Advice on Life

 

I told all of you about the book “Prudent Advice” a few blog entries ago and shared the author’s advice on love. I received several positive emails about that particular entry, so I think I will share with you my favourite ones about life in general.

Guilt is a paralytic emotion.
Guilt is not like shame, the experience of which teaches you something about your values. Guilt can be avoided in most cases by making a thoughtful choice and feeling confident in your decisions. If you realize later that you’ve made the wrong one, absorb the lesson, make appropriate amends, then put it behind you. Being paralyzed by guilt serves no one well.


Tend to your friendships, especially those with women.

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. Anais Nin

Resist the urge to chop your hair off.

Short hair is completely adorable; my point is in the “urge to chop” part. Usually the impulse to chop your hair off is about wanting a change in your life that has nothing to do with hair. Then you wake up the next day and everything is exactly the same…except your hair. That’s when the tears start.

 Learn how to take a compliment.

Gracefully. Although being self-deprecating can be humorous, a genuine compliment deserves a genuine thank-you. Brushing off a positive observation isn’t being humble; it speaks to an inner insecurity. Brush off enough compliments, and you’ll find you stop getting them.

Not everyone is going to like you, and that’s just fine.


If you’re asking yourself if you should have one more drink, the answer is NO.

If you don’t have a lot of money for clothing, consider putting what you do have toward shoes.
Good shoes can make you look put together even with inexpensive clothes, whereas cheap shoes can drag down a good outfit. Also, shoes are one of the few things that usually increase in comfort as they increase in price.

Politely but firmly question authority.


Don’t be afraid to use prodigious words.
Words are important and beautiful; so don’t dumb down your thoughts because you think people will regard you as pretentious. There is nothing wrong with big words. Just make sure you know what they mean.

Magic is real.

There are times you need to listen to the same song over and over.
It just means the song is helping to access something inside of you that you couldn't get to any other way.

The only problem you can solve by eating is hunger.

If you test people, they may fail.
Friendship, love and family don’t hinge on any single success or failure; you would do yourself a disservice to administer litmus tests to things as labyrinthine as love and affection.

Leggings are not pants.

Sometimes you have to cry it out.
A good crying jag can be cathartic. It’s a girl thing. Just don’t do it at work.

You will want some things that you will not get.
You don’t get everything you want in life. That’s all there is to say about that.

Take care of your teeth.
This is an incredibly boring piece of advice, but tooth pain is terrible, and unattractive teeth lead people to believe that you are uneducated. That’s just how it is.

Avoid clichés.
You are too smart; you don’t need them.

Champagne is for sipping.