What's the absolute best bit of advice anyone ever gave you?

If you can't play a sport, be one.

Max Jackson, hometown sportscaster in the 1950's and 1960's.

I think it's tremendous life advice.

Have you followed it?

Ought sports players be sports too?

A visible panty line need not be a fashion faux pas and don't forget to follow Heath Canada's guidelines.

Absolutely and yes.

I see.

You are a fan of the vpl?


The food stuff...well, indeed...



Mine was from my sister when we were both very small:

"Take it as it comes".

I am a hopeless follower of this, thoughh...I believe I worried in utero.

Cool bananas!!!

Hmmm..what does being a sport mean in your life?

http://www.vpl.ca/

"Every time you throw some dirt, you lose a little ground."

Advice from a mentor on the day I was married.

I had a band in the early 70's that did a house band stint in a club in Fayetteville. we were the area's first glam rock band and we played the usual crap. Bowie, Deep Purple, ZZ top, Uriah Heep...etc. We were okay, but nothing spectacular. we packed the place...and when we went out on outside gigs occasionally we packed the house everywhere we went.

that band broke up as bands do and I formed another band...mid 70's, a prog rock band doing originals and covers of Yes, Genesis (real Genesis w/Gabriel), return to Forever, Tull, Zep...very difficult stuff to sing and play and we did it fantastically. No one gave a **** about us at the old club we had owned before. I was talking to the owner about it and he told me something I'll never forget. "Don't waste your time trying to play smart. The smart people aren't here. They're at the library." I have never forgotten that.

Life is not fair!
I don't remember where it came from, but it's so true. Once you understand the
concept, there is hardly any resentment towards others.

Another one was from our grandmother: "The people you help might not repay
you, but someone else will !" I live by it and will tell the person whom I help(ed)
(like roadside assistance) to help someone else in need, instead of rewarding me.

I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Yes, sir.
Are you listening?
Yes, I am.
Plastics.

Always speak to your children as if there was a guest in the room.

Make mistakes enthusiastically.

Age quod agis.
(Do what you are doing.)

The person was Fr. Attilio Giovannini, my Master of Novices way back when.
He didn't make it up, of course, but he taught me how to apply it to my life.

I like that, E. B.
Reminds me of: "If you're going to be wrong, be wrong at the top of your voice."

Wear Sunscreen or Sunscreen Speech are the common names of an essay actually called "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young" written by Mary Schmich and published in the Chicago Tribune as a column in 1997.
The most popular and well-known form of the essay is the successful music single released in 1999, credited to Baz Luhrmann.

Mary Schmich's "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young" was published in the Chicago Tribune as a column on June 1, 1997. In her introduction to the column, she described it as the commencement address she would give if she were asked to give one.
The column soon became the subject of an urban legend, in which it was alleged to be an MIT commencement speech given by author Kurt Vonnegut in that same year (in truth, MIT's commencement speaker that year was Kofi Annan). Despite a follow-up article by Mary Schmich on August 3, 1997, in which she referred to the "lawless swamp of cyberspace" that had made her and Kurt Vonnegut "one", by 1999 the falsely attributed story was widespread.
When the column was later turned into a song, Schmich's "wish" came true when Zagreb's Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing started to play the song "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)" at every graduation ceremony
The poem-like piece has drawn frequent comparison to the Max Ehrmann poem Desiderata, which was also the subject of an urban legend misattribution.

Everybody's Free
(to wear sunscreen)
Mary Schmich
Chicago Tribune

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '97... wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be IT.

The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

You are NOT as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't, maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't, maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself, either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's. Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

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.

But trust me on the sunscreen.



Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

"Hold your dominion"

That's come in handy more times than I can count.

"Offer them fifty cents on the dollar."
Good advice, which I took when cleaning up my credit years ago. It worked. Saks Fifth Avenue, Ann Taylor and Citibank all took the offer.

I agree with most of that.. neat!

I suppose the best advice was someone saying in passing to save x amount of your earnings. I never lived that kind of life, I suppose to my detriment. But the reasons I didn't were sometimes to my benefit and joy.

My own advice is to take pleasure in the day, the very air of the day. Something like stop and smell the roses, without the stopping.