I feel it is an obligation for any older folk to pass wisdom to those not-in-the-know of things regarding life. Some people are born directionless and they get lost in their lives and before they know it, they’re knee-deep in debt, they’re in awful minimal-wage jobs, they make poor decisions regarding their love lives .etc
I have several and my more prominent one is;
- Know Your Numbers
This is a key and must-have piece of knowledge. You must know your numbers. How much you’ll earn a month, how much your expenses are, how much is in your bank account, interests and much more. I don’t care if you’ve hated math growing up, you will need to know this. Because going off on guesswork and estimations, only gets you so far before you slip up. Once you slip up financially, missing a payment, you will fall behind faster than you’ll get back ahead or break even. As someone said, everyone is one car repair or medical emergency away from being in poverty.
- Do not get kids in your teens and 20s
Your teenage and young adolescent years, are better spent figuring out who you are and what you want to achieve. Recklessly getting kids with someone who you thought you loved or poor planning are reasons people end up paying child support and having to go to family court and having to deal with custody battles for the rest of their lives. Supporting a kid is $250k PER child, that’s the average, moreso because of the economy. Is it really worth the few minutes of sex at all for that expense?
- Avoid Jail
Going to jail, over anything, is a bad setback to have in life. If you think finding a job is hard normally with the way the job market is, it’ll be twice that if you have a criminal record. That is just shit not a lot will be ignored.
You’ll lose time, you’re likely to lose any jobs you’ve had at the time of going to jail, you may polarize family and friends even. It’s just not worth it, regardless. The more times you end up in jail too, consider your life over.
- Thrift and Thrift Away!
Thrifting can be a dirty word to some who prefer to get things new, which I understand. But it is a money-saver in the long run. For example, my apartment is 85% of thrifted items and I have a hard time recalling anything I’ve spent more than $10 for, aside from select things I bought new because I wanted them new, like some appliances.
Just try not to be a hoarder if it can be helped.
Life is hard and stressful whether you’re kind or unkind, so be kind. I don’t mean be a doormat, but don’t be a dick.
I’m 29yo, come on, advise me!!!1! WE STILL HAVE TIME!!!
Try to understand yourself better. Notice when you have strong emotions and question why. Revisit the same situation from different angles and try to understand what happened. Why did this make you angry, why did that make you feel ashamed.
Also don’t spend your life arguing online. It’s easy to get caught up in winning an argument. But it’s a waste of your time.
If you want to make friends, go to events for a thing you like. You’ll already have something to talk about. When you talk to people ask them about themselves instead of trying to get them to think you’re cool.
Most of my huge friend circle is because I would go to anime cons and talk to randos. I was interested in other people and asked about stuff in their life.
Watch your health. Most of my friends have just accepted that they get fat when they get older. Just don’t
Older people (30+)
LOLolol…
Oof, I feel this right in the back problems.
I’m sitting here reading this and doing my back stretches before work as we speak.
Seriously
I’d give my left testicle to be 30 again.
Never stop learning and get educated. Take responsibility for yourself, your health, your finances. Don’t do drugs.
Older people (30+)
- Do not assume older people have anything at all figured out
I’m almost 40 coming in here to find informative advice to improve myself
True that. We’ve just got a longer list of mistakes.
That’s just it. “Old(er) People: give me your worst fuckups”
After 60+ years I don’t offer generic unsolicited advice any more (I learned that lesson) but if I were going to break that rule, I’d suggest you read books. Actually read them too, don’t rely on audio books, and read as widely as you can. Sci-fi, mystery, romance, historical, non-fiction, just try to read a book a month. To lose yourself in a book is one of the great ways to maintain mental health.
Also, don’t offer unsolicited advice.
Can you elaborate on the why you don’t offer unsolicited advice? Does this include not giving advice to children or people in the way of harm?
Feng shui was originally presented as a mystical, “wive’s tale” system exactly because of this. If a sage told a young person to keep their windows clean because then your house will be full of “clean” light instead of “dirty” light, and this will improve your mood, the young person would tell him to shove off. But if he says cleaning your windows invites the lucky spirits to enter your home, it plants a seed in the person’s mind and they might actually try cleaning their windows.
A lot of advice is like medicine. Whether it is good or bad for you depends on what you are or aren’t suffering from
“Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.”
What bunkyprewster said.
Everyone needs to do exercise with resistance (weights, bands, bodyweight). You will not get too muscular by accident. It will prevent aches and pains, it will prevent injuries, it will make it more likely you survive car accidents and false.
Everyone needs to floss, there are no exceptions.
Everyone needs time outside in nature. If you live in a city, get to a park every week, preferably every day. It changes our brain chemistry. We aren’t organized to live in boxes all day.
Learn how to breathe. If you think that sounds silly, you’re the example.
Learn to cook. When you can’t contribute anything else, being able to contribute food is universally accepted
The exercise bit is so important. I’m mid 40s recently started working out with weights again after about 6 years of being somewhat sedentary other than running/walking dogs. Almost instantly I had worked out some pain my shoulder had been giving me that had been preventing me from sleeping well, and I don’t grunt when getting up from a crouched position anymore. Also just feeling better and more capable all around.
Learn how to breathe
Any pointers or tutorials/videos that you’d recommend on this?
Is it about diaphragmatic breathing?
Or remembering to breathe calmly while exercising or doing things?In through the nose, out through the mouth. Your nose is the first step in ‘processing’ air for the lungs. It warms, moistens, and filters the cold, dry, and dirty air for you. You exhale with your mouth because it’s bigger than your nose, which minimizes resistance.
Learn to steady your breaths. Practice, and I mean practice, breathing on counts. That’s inhale for X seconds, hold the same amount, then exhale on the same count. Start at 4 seconds, work your way up. You’re focusing on an even breath, so don’t accelerate or decelerate and if your lungs filled up before you hit your count then try again, but slower.
Learn to breathe from the diaphragm, as you mentioned. Expanding your diaphragm gives your lungs more room to expand, thus increasing your lung capacity. Plus it’s always good to be engaging your core muscles in every little way you can.
Practice a cleansing breath. An incredible tool against anxiety and panic, you’re essentially storing a bank of calm for a rainy day. When you’re feeling fine, breathe on counts, but instead of pushing yourself you close your eyes and focus on how you feel while you’re breathing. Do that, daily. Build the association. Then, when you need to settle tf down, you can take that same breath and connect to that same feeling.
Don’t chase after women and buses.
If you want kids there’s a few things to consider.
- Graduate highschool then get married before kids.
- Kids are physically easier when you’re younger.
- No one is ever really ready for kids, but you should have some level of financial stability and be prepared to have significantly less freedom.
Be purposeful in what you spend money on. You don’t need the best of everything, especially when starting a new hobby. You can find someone spending absurd amounts on anything, but no one can do that on everything.
I’m nearly 40 and the world they are facing is so different to what I experienced that I don’t know if any advice I could give would even make sense.
Don’t suffer fools, I guess. Life is too short to put up with people who don’t, won’t or can’t respect you. You don’t have to make it a big deal, in fact that might be the wrong move if you’re dealing with a narcissist. Instead become uninteresting when interacting with them. The Grey Rock technique.
Never stop learning.
