If you are honest and you are rejected by someone, then you know it is for the best, because you probably would have been unhappy with them in your life.
Speaking plainly reduces your chances of being misunderstood. It’s also about being direct and not dancing around difficult subjects. It’s one thing that lets others know you are trustworthy.
Treasuring the people in your life contributes more to your happiness than anything else. The happiest old people are those who can look back on their life and think of all the people they loved and the time they spent with them. I need to do this more myself. I live so far from the people I love and I hate talking on the phone, but I just need to do it, because they are important and I don’t want to regret not talking to them more.
That said, you have to be careful because some people will use all your energy and you won’t have any left for anyone else. Make sure you are devoting your energy to the right people – people who also devote energy to you.
You are probably overwhelmed with advice by now, but I hope there is still room in your brain for this, because with supportive people in your life you can make it through anything.
Eat lots of chocolate and fried foods, don’t sleep more than 4 hours a night and take up role playing game if you have not already done so.