I think every age group has something to teach every other. I wish I had written a similar thing when I was a teen, in my late 20s and maybe around 40. I may add to this when I am in my 60s. Every age group is right about many things, wrong about many, and we all see things differently.
The idea here is trying to give some short cuts, that I have learned. These are essentially things I wish I had known long before now. I’m not sure if the generation before me would have the same message, maybe not, but I am sure I might not have listened or at least not given it as much credit.
But this is my attempt to offer lessons learned and perspective from someone who has seen a lot and done a lot to those who have not had the chance to yet. Like my parents, not all will agree with all I have written here but that’s the beauty of individualism. It doesn’t mean what I have written is wrong. I’m also not the only one to think as I do. So if nothing else, it offers a window into how other people think.
I have also selected topics that are both general and or divisive. I try to offer insight that can hopefully add to anyone’s perspective. These are also some of the bigger topics that are either not discussed or not discussed enough.
Topics include: friendship, love, hatred, lust, sex, family, taking chances, trends, letting go, perspective, politics, religion, tragedy, violence, fear, fame, social media, justice/social justice, the press, bullies, war, the past, the future, yourself.
I have tried to show more than one side when possible. No one is completely neutral. I am very opinionated.
FAMILY
Family is a tough one. Maybe it is tougher for me to write about than it is a topic. I’m not sure I’m an expert on it. I can tell you though that family is not always defined by blood or genes.
For the most part, give family a break. Most family members are good people. They try hard but are imperfect. Again, give ‘em a break. BUT, in-case there is more going on than I know about, if they are treating you wrong, and I mean really wrong, not that they didn’t get you the car you wanted on your birthday, don’t keep it a secret.
Family does not always love you. You do not have to love your family. You don’t owe your family anything. That will piss some off but family should not be a debt. Yes, parents, most parents, good parents did a lot of work to bring you up and spent a lot of money. That was also their choice when they committed to a family.
What I’m saying may sound harsh but what I’m trying to say is, family should be an asset, not a debt. Many of the people I am closest to, I met later in life and made part of my family. I have friends I would die for. Some of you I made my family, well after you were born. Family can be a choice.
The biggest influence on you are those you grew up with, family or not. Even if you hate who you grew up with and want to be unlike them, by you choosing to not be like them, they have thus partially defined you. MOST people you grew up with had good traits. I won’t say that about all. I’ll say it about me. There are MANY things about me I hope you don’t copy. There are also many traits I would like to pass on.
FRIENDSHIP
Fiends are one of the most important additions you can make to your life. You will have good ones and bad ones and only a few, amazing ones. The amazing ones won’t always be around for long, like a shooting star they may light up your life briefly, but leave a lasting mark on you. A very few, truly amazing few may last a lifetime.
I know it seems cold but by the numbers, MOST people you will be friends with in your life will not remain your active friends for as long as you think. There are many times you will lose a large number of your friends at once.
When you move, you will very likely lose contact with your friends. The younger you are the more likely this is. Social media will help, but this is not a way to maintain friendships long term.
Another time you will lose track of many friends is when you graduate High School. People used to stay close to home after graduation but this is becoming less and less common.
One of the more recent developments is on-line friends. These relationships can be real, and you can genuinely care about the people but they are not a substitute for the real deal. On-line is a convenience and people are losing interpersonal skills that make for real and lasting connections.
I compare on-line friendships to puppy love. You can easily think it is far bigger than it is but in the end, when it ends, you realize they had very little real presence in your life so their absence is small. IF you can make an on-line friendship into a regular real world one then cool, other than that, they aren’t real friendships, they are stimulation and interaction.
New jobs, romantic relationships and families will fracture many existing relationships and demand more time you used to dedicate to friends. Don’t be scared by this, and don’t expect anyone else to forgo these changes to maintain friendships. Relationships and time will reshape us. Great friends will be a part of you, always.
Friendships take work.
Friendships need to be balanced over time.
Most friends will pass out of your life.
Your best friends, are often not who you expect them to be…
LOVE
Love BIG. Love HARD. Love completely…
If those words scare you, that’s ok. If those words excite you, be careful. But live them.
The first thing you should know is that love is not sex, and sex is not love. Love is about finding someone you slowly, but powerfully, want to have in your life in almost every way. Notice I said almost. Love does not mean giving yourself entirely, it means allowing a person in your life like no one else, even your family.
Love will change you. Love will forever change you. It will build you up, tear you down and will be some of the most powerful aspects of your life. It will scare you, scar you and it will also show you some of the most enduring beauty of the world.
Love is not expressed via text, or snap chat or emails. I know this sounds like I am out of touch but lemme make two points here.
First, there is NO substitute for in person words and the human touch. To SAY you love someone takes courage, every time. To text it, or simply make a heart with your hands in a snap chat image, is chicken and will feel temporary to the other person. If you don’t have the guts to say it, it isn’t real.
Love takes courage, be brave in how you express it.
Put it this way, the most cherished photos you will have, are not of others but of others with you. If you are not there, together, you are a spectator to the relationship.
Second, if you love someone, truly love them, then leave them real and tangible things to covet, to hold onto, to cherish. Think of it this way, I grew up writing love letters. Pen and paper, ink and courage. If I had passed away later, my girlfriend would have them to know, she was truly loved and could read the words I could no longer say. If emails are the most personal you two get, that’s fine, but I don’t consider them the same. You weren’t given a photo of a teddy bear when you were little; you got a real one.
Don’t express your undying love in a very temporary forum. That’s chicken shit.
This does bring up an issue more and more common in modern society; long distance relationships. I wont say don’t do it. I will say there MUST be a plan to come together, as quickly as possible. Love thrives in person, and struggles like a plant with no sun if left at a distance. Please don’t enter into a long distance love, without a plan to bring that love together as soon as possible.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you who you should or shouldn’t love. You didn’t choose, you fell like everyone else, without a plan. (that’s why it is a fall and not a jump) You can be too young for sex, but not too young for love. You cannot be too old for love. Love is not about reasonable thought or best fit or social standing, it is about being happy.
Love is not the same the world over or even for you in your lifetime. Love in 6th grade is very different than 12th grade. Love is different as an adult. Loving your spouse, is different than love for your kid, or your family, or a friend. Love is also different for every person, don’t judge.
If you are judging, you look and sound jealous.
If you are reading this and you are a teen, the love you know if you feel you are in love, is not the same as love you will feel later in life. We love differently when so young. IF and when it fails, IT WILL HURT. Not just your first love, which hurts and leaves a scar no matter your age, all love, if it fails, hurts. That’s ok. You’ll survive. Trust me, I know.
Don’t fear falling in love but don’t love foolishly. There are many kinds of love you will have in your life. You will love someone romantically, maybe several someone’s. You will love friends. You may love a mentor. You may love people you work with. These are all love but they are different. Learn the difference.
Don’t be scared to love. Don’t be scared if it fails. Most will. But you can love them completely and move on and always love them looking back. Too many divorced couples spend too much time hating. Just, love what you had but choose to move on. Hatred is such a waste.
Love bravely.
Love who YOU choose.
Love proudly.
BEAUTY
Both men and women can be beautiful.
Everyone is beautiful to someone.
Not everyone thinks you are beautiful.
Not everyone needs to.
You are beautiful.
It’s ok if you don’t always feel beautiful.
LUST
Lust is many things. The most provocative, of course, is sexual. We’ll start there. It’s important to know the difference between lust, love and lonely. Many people I know have set bad patterns in their life because they substitute one for the other. They all have their place but lust is the easy one to solve. It is also the most dangerous and least rewarding.
We all desire things or people. This is normal. Advertising is based on it and many of the things we have in our life but don’t need, can be accredited to lust in some form. Lust is not a bad thing, but is almost never what we make it out to be.
One thing to pay attention to is that lust is sometimes a symptom of emotional needs not being met. When we try to fulfill our emotional needs through physical experience, we will ALWAYS come up short.
Lust is not a cure for emotional need. That’s a rule, period.
I lusted after a Jeep for a long time but I made the things I needed priority, usually. So as you can see, lust is not always sexual. Things we desire to have or experience can be some of the best things in our lives.
Some people will philosophically say, desire the things you have, and you will be happy. I suppose that can be true but I know no one who always does that. Need never defines the things we have in our lives or we would only own and do the most economical things that simply meet needs. Yeah, no way to live and nothing I suggest aspiring to.
Lust can tell us what were missing in our life but it’s not always what were lusting for. I lusted after my Jeep but what I really needed was the ability to get into the back country and spend more time away from an increasingly busy, loud and claustrophobic world. The Jeep was a symbol and vehicle, literally, to meeting a need. This core need, could have been met other ways, but the Jeep is how I chose to meet it.
If you lust after someone, you have entered into a different situation we have all been in. Sometimes it leads to something amazing, usually not. I see lust relationships with people a lot like attending a concert. When hearing their music in your ipod, they sound perfect, on pitch and dream-like. In person, in concert, the energy can be amazing but the performance almost never lives up to your hopes.
Just remember that lust is almost always temporary and eventually, it becomes the seafood that stayed in the fridge too long.
SEX
I know that there is a lot to be said on this topic. This isn’t THE talk. That should be done in person, as a discussion, for there are many questions. I will tell you some major parts I think are often overlooked.
Sex isn’t a tool
Sex isn’t a weapon.
Sex isn’t insignificant.
Now I won’t tell you when or how or who or whatever … That’s for each person to decide. Sex can be part of a wonderful relationship or it can be something casual. I won’t tell you what it has to be, that is again, for each person to decide. I will tell you this though, casual is not meaningful. Life needs more meaning, not less.
There will be times in your life when things feel very powerful with someone and those times are amazing. There will be times when less is what is needed. We ebb and flow.
When there is pressure to have sex, sex is a bad idea. I’m not just saying someone else pressuring you, which is very wrong, usually the pressure comes from ourselves. The pressure to join in, or know what others know is not as important as it being meaningful. If you are pressuring yourself to have sex, slow down. There should never be pressure to have sex, from anyone.
So let’s shift gears and stop talking about sex specifically and consider intimacy. Sex is part of intimacy, but far from it all or even the most important. Holding hands and kissing can be far more intimate, than sex. It isn’t something you have to hide. But again, they should never be used as a weapon or a tool.
Sex will happen in its own time, naturally.
Don’t rush to it or through it.
TAKING CHANCES
This is simple, TAKE CHANCES! Ok, not all of them. Take chances that have meaning to you. Ask that person out that you have been wishing would ask you. Apply for the job you want. Plan for and schedule the trip you keep thinking about. Chase some dreams.
Dreams don’t usually pay the bills so you cannot be too crazy but there’s nothing wrong with chasing some dreams. The dreams are the things you wish were in your life. The best way to add the things you wish you had is to go after them. Some people make a career out of a dream they have. Some become defined by the dreams they chase, in a good way.
The best advice I can tell you is that most of the amazing times I have had have been built out of dreams. Most of the things that friends love to talk about in regards to me are related to the dreams I have chased. Some of the best times I have had have been in the pursuit of dreams.
HATRED
Don’t hate.
It’s such an easy ‘go to’ emotion that’s so over used. We hate this or that or those people because they are different or said something you don’t agree with or because hatred is easier than love cause hatred wont let you down. It’s the emotion of the weak. It is also the emotion of hurting yourself and others. No one ever hated another in a good way. No one ever hated someone and got a positive outcome.
Modern society acts as if you only have two choices when it comes to people; Hate or love. Reserve your love for VERY few. Hatred should be even less. If you want to hurt someone, one you have some issues there but two, ignore them, don’t care about them at all. Hatred is a powerful emotion that takes more from you than them.
One thing to remember, hatred demonstrates a passionate connection. You cannot hate someone you don’t care about; so don’t gimme that.
We can dislike a choice made by someone. We can hate words spoken by someone. But to truly hate that person, even if they are the complete opposite of every value you hold dear, means they have power over you and got inside you. To hate someone, means they own you. If you know someone who speaks words that make your blood boil, the most powerful thing you can do, is to walk away and ignore them.
I have always felt flattered by those who have hated me. I felt special that they gave me so much time and energy. Hating someone gives them a lot of attention. As a client of mine once said, “Don’t let someone you hate, live in your head.”
You are better than hatred.
Hatred is a waste of your time.
LETTING GO
Loss sucks. As I have mentioned, most of the people in our lives will exit our lives. The loss you feel when someone or a dream is lost, is real. It isn’t childish. You are human. And real.
The key is that mourning and feeling empty and missing someone are all healthy things to do and experience. But they also must be temporary things we do. I’m not saying that mourning and missing someone can only be for a certain time then you forget and move on, but the loss cannot dominate your life or define it. Life cannot be about our losses.
This is a very personal thing so I wont tell you how to deal with loss or change, but it is healthy to be able to let go and move on, but also healthy to stop and reflect and mourn loss, even the loss of a dream.
FREE SPEECH
Yes this is a topic in politics but we’ll get to that later. The reason I’m bringing this up is that it’s so common that conflict starts with what someone says. The spoken word is one of the most powerful tools in the world. But I want you to think about what is powerful words and what isn’t; more importantly, why and how.
Consider this: for some within religion, the most powerful works they know are from their dogma. These words can literally inspire a lifetime for some. For others, political speeches are the most powerful words ever spoken, and worthy as well as some in religion, as being engraved in granite. For still others it is lyrics sung, or poems, or written on the pages of an amazing book.
If powerful words are universal, then why do not the same words move everyone the same? Why do some words change some lives and mean nothing to others. Why do some words provoke outrage, and others nothing at all. There are no impotent words. There are also no universally powerful ones.
The reason words are powerful is we assign value to them. Sometimes it is the word, sometimes it’s who said it, or when, or directed at who. I have read and even written some very powerful words. But the ones with the most power are the ones either said by the people who mean the most to me, or by people I don’t like.
Don’t let words define your emotions or people. Most words that provoke emotions, called trigger words, are just words. We assign value to them ourselves. There are certain ones that can provoke response, but it was not always so.
No word has always been divisive, nor always will be. Words also have different meaning in different languages and cultures so if words or people are provoking powerful emotions, it is more about us than the word or those who spoke them.
As you get older you will find certain people in your lifetime, have made a life out of being triggering. Some in my life, usually in politics or religion, have made an entire career out of saying triggering things. That is their chosen role in life. I used to listen, I stopped somewhere when I discovered I didn’t really care since they were just trying to evoke an emotion from others. (remember hatred)
There are others who will say things that boil your blood. Your mistake will be making them powerful to you. We can say mostly, anything we want. Freedom of speech is a Constitutional right. If you feel that people should not be able to say some things, first consider what you should not be allowed to say. If your own answer is nothing, then consider what you expect of others. And grow up.
The only way your own freedom of speech is protected is for it to be universal. If you feel that this freedom should not be universal, then come talk to me, I did something very wrong in your life and we need to work on it. But you are free to think, and speak, as you like, regardless of me.
The way to limit the power of triggering words, is to remove your emotional connection to them. You can hold the other ‘accountable’ to the words they said, but it is you that makes them powerful, not them. Words are just words; and this is coming from someone who has written over a million words in his life.
Never in history have words been spoken that were known to be as powerful as they became. Never in history, has anyone been universally powerful, by the spoken word. Never has society been so limited, than by assigning power to words not worthy of the power.
The freest societies have free speech.
The most oppressed, started by limited free speech.
TRENDS
Trends can be fun. If they aren’t fun they aren’t a trend you need to acknowledge. Trends can be used to divide or to define and they are almost always wrong. In reality I don’t know any trend that has defined accurately but I don’t know every trend so …
If you feel the need to follow a trend to ‘keep up’, then step back and get to know yourself better. If you have friends who feel that you must follow the trends to be accepted, find new friends.
To be confident enough to be yourself, no matter what others say, is far more powerful than to be one of the herd, that all look or act similar just to be accepted. We all want to be accepted so it’s an understandable idea but we also want to be ourselves, and we cannot be ourselves if you are like so many others.
Trends also circle. Fashion comes around again about every 30 years. The 2010’s teens did not invent cut jeans, that was an 80s thing on a return trip. Some of the 80s style I grew up in was a return of 50s style, such as leather jackets. There are always outliers in style, including music and fashion and what entertainment you like but that’s because there is broad taste.
I can tell you that if you have seen movies that try to represent the 80s that were written in the 2000s, they are very wrong. Movies made in the day are more realistic but still microcosms. I could not relate to Valley Girl, neither could most anyone not in Southern California, but I could relate to The Breakfast Club. Whatever you may think was accurate of an era in the past, is inaccurate. The reason is we think trends define an era, and they don’t. Most people were between trends, not with them.
They key is to have fun, not conform unless you want to. I promise when you look back on your past, you may cringe but if you had fun, who cares. At the time of this writing, luckily the mullet has not made a return trip, but I had one and liked mine!
If I had hair, I’d have hair like Sam Elliot. Or more specifically, Wade Garrett (look him up).
POLITICS (Notice it comes after trends, big clue there)
Politics is another tough one. There are a few things to keep in mind though. Politics is a business. There is a range of what that means. Some politicians are truly trying to serve. But they serve by raising revenues for their district and they must constantly fund raise, A LOT. On the other end of that range is the politicians who are getting very wealthy by taking pay offs and bribes but more often manipulating public policy to favor businesses they have interest in. This is as true when you read this as it ever was. This is not new.
I know this sounds cynical but the Government does not serve you. The Government’s job is to serve the Nation first. It protects its assets and positions itself favorably for gain in a global political and economic system. The second job of the government is to protect itself. Sounds silly or obvious maybe but with no government, there is no nation so from the government’s position it must preserve itself. The third job is to protect the nation’s political and economic allies to help ensure national security and stability.
Notice what is missing from the above paragraph? Where do you fall into the hierarchy? You are also protected, as a resource. A nation runs on its population. We are taxed and manufacture and fight in wars to protect our nation’s interests. We are a resource, like food. I’m not being cynical, I am being very honest and this is true of EVERY nation.
Ask yourself this; if a government serves an industry and the government does so to serve itself, then what will it serve itself and industry with? In other words, what resource are they using to serve the given needs? You.
Who individual politicians serve is varied. Corporations contribute MASSIVE amounts of money to candidates. In 2018 the Koch brothers spent 400 million dollars on a mid-term election alone. They expect something for that. They do not have anymore votes than you or me though. So the politician must also court your vote. All they really need is your vote. After that they just need to not get caught doing something but that rarely happens from the people who vote for them. The press usually catches them. (see the first amendment) We complain about broken campaign promises; see again, politicians must court your vote but do not serve you.
Now, with all that said, your nation is not likely to fall into anarchy or civil war anytime soon. It can feel that way as a teen or young person and there have been times we have teetered on the brink of drama. But even in the great depression, we were not close to collapse.
There is a flip side to this as well. The government has an interest in either manipulating its population or nudging it in directions to let the government pursue its desired goals that may not be accepted, understood or popular with the population. The usual way is through fear.
The 20th century was great at this. We went through a time of isolationism and ignored the world so we turned to fearing the wealthy of our own nation and demonizing things like alcohol and gambling. When Japan attacked us we were finally forced to look outside our own borders. After WWII, we feared communism, first inside our own boarders, then outside. Right after the cold war ended we found the Middle East and Muslims, then terrorism … seamless transitions of identified fears. Always someone to fear…
All of them were always there before and yet never feared, until that fear was needed. All of this permitted the government to wage wars solidify power it wanted to, rather than needed to.
Consider this, if we are fearful enough of terrorism, then a government can get away with mining your personal information in the name of security. Terrorism did not make that happen, our government did. That data mining serves their preservation, not our freedom. Remember, we are a resource.
At the time of this writing, Syria and the issues there, are almost never talked about. However the events that were going on there and always in the news 2-4 years ago are still going on. So why the change in what the news is reporting? Because reporting it no longer serves the needs it met before.
I am NOT saying government is bad or the root of all evil. It is a necessary evil though. See it for what it is and don’t go to an extreme. See the whole picture and use your common sense. If the government is telling you to be scared, ask yourself why they want you to be scared and how does it serve them. The government never told the US citizens to fear Nazi’s, they told us we will overcome. Empowerment is NOT identifying a group to fear, that is oppression.
We have been told to fear terrorists. We have been told to fear Communism. We have been told to fear Mexicans. We have been told to fear specific people like The Shaw of Iran, Saddam Hussain, Kim Jong-il, Muslims, minorities, illegal immigrants … while most never materialized to much of an actual threat to us as a people. Terrorists never fail to solidify a population against them.
The reason we were told to fear them, was to permit the government to do what THEY wanted, to serve its own agenda. The Iraq war was based on false documents to serve a political/economic need. Not to protect us, the fear was the permission slip.
The running of any nation is a dirty business. It is not what most want to see or know about. Government is good at keeping the nation going. By serving itself and preserving itself, it also serves and preserves its population. You can see many, many times when nation’s leaders killed its own population en-mass, and the nations collapsed. Eventually …
Your nation will protect you. You can trust it as much as an in-law. When your interests serve its interests or does not get in the way of theirs and may garner votes, it will serve your interests. That’s the best I have on Politics.
TAXES
Stop making taxes an assault on your freedom. Without them in ample supply, freedom cannot be ensured. Those who feel we are too highly taxed, are ignorant of how government works. But again, freedom of speech. We are the least taxed nation in the world, other than Switzerland. And we have the highest debt. That debt WILL come due, all of a sudden. It WILL be crippling.
TRAGEDY
Tragedy will happen. It will happen often. It will happen in far away lands to people you know little about and it will happen in your own life. First thing to understand is not everything unfortunate is a tragedy, at least not to all. Children and puppies die. Innocent people die uselessly. Bad people also live full lives.
156,000 people die a day as of this writing. Loss must be personal to be tragic.
I will never tell someone what they should care about or feel the impact of deeply. There will be and likely have been some seminal events in our shared culture we can say, “where were you when”. I have had several for my lifetime, Challenger disaster and 9/11 are big ones. Locally Columbine HS was a big one still referred to.
I can say this; usually the tragedy is not as bad as it feels at first. Sometimes it keeps getting worse. But how you feel when it happens is not how you will always feel, nor how you will feel about the event for all time.
Tragedy is personal. Your feelings will not be the same as others about the same event even if you experience that event right next to them. Tragedy is also to be moved on from eventually. There will be another. But more importantly, tragedy cannot diminish the joy that life has to offer. We experience it and sometimes it takes a while to move on from it, but plan to. Do so. Live on.
VIOLENCE
It feels like a violent world. That sucks. That DOES NOT mean most people are violent. Most aren’t. Most people are good and well meaning and can be trusted. But the world is fascinated with violence. America is more so than most nations I have visited. Our TV is more violent, our movies are more violent and our video games are VERY violent. Many sports are also violent.
I’m not saying that the Middle East is not violent, or East Africa. They are as well but that’s an odd club to be in. Violence should not be something we grow used to. Violence cannot be a culture. Violence is used to force someone to change. Violence is meant to project ones beliefs on another. “Agree or pay the price”.
We accept violence in many ways. Entertainment is the most common. We see thousands of shootings by the time we are 30 years old. Domestic Violence is shown on police shows and movies with regular occurrence. For a long time, domestic violence was the mainstay of programming on networks aimed at women.
Sports are also often violent. The risk is part of what sells some sports. I spent over a decade in racing and the risk was part of the appeal. I actually feel that auto racing has become too safe. I know that sounds odd but it comes from another point I often make about violence.
There are two kinds: Violence we impose on someone else and there is the risk we accept knowingly to pursue certain interests. The first is never good. The second is fine in my opinion, if the person understands and accepts the risk. I accepted the risk involved in auto racing, but it would be unacceptable if I punched someone who felt I was foolish for risking myself in such a way.
Try not to be shocked by the violence we see in culture. It will help you see events more clearly. But violence should and will still shock you.
FEAR
I could stay as simple as FDR’s opinion on it: “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” But if you think I will just leave it at that, you really don’t know me that well. That statement was made by Roosevelt in his first inaugural address in 1932 and the nation was in a depression. He was inspiring people to not be frozen in fear but to act and keep working. It’s a good message.
Fear is your early warning system. Anyone who says they are fearless is wrong and a fool. Please extract them from your life, they are dangerous. If we are alive we have listened to our fear. People can appear fearless and I won’t get into how nervous systems work but there are kinds that show fear far less, even if they feel it.
Also, with experience we lose some or a lot of fear and show it less. Pilots were all scared when they first flew alone, but over time most become comfortable in what used to scare them. The first time you drive a car can be terrifying, but in time, it is normal and can be done easily.
You were scared when you first did things because with no or little experience, you are not sure how to do them well. Even with experience, fear can still show you what you are doing is important and you value doing it well.
Fear is not a bad thing even if people tell you it is a weakness. Those who say that, are the most scared. Have sympathy for them. I was still occasionally scared in a racecar even after a decade of racing. But instinct and skill born from experience kept me from most accidents.
Listen to your fear but do not let it run your life, or love or keep you from change you desire. A life lived in fear will leave you with nothing but regrets.
REGRET
This is not a simple issue. There are people that will tell you to live everyday without regret. That’s impossible so forget that. It is an impossible thing to do and a meaningless statement. This is more of a sales pitch, not a possibility. ALL lives have regret. We can see our past failings in the context of what we learned and make positives of them and I am proud of my scars, but every person has regrets.
To minimize regret is GREAT. I don’t have many but I have some whoppers. Everyone I know has them. Think of it this way. Say you had a bad day at home and later you snap at a coworker based on the issues at home, if you do not regret being rude to your coworker then you are likely to repeat it. Someone who doesn’t have many regrets has little conscious. That’s very bad.
Ok, so what do you do with regret? You make lemonade. I have done things I wished I had not. Some of them I didn’t feel like I had many other choices, but we always have choices. Some I did based on best information at the time. Some I did out of negligence or even being mean. Some, I was just stupid. Learn from them.
Regret is like fear, it is trying to tell you something. Listen. Sometimes it will tell you to do it different next time. Sometimes it’s too late to have another opportunity but you may be able to apply the lesson learned to something current.
If regret is weighing on you like guilt, own it. Own it and it will become a positive, or at least less of a negative. This will take courage, but it will also make you strong. Others will always respect you to some degree.
RESPECT
This will be an easy one. Respect is earned and yes it is deserved. But respect is also conditional. Everyone deserves respect unless they have either taken advantage of it, abused it or in the most common case where respect is lost, act like it is not conditional.
Give respect to get it.
Respect does not mean trust. You can respect a person for something they have done that is hard, but that does not mean they can be trusted to act the same way for you or anyone else. Also, horrible people have done amazingly wonderful things. Just as wonderful people have done horrible things.
Life is not very straight forward.
MARRIAGE
First rule: Take it seriously. It is work. It is teamwork. It is also a lifelong commitment that if you are not willing to make, then don’t even start.
Second rule: If you ever find yourself saying before you get married, “If it doesn’t work, I’ll just get a divorce.” Don’t. I’m not saying don’t get one, I’m saying never go into marriage with that as your plan. You will need it if you do and you have no idea how bad a divorce can be, even among people who love one another. There is nothing ‘just’ about a divorce.
Marriages can be called a contract and in many states, legally that’s exactly what they are. You combine assets, meaning property, cash time and work, to make a single life together. It’s a beautiful thing.
There WILL be bad times. There will be stress. There will be times when things seem to be against you. Part of marriage is working TOGETHER and managing or solving these issues.
I am a research person, so I’ll work from this angle as well. The most important thing for a marriage to work is proximity. That means that the two of you need to spend time together. This is why the military has such a high divorce rate. It doesn’t mean if you are not traveling this is not an issue; being apart because one or both of you work so much is also lack of proximity.
The biggest single stress on a marriage is money. If you make money a major part of your marriage, you risk your marriage based on the ups and downs of fortune. If money and success is part of your marriage dynamic, so be it, but there will likely still be financial stress.
Know what ‘the honeymoon phase’ is. This is the usually euphoric state that follows for 3-6 months after the honeymoon when your marriage seems magical and perfect. It will fade, but that doesn’t mean your marriage in waning. It means your marriage is following a healthy path.
I won’t tell you how to make your marriage work, there is no set plan but I will say that communication is the most overlooked, and most important requirement of marriage. Two people who will spend the rest of their life together and likely the most time with one another have to have some way to communicate effectively. There is no one way, but find a way that works for BOTH of you.
Marriage is a two way street. Sometimes one will need more than the other but it cannot always be that way. If you feel invisible or feel the other should be, I suggest counseling.
There is another part, which will lead to the next section… IF things are unsafe or beyond repair, make a plan and leave. An unsafe marriage is no marriage. Abuse, be it physical, verbal, emotional, sexual or financial has no place in a marriage.
If you have time, consult a lawyer first. Know how to do it best. But before it gets to that point, work TOGETHER to solve or manage issues. If only one of you is working, it is not a marriage.
CHILDREN
Children are often the best part of an adult’s life. They will make your life fuller, more entertaining and more challenging. They are also the biggest commitment you will ever make. If you are not ready to focus your life around them, don’t have them or at least not yet.
Things will come before children, sorta. The bills need to be paid. Medical issues may demand kids be handed off in an emergency. That’s ok, as long as it is temporary.
Children will be THE most demanding and important aspect of your life once you choose to have them. They will be your priority in almost or all of the things you do after you have them. They will consume time, money, resources, patience, understanding and change your life forever. Be ready for that.
They will also be the most amazing and fulfilling aspect if your life and provide you with many or most of your best memories. The pride you will feel in your own children will not be equaled in anything or anyone else. They will be more important than anyone else in your life, and you’ll make that choice without even knowing it.
I know whoopses happen, but please, plan for your children as much as you can. They will change your life regardless but being ill prepared only makes it harder on all of you. They deserve a great childhood and parents as much as you did.
Encourage them to compete in things that interest them. DO NOT HOPE FOR PARTICIPATION RIBBONS! Jobs are competition and if they do not learn to deal with competition, you are denying them adulting skills. They need chores and expectations, again, adulting skills. Teach them responsibility and consequences or life will kick them in the butt as adults. If you do not do these, you have only taught them dependency.
This is a hard one in my generation but the lessons are frequent enough to know it is an issue, you should never be ‘best friends’ with your kids. That’s a copout for you as a parent. Be a damn parent! This doesn’t mean you cannot go to concerts with them or hang out casually as adults later in life but your kids have friends, and best friends, and you are and should always be, their parent. They can find a friend, they only have one mom and one dad, don’t take that away.
NEVER plan for your children to raise eachother. They deserve a childhood and DO NOT have the skills to raise one another or themselves. If you neglect them, I will step in. COUNT ON IT.
Teach them to ride a bike, no one does that anymore …
DIVORCE
If your marriage comes to this, I am sympathetic. There are several things to remember in divorce:
1 – Always consult a lawyer. You may not know the laws in your state and you could delay the process if you do not follow the procedure.
2 – It will likely not be as easy or as amicable as you hope. Many divorce s are horrible. Some are disgusting.
3 – It is NOT a competition where you try and screw the other as much as possible. If you want to, go for it but it is ugly and few or no one will want to hear about your desire to ‘fuck over’ the other person.
4 – You will lose touch with friends: It’s just a fact. Some will choose to remain closer friends with one or the other of you. That is THEIR choice and not your right to ‘own’ them. Some will walk away from you both. Again, that is their right and they did not do anything wrong if they chose to do so.
5 – Few people will want to hear about your divorce. Some friends will listen and give you an ear and support and thank god, but divorce is ugly, fractious, and personal for all. Divorce is painful for ALL connected to it.
If you have kids and you are not protecting them and doing best for them, check yourself. Having children means you committed your life to serving them as a parent/adult/role model. Be an adult. Be a parent. Be a role model. DO NOT make them a pawn in your divorce they may not have asked for, hoped for or understand.
Children are always hurt by divorce.
Children will be angry at times.
Children won’t understand.
They are not a sounding board for YOUR divorce, no matter their age.
Children are NOT a pawn in your divorce.
Be an adult and I will give you a piece of my mind if I find you seeing it as a competition, or finding glee in hurting someone. I will step in if you are hurting or ignoring your children in the process. If need be, I will step in legally to protect them if you forget to.
FAME
Don’t be impressed by fame. I have met some famous people and some VERY famous people. They were either as normal as you and me or they were fake as hell. Either way, there is no need to be impressed with them. You can respect what they have done or be impressed with their contribution but to place someone on a pedestal, means they do not have to live to the same rules and that is wrong.
Some will seek fame because they want to feel love. That’s fine, their choice but that is no reason to give them your attention. To be impressed with someone for being famous makes no sense. To be impressed with someone cause they are well known, makes no sense. Charles Manson was well known, and famous … does he demand your respect?
People can also be famous for being famous. Being famous is not that hard. Being famous for a reason you want to be is hard. Don’t be greatly impressed with little.
We don’t divide on any one thing, universally. Fame is a slippery slope. We tend to judge famous people differently, and we tend to give them credit where it is often not earned. I have had several people in my life I have admired. Some were famous and I never met them but I can only judge them for what I know and that’s fine. I should not assume what I admire them for is everything about them.
Fame is usually fleeting and never the whole story. Most people who are famous in your life right now, won’t continue to be so. Fame is often like a trend, there are people who come and go. Some will be famous throughout your life but they are rare.
Still, there are people who have been famous my whole life and several I don’t respect. Some I do respect. Most I really have no opinion on. Feeding fame should be someone else’s job.
HEROES/MENTORS
We all have and need hero’s and mentors. You will choose your own. It is not uncommon to first identify with the hero’s of our parents but eventually we find our own. They aren’t always someone we want to be like, or wish we were. They are usually people that either exemplifies traits we respect or people who help us fulfill our own self image.
First thing to know about ALL hero’s and mentors; they are all flawed. We tend to see what we want to see and eventually have to see more. Flawed is fine. Were all flawed. In high school I wrote about the noble flaw and how it is sold as a bad thing; the thing that will bring down our hero. I see them as the thing that makes people noble. Without flaw, we cannot identify with them. Perfection has flaws. So do our hero’s.
With that in mind, seek out people who can teach you along the way to your goals. Your parents have been in that role for a long time but everyone has a limited pallet to draw from. I learned basic auto mechanics from my father. It wasn’t long before I surpassed him and had to learn on my own. Then I found other car people who I could learn with, not from. Then when I started racing I learned more from my crew chief and I found a specific racing mentor, who eventually also sponsored me. Learning is an evolution. I surpassed that mentor in many areas as well.
Eventually, I became a mentor, and a teacher and a coach and the cycle continued. My father didn’t learn his mechanics from his father, he learned it on his own. But he handed it down, and I handed down and somewhere there are people who know something about mechanics and racing because my father taught himself how to work on a car.
Perhaps the greatest testimony to anyone who teaches you, is when you realize they have taught you enough to not always need them. My first race without my crew chief placed huge demands on me. I did well, not because he wasn’t there, but because I learned enough from him, to succeed even if he could not be there. When my racing mentor died, it was scary, but I also realized I was moving on beyond him. So did he. As a former track record holder he was my benchmark. Soon after he died, I surpassed his record. He would have been proud. But he was still my mentor.
Hero’s are a tougher deal in a way. When we name someone a hero, an over used term nowadays, we elevate them to a higher plane of importance and influence. Pick your hero’s carefully and don’t be reluctant to drop them. I have had very few in my life. Usually, they have earned the status due to a long term demonstration of values I both respect, and seem uncommon in some way.
The reality is that not everyone can be a hero. When I was a kid, after seeing my first race, most racecar drivers were heroes to me. I saw them as knights. When I became a racer, I refined my list to those I felt raced bravely. They stood out once I knew what to look for.
Today, my list of hero’s is short but, some may be reading this.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media is here to stay. DO listen to the idea that anything you put online is there forever. I’m sure this is not always true, but post that way. Send that way. You have or soon will see evidence of this.
As mentioned, on-line relationships are not substitutes for real ones. If you want them to see something private, be with them in private when you show them. There is NO privacy in on-line or electric communications. EVERY digital photo is fully transmittable.
Remember that on-line communication is best used to enhance a real relationship or substitute for real connection when appropriate. It is only a tool, not the real world.
Comment threads and chat rooms are not real world nor do they represent real world opinions. I’m not saying that the emotions are not mostly authentic, they are, but people speak on-line with more brazen disconnect from reality than they almost always do in reality. Also, not everyone posts on-line equally. Those confident and comfortable in their opinions in reality are far less likely to post them in a chat or on-line. Remember, on-line is only a tool for the emotionally and socially healthy. It can be the whole world for the unhealthy. Think about that…
I think the idea here is to understand that anonymity or distance from you via on-line communications can make people artificially brave and thus inauthentic. They will say things they would not normally say in person, even if they claim they would. There is an off button on whatever device you are on-line with. Don’t argue. Unplug.
Never send or post anything you don’t want to be spread around the world. There have been private images sent that end up on porn sites. Your bosses may attempt to cruise your social media pages. The people who are considering hiring you WILL. I promise.
Every email, every text, every message sent electronically can be captured and stored and forwarded later to someone else. If you ever doubt this, sit in a divorce hearing.
ENJOY social media. Use it right. Have fun. Be smart.
JUSTICE/SOCIAL JUSTICE
The law is not always fair. The law is not applied equally. I know this sounds cynical but it is not intended that way. It’s just the reality that will become evident. The law protects the rich more than the poor. The law prosecutes the poor more than the rich. There are not equal prosecutions for rich and poor, white and minorities, connected and not. Justice is NOT blind.
Also realize, the law is not Justice. Justice is what happens by when the law is enforced. The purpose of the law is not to prosecute, it is to prevent. It is a set of limits we’re expected to respect. Most do, most of the time. All laws are broken. Some are broken often, like speed limits. Every law is broken everyday. We don’t fund our police forces with enough money to be fully staffed and they are often behind on technology. They CANNOT catch all offenders even when they know the law has been broken. There are also many times, if not most, when they are not even aware a law has been broken.
Law officers are human. That means they are just as mistake prone as you or me. We can ‘expect’ that this is not acceptable in life and death situations but again, they are human. Here is the other side; police investigate THEMSELVES when shootings take place. That is not justice. That is done to control the fall out. There are many times the law has been wrong but did not punish itself. That includes deaths. If I kill someone unjustly, I can be convicted, if a police officer does so, even off duty, they are usually retired with pension and VERY rarely prosecuted in a criminal way and almost never found guilty.
Now I am not saying the law is wrong. I’m not saying to not trust it. Most police officers I have met have been honorable people doing a very hard job. But many of the legal cases I have been connected to were miscarriages of justice. The guilty get away with A LOT. Do not expect justice to satisfy you. It often won’t.
Another thing to remember, I have been in the middle of a couple investigations. Law officers can lie to you, and will. Law officers can manipulate you, and will. Law officers can and will play games, in the name of an investigation. They are very good liars. They will make you feel guilty, even if you are not.
I will make one thing very clear in contrary to what is often said, if you are being investigated, get a lawyer. Innocent people get lawyers. Movies, TV shows and law officers will try to convince you otherwise; they are lying. Also, evoking a lawyer does not mean questioning will stop, nor has to. But once you HAVE a lawyer, they cannot question you without one.
I’m not saying this expecting you to need one, but I know very few people who have never needed a lawyer.
Knowing all this is not a permission slip to make your own justice. Social justice is usually in itself a miscarriage of justice and you are usually breaking laws to exact revenge. There is also a good rule, the second person in a fight is usually the one that gets caught. You have no excuse when you are caught exacting social justice.
I have broken the law. I have broken significant laws. I have also exacted social justice. I have done so to the tune of a lot of money. I was wrong to break laws. I was wrong to cost people when I broke laws. The social justice I have exacted, never got me justice.
I touched on revenge. Revenge is not a profitable pursuit. “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves”. This is true for the most part. Revenge is not about justice, it is about your own pain. Revenge won’t cure it.
The most powerful people in the world have a common skill. The ability to walk away.
THE PRESS
The press has an important national role. Free Press is mandatory for a free state. But do not always accept the press as purely honorable or professional. Like police officers, there are many very good and honorable journalists. There are also opportunists and there are scumbags.
In my life I have rarely seen national attention for a missing poor black teenager; or a missing homely white woman, or for almost any boy. Rarely have Search and Rescue operations seeking men been well known, but make it a woman and it likely is. Make it a young white blonde girl, and the world will likely know. Make it a young, blonde, attractive wealthy woman and it is a national tragedy. You get my point.
Truth be fair, most that go missing are girls/women. This is just an example I am giving to show that the press is not an unbiased reflection of the events around us. The news is a cherry picked selection that will sell commercial time. Consider that only yesterday, I saw a news report regarding the imminent winter storm with predicted snow falls of … 1 inch.
Tragedy happens in clusters. Not natural disasters, there is no law of threes, but there is clusters of mass shooting types. Mass shootings in general have no cluster because they happen almost daily. I honestly don’t know if it is attention by the press that popularizes the idea or if the press focuses on ones that happen most days anyhow until they are no longer popular stories. Yes, I said that mass shootings, (4 or more dead in a single event) happen MOST days in the US. They do.
NEVER assume the news is all that is happening. They focus on what sells. (if it bleeds it reads) They will ride a story until it is dead, dead, dead. They will ignore other stories while they focus on what they know is selling. They will also focus on divisive angles to every story, so be aware that they ARE trying to divide listeners not only because they have a political agenda, but because division makes discussion which makes interest which makes ratings.
I have been interviewed many times and they will choose the sound bites THEY want, not that YOU want. They will make the story THEY want, not the one you want to tell. The reason is simple, they will SELL your story.
Also, and this will piss off some but do not blindly believe what the politically driven press says about the press. The press is not liberal. That is the oldest lie in American journalism. If you cannot be bothered to look up who owns the news stations you listen to then you deserve to be fooled. At the time of my writing this, there is NO liberal news agencies. There are news agencies owned by very conservative companies that are pretty neutral. And there are news agencies that are so conservative they should be painfully obvious.
I’m not saying this to tell you one or another party is bad I am saying if you just believe things you are told about or by the press, you will live an ignorant life. If you hope to be or expect to be told the neutral news as gospel, you are exactly the listener they are marketing. Your choice.
BULLIES
Bullies Suck.
I know this will sound contradictory but bullies are weak. They are intimidated by others and scared to show they have weaknesses. There is only one solution. You stand up to them. I’m not saying you fight them, I’m saying you stand up to them.
Bullies are skilled at finding issues that make each person weaker. We all have some and at certain ages, we tend to have similar ones. We’re all insecure. We’re all scared of something. We’re all hiding something. Bullies may not have great insight into you and thus manipulate you, they likely observe and poke and when they see or find a weakness, they exploit it.
The defense is to recognize what you are experiencing that they are triggering and understand that this is not the end all, be all, definition of you. We all have weaknesses.
If what they find as a trigger is something you can at least pretend to not care about as a flaw, then they lose their power. It will also help you deal with future bullies. There will be more.
The other part of bullies that sucks is they don’t all grow out of it. Adults have bullies too sometimes. Same defense. Same solution.
Stand up to them.
WAR
War is the act of killing other people for political and or economic gain. There are occasionally wars of ideology such as religion as well but there is usually a political element there and many, including myself, put politics and religion in the same bed.
If the idea of killing other people, soldiers, civilians, kids, animals and any or all life that is in the way does not appeal to you or if you think I am over-simplifying it, you need to look at war harder for yourself.
There is a fact you need to embrace before you think war is a simple answer. Each soldier, every soldier is trained to kill humans efficiently, coldly, brutally at times and without regard whenever possible. In order to train a soldier to have the best odds of coming home, they will be trained to kill humans. ALL soldiers. It changes a person forever.
We as a nation have already demonstrated we struggle with compassion for these soldiers when they return home, after doing exactly what their nation asked them to do. The answer is have compassion before we go to war.
When we go to war, I believe we must go to war completely. I’m not saying nuclear weapons, I mean commit to a clear purpose and timeline and have an exit plan and give our soldiers and commanders ALL they need to achieve these goals as quickly as possible and then get out of their way. Soldiers should never want for equipment when we choose to go to war.
All wars started in the 20th century were for political or economic gain. NOT as defense. If you want to see the bigger truth, read about The Pentagon Papers as it applies to Vietnam. Read about the real origins of 9/11 and the fake causes of war in Iraq that came as a result. Read not just domestic sources but foreign sources.
Another reality to consider when beating a war drum is, are you committed enough to this war that if it comes home, across our borders, will you still believe in the cause? It is easier to believe in war when it is fought in someone else’s back yard. It is also easier when the death and destruction are easily ignored.
War is never simple.
All wars kill and most deaths are civilians.
All wars are inhuman.
All weapons only have one purpose, to end life as efficiently as possible.
We as a nation have little appreciation of the true cost of war. We have only had two wars fought on our own land. One additional in the war of 1812 but it was minor. The civil war is the closest of those.
In the entire history of the US, we have not lost less than 1 million soldiers in war, at least at the time of my writing this. The Russian losses alone in the battle of Stalingrad in WWII, was around 500,000. The battle of Moscow included over 1 million wounded or killed. Those are just battles. Not wars, much less entire history of a nation. All loss of life in war is violent. The US has had VERY low loss of life due to war compared to other nations.
IF we go to war, it is not a guarantee, but be prepared for 1,000s of American lives lost. If this is not acceptable for you, you may want to rethink wanting to go to war. Also, the cost Americans almost never consider, the cost of civilian lives in the nation where the war is being fought. It can and has been in the 10,000,000s. Civilians. Just like you.
To give another example, in the battle for Okinawa, over 12,000 Americans were killed. Over 77,000 Japanese soldiers were killed. But over 150,000 civilians were killed. The war had to be fought, but remember the cost before you start enthusiastically beating a war drum.
You are beating a drum for other families, sons, fathers, mothers, daughters, brothers, sisters, kids and parents to die. Be sure you are ready. WWII, an ‘honorable war’ from our perspective, killed 45,000,000 people. Be very sure you know what you are asking for.
I am anti war-because I am pro-soldier. I have had many friends serve from Vietnam to current day. I have had many family serve, from the American Revolution to Korea. I have worked with many veterans in my line of work. I respect them all. I ALWAYS have to wonder if the cost they had to pay was necessary. Often, it isn’t. Those eager to rush to war are not usually the ones who will fight the war. That should tell you A LOT.
If you feel we should go to war, I’d like you to first consider this: Look around you through a week. LOOK at the people all around you. The men and women going to war will be your friends, your co-workers, your family; your friend’s kids … you. Many won’t come home. Many more will come home broken. Are you sure the war is worth that cost?
It is so easy to say someone should go to war. It is also easy to say, “I’d go.” as a way of justifying the desire to go. Back in the day, I would not have been accepted in the armed services due to metal in my body. But I knew friends serving and I was not as eager as some of my friends to go to war, cause I wanted my friends to stay home.
Also, always please remember, as I said most casualties in war are civilians. NOT soldiers. I am as guilty of glorifying war as the next guy but it should never be glorified as we consider going to war. They often do not die quickly. The human cost of war can be paid for generations.
Consider as you red this, Agent Orange. This was a chemical all soldiers and civilians in Vietnam were potentially exposed to by the US. They can now see the genetic signature of it in the grandchildren of those people originally exposed. The cost of war is ALWAYS paid for generations to come. You do not send your friends to war, you send their entire family and family tree downstream from them, to war as well.
In my lifetime I have been eager for a war. I have also seen through false justification for war. There is a family in my neighborhood who lost two kids in Iraq/Afghanistan. I use them as my measure. Could I justify a new war to someone who knows the cost of war so well? I say, any war we are eager to fight, we likely shouldn’t. Any war we feel we need to, but fear the cost, we likely should. War should never be rushed into; nor glorified.
If you are eager for war as a result of some act, I suggest you enlist.
Please don’t.
RELIGION
Five simple rules:
Only claim a religion if you mean it. Millions and millions of people have died for its beliefs.
Practice what you preach.
Leave your nose out of other’s practices.
Any religion that demands money or that you hurt others is not a religion, it’s a business or a cult.
Not all who claim a religion are practicing its values. (see rule 1)
Most religions are based on a book written by lord knows who, pardon the pun, and was written in very different times. Many who quote these books are not quoting them correctly or at all. No one lives to the books teachings completely, that would be illegal in modern society so all religious application has changed from the original writing.
Religion can be a wonderful thing. Most religious people are seeking structure and society; nothing wrong with either. Most religious people are good. But every major and many minor religion has been used to justify oppression, division, hatred, exclusion and killing.
Religion when practiced peacefully and in service to others is a wonderful thing. It should never be a weapon. It should never be justification for bad behavior. Most people practicing a religion are doing so wonderfully, but remember those rules and honor yourself and others with respectful practice.
Never lose yourself to a religion.
HISTORY
Winston Churchill said, “History shall be nice to me, for I intend to write it.” There is an important lesson in there …
History is fun to learn about and we must. The saying, “If we do not learn from the past, we are bound to repeat it” is true. I have seen history repeat itself several times.
We should do our best to learn about the past from many sources. Another accurate saying is “History is written by the winners”. That doesn’t mean they are right and there is no way one historical accounting can be a complete and unbiased accounting of the event.
In my life, I have rarely found the generally accepted truth to be the whole truth. Sometimes I have found the generally accepted truth to be mostly wrong. It is a matter of perspective, both yours and the person providing the facts as well as the time it was told.
Learn about the past that interests you. I have read some or a lot of almost every major book religions are based on, including Darwin. None of them say what popular opinion thinks. I am not a soldier but I have read a lot about what it means to be one so I can understand them better. That DOES NOT make me an expert. I have read about the politicians I have voted for and against. Read MANY sources and think for yourself.
Most mistakes I have seen regarding the past is based on the active determination to only read sources that support what you want to believe. History, if it is not at least a little uncomfortable, is not accurate or complete. Much of human history is rather uncomfortable to know, both distant and recent past.
Categorical revisions of history are almost never accurate and likely serve a political, economic or cultural agenda rather than serving fact. If an accounting of history doesn’t make sense to you, first see if it is uncomfortable, or doesn’t make sense. Some accountings are really wrong. Most are a little off. Many will be uncomfortable, but pretty accurate.
Also, there are amazing events in the past you know almost nothing about. History can be great fun and always teaches. Your own history will teach others.
PERSPECTIVE
We can only see the world though our own eyes. We can discover other perspectives by doing our best to see the world through other’s eyes. Most Americans don’t travel away from our own nation. Many don’t even travel to far away parts of their own region. We have also homogenized the US.
Ray Kroc built up McDonalds on the idea that it is comforting to find the same food anywhere you go. So the chain restaurant was born and much of the local flavor and character of the US was lost. It would do us well to find discomfort from unfamiliar surroundings and learn to feel discomfort in the unfamiliar and that it is not wrong.
Different is not wrong.
I am an American White Male. I cannot see the world through the eyes of a woman. I cannot see the world through the eyes of a black man. I cannot see the world as an Egyptian. But this does not mean I cannot try and learn how the world looks for each, by listening, asking, and learning.
We tend to seek familiar and comfortable. We tend to judge anything not familiar and comfortable by our own standards and most things cannot measure up.
As I mentioned, most Americans never travel abroad. Many who do, go to what I call ‘canned America’ such as cruise ships or resorts that cater to Americans. Until an American goes to another nation, not just Canada, and looks back at the US from another perspective, you cannot truly see the nation. This is the same as claiming to know your home when you have never left the inside of the home. The outside view is VERY different and just as valid.
You are more like the people in other nations than dissimilar. Your government is more similar to the government in other nations than dissimilar. You are just as dissimilar to your government as others are to their own. Nations divide, people don’t. Governments go to war, people don’t. The people you hate are far more similar to you than you’d likely like to admit. We tend to focus on differences.
If you do go to Canada, discover that if not for the national border, would you even see them as very different from us? These are too amazingly similar nations, yet we tend to focus on and dwell on the differences we see from over a line on a map. It tells me a great deal more about the person doing the dividing, than the culture they are describing.
Broaden your world view as much as you can. See the world and the US and thus yourself from other views. This WILL be scary. This WILL be rough in many ways but if we cannot look in the mirror, we never truly know ourselves. If you choose to see the world from a safe and familiar chair in front of a computer, so be it, but you are missing out on most things in the world. Most importantly, you are missing learning about you. You are thus choosing to see your area, or your state, or your profession, or your age or gender or race or religion or yourself, incompletely.
YOUR PAST
By the time you read this you will have a past. The longer you live, the longer your past. One of the hardest things to come to terms with is that there was a past LONG before you were born and that past is a part of your world.
YOU are only responsible for your past. YOU are not guilty of anyone else’s actions. But we must learn from others and their past and our own as a family, a nation, a species. Notice I am not saying race or religion or class or whatever … EVERY race, religion, class or whatever has things to be proud of and things to be ashamed of but too often we use those divisions to assign blame and continue poor choices of the past.
Your history is what you make of it. It does not define you. I have done some bad things. I have done some illegal things. I have also done some amazingly wonderful things. As long as I don’t ignore the bad things I have done and own them, I am not continuously a victim of my bad choices; same for the good. Some good actions do not make you eternally good.
I know you will do some bad things. I know this because you are human. I also know you will do some amazing things. You already have. Most of the time, were just living day to day. Live towards the future and make it the way you want by learning from the past. Your past is your best teacher. Other people’s pasts are also a good teacher. I am writing this to help you learn from my past. These are all things I wish someone had told me.
THE FUTURE
Your life can be anything you have the power to make it be. Your limits are fewer than you think and far, far fewer than some will try to convince you of. Dream big and adventure forward. Life is amazing. You’re life can be amazing.
Your future will not be a straight line. It will not be as you envision it. That’s ok. Your life will be a like a stream in the wilderness: wandering, sometimes fast, sometimes slow and nurturing to many. But it will never be predictable and eventually it will dry up.
Live every day as best you can with no expectations that every day has to be amazing. Be the best you, you want to be. One of the best ways to be unhappy in life is to live to everyone else’s expectations. That’s not a fun life. Lead your own life.
Life will move faster and be shorter than you think. Weeks, months and years will start to pass much more quickly. That is inevitable.
Life is not where you end up, but the journey along the way. It will be full of love, and fun and some pain and disappointment and there will be horrible times. But there will be times that will take your breath away. If you are lucky, it will also be an adventure. It will be, if you make it one. Life will be a product of what happens to you, and the choices you make. Your choices are the true power in your life.
YOUR POWER
This is a tough one. This is tougher for some than others but we all doubt our own power at times. I won’t make some self help claim like never doubt your power … we all do at times. If not, we are a hard core narcissist and that’s A WHOLE other talk.
You have power over your life. You have the most power. You can decide to do or not do, anything. Decisions run every life. Choices are YOUR power. You will make good choices and bad ones and sometimes we will choose not to decide, but you still made that choice, Thank you Rush (the band).
Let me say this clearly, THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE ABSOLUTE CONTROL OVER ARE YOUR CHOICES.
No one can make you always feel a certain way; that is your choice.
No one can make you dwell on any one thought; that is your choice.
No one can make you do anything; that is your choice.
Those things being said, we need to do things to accomplish what we want, have what we need and desire and experience our dreams. Make your choices powerful, leading you to where you want, what you want and how you want to be.
YOURSELF
Be yourself.
Be proud of yourself.
Make your own choices right for you.
Don’t let anyone pressure you to change, if you don’t want to.
Those being said, remember you will forever change. You are a living being that will evolve and your interests, desires and world view will change. Be open to it.
The experiences and opinions I have given you are to help, based on my experiences. You have your own and will have many, many more. You likely already don’t agree with all I said. Maybe you disagree with all of it and that’s fine.
You don’t have to be perfect and you WILL make mistakes. Own them. It will take courage. You have that.
The important thing is that you own you.
To reiterate in a different way, “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.”
THINGS ABOUT ME IT’S USEFUL TO KNOW
I have been in love; more than once. You may too.
I have loved with every fiber of my being. I never regretted that even when it went wrong.
I have lost people I loved and in love with.
I have made so many mistakes, there isn’t enough memory in your computer to list them.
I have chased dreams, some were good, a couple were amazing, some I luckily gave up on, a few I survived.
I am far from flawless and I used to worry about that. Please learn from me, and not sweat that.
I have been on the wrong side of the law. I have been in cuffs. I learned from it. Learn from me and don’t follow that.
I regret the things I have feared to do.
The choices I am proudest of are the things I have chosen to do even if I was scared or it seemed overwhelming.
I have saved lives.
Anger has kept me from happiness.
I have hurt people.
There are people who hate me.
I have loved the sound of revving engines, blaring music and silence has made me cry.
I like most of me, not all of me.
I plan to die interestingly.
There are more people that love me than I know.
I won’t live forever and when I go, I hope there is a party, not a wake.
THINGS I ADMIRE ABOUT PEOPLE CLOSEST TO ME
I know some amazing men and women, ladies and gentlemen, guys and gals. I’m not just friends with them ‘cause they are fun or have a great music collection. I admire things about them I either wish I had or love having in my life.
The things I admire about the men I am friends with:
They are great fathers, especially to their daughters.
They have gone to great lengths to support me, just because we were friends.
They stand by their convictions.
They admit when they have been wrong.
Warped senses of humor.
They have stood by me when I have been wrong.
They are honorable.
I have trusted some of them with my life.
The things I admire about the women most important to me:
They seem to have an endless capacity to love.
Some have loved me, and I was too blind to see it.
Some have loved me completely.
Many are smarter than me.
Every one of them is beautiful.
Their amazing ability to overcome adversity and keep going.
Tolerance.
Determination.
Wicked senses of humor.
They never gave up on themselves.
The best moments in my life, the ones that will pass through my mind in my last moments, will be about others and what I shared with them.
The women who have loved me, I admire most for I know I am not easy to love or be in love with.
MY LITTLE ADVICES:
Dream BIG
Live small
Learn to cook a couple amazing dishes you love.
Do small things every day, just for you.
Do small things for those you love in your life.
Sing.
Take a ride in a racecar
Plan for tomorrow and live today.
Never be ashamed of your emotions.
Never let fear stop you from dancing.
Take a flight in a glider.
Give your parent’s a break. You aren’t as angelic or as right as you think.
Laugh loudly and often.
Many of your dreams will change throughout your life.
Don’t get mired in the past.
Learn to let go.
Love proudly.
I know at times you think you are the only smart person in the world, you aren’t.
But you are likely smarter than you think you are.
Occasionally do something stupid.
Brains aren’t everything, plenty of brilliant people fail.
Hard work is always rewarding, either in success or knowing you gave it your all.
Don’t let anyone define you or limit you.
Try not to overlook the beauty in every day life.
Adventure
Tell those you love, I love you.
Love is love.
Beauty is beauty.
And hate has no place in an intelligent world.
P.S. Don’t fall outa bed.
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