Ask Lemmy

No one is thinking about you as much as you are

Don't take stairs with hands in your pockets.

Don’t be shitty.

Cut your nails after a bath or shower as they will be softer and cut smoother

2 I try to live by

1. start in the way you intend to continue - so don't just accept something you can't stand forever as you may not be able to change it. it's much less work overall to deal with problems upfront and then not have to deal with the little consequences of ignoring them for months/years/etc.

2. don't put it down put it away - so many messes are created by setting stuff down for a minute and never coming back until there are 30 more things on top of it and it's an archeological dig to clean. if it takes less than a minute to put away properly then just do it immediately instead of creating hours of cleaning for you or your partner when you finally can't stand how cluttered and dirty your place is

Sacrifice anything outside of basic living expenses to max out your 401k(or similar), and put more in a non-tax advantaged brokerage if you can. Do not touch your 401k before retirement for any reason. Never take out a home equity loan, do a cash out refi, or roll other debt into your mortgage. (Matters of literal life or death excluded, of course.)

Retiring at 48 with a paid off house beats the hell out of succumbing to the temptation of lifestyle boat in your 20s.

I don't know about best but I sure as hell remember it: When I was 13 I was at a wedding and an very drunk old man gave me some sage advice completely unprompted - "when you have sex don't fuck her in the ass, you'll get poop everywhere".

Choose your battles. Not everything is worth the energy.

Don't make promises when you're happy; don't make decisions when you're sad.

Working hard is pointless and everyone should go fuck themselves.

If it's worth doing right it's also worth doing half-assed.

To me this means it's better to let go of perfectionism lest it becomes paralyzing. Strive for the best conceivable result all you want but be content with the best achievable result as well.

Half of life is showing up.

Dad: "Look both ways before crossing the street"

Me as a child: "But this is a one-way street"

Dad: "You look both ways because people are idiots"

Life: Being poor ain’t no excuse for being filthy

Work: if you’re gonna go down, take people with you. (thanks HR lady!)

Death doesn't care if you had the right-of-way

Remember that any advice your parent's give you is a minimum of 20 years past the 'best by' date.

"Never skimp on anything that goes between you and the ground."

Immediately put things away once you're done with them, otherwise they start piling up.

In shared spaces when you're cleaning up/tidying/whatever, do one more thing than just your own things, no less, but also no more than that. Everybody forgets to do some of the shit they're supposed to deal with sometimes so it's probably your own crap anyways or compensates for that, but don't go clean up everything that others leave out/unfinished or you risk becoming the person who's always cleaning up after others.

Don't give more information than you need to when talking to authority.

Late to work? Say "sorry I'm late". Don't give a reason unless asked. Need to take a day off? Say "I'm taking Friday off" or "I am taking a sick day". Unless asked for a reason don't explain further.

Stopped by a cop for speeding? Answer plainly with one word sentences. "Do you know why I stopped you?" "No."

People often dig themselves holes by offering too much information when simple information would have been sufficient. I've seen it happen in real time, where a coworker was denied time off because of the death of a pet because the boss didn't think that was reason enough to take time off, when the coworker could have just said "family emergency" and explained no further.

Its a great little piece of advice that has served pretty well over the years.

Don't drink your calories. Changed my life completely and put me on a path to losing 35 Kgs.

Regarding marriage and relationships

I saw a reddit thread many years ago before I met my wife asking for advice from long-time couples.

I was single at the time, and was pretty comfortable with that, not that I wasn't interested in being in a relationship, but it wasn't a priority for me and I never had much luck picking up girls.

Most of it was the usual stuff about communication, and sharing housework, respect, and all of that.

But the one that stood out to me was

"Don't forget to date your wife"

A good many years later, I managed to stumble my way bass-ackwards into dating my now-wife. A few years later we were married.

And for a lot of couples, dating kind of slows down at that point. One or both of them stop putting in effort, and they just kind of stagnate and drift apart.

That's far from the only reason relationships fail of course, but I think that's a bigger part in a lot of cases than many people think.

So I always keep my ear to the ground for cool events, restaurants, shows, places to go, things to do, etc. and make sure that there's always something coming up on the horizon for us to look forward to. Sometimes it's a simple dinner at a restaurant we've been to countless times, sometimes it's a big elaborate day out where we get dressed up, find our way to a couple different nice bars and restaurants, walk around a museum, see a show or to an orchestra performance, etc.

I try to have at least one thing planned a month, not always successfully, but more often than not, and we sometimes squeeze in another little spontaneous date night or two here and there. Most of the time we're out doing something fun as a couple at least once a week.

"Failure is always an option" -Adam Savage.

This means 2 things to me. 1st, it's okay to fail, you don't need to be perfect at everything all the time. I know this one logically but still sometimes manage to let fear of failure prevent me from trying new stuff. 2nd, you learn so much more from failing than you do from succeeding. Scientists have long talked about having a Journal of Negative Results. It's just as important to share what works as it is to share what doesn't work, so others don't waste time/money repeating an experiment that you already know first hand won't work.

You'll almost never regret saying yes to opportunities

There is no point in being self defeating, I already have all the treasures and items I would get from that battle

Keep some money saved aside for ~~buying chocolate~~ bad times

"If you don't care about yourself, noone else will".

I still struggle with that, but the advice itself is solid.

"Be excellent to each other"

Invest in your education first because nobody can take it from you.

Buy the crappiest reliable car you can stand to be seen in. (If you need a car at all)

Invest in a house as soon as you can. Buy the crappiest house in a nice neighborhood.

These have helped me treat a Depreciating asset (like a car) purely as a tool for utility and helped me recognize that a nice car is ego on display. For me it applied to computers and cameras too. I could definitely afford to drive a nicer car and I've learned to turn the pang of shame in parking my crappy old beater next to my BILs' hot cars into a trigger of self assurance: "I'm living by my internal values" ... "damn right!"

Everyone is doing the best they can, with what they know.

-- From a meaning-of-life website circa '97

Made a lot of sense about practising acceptance. Some people may have just stubbed their toe in the morning too.

There's one piece of advice I got from a Mickey mouse comic of all places. When I was a kid I read this Mickey mouse comic where he gets kidnapped and has to escape, but it's cold outside and he doesn't have any clothes, so he wears a mattress for warmth. Everyone laughs at him, but he keeps thinking something like "as long as I'm warm, they may laugh at me", and for some reason that piece of advice stuck with me forever.

The only good Nazi is a dead Republican.

If a task/chore can be done in 2 minutes or less, do it now.

Not sure if it is the best, but it is a simple piece of advice I follow religiously. I think the reason this makes sense is that the cognitive load of trying to remember to do it is higher than just doing it straight away.

Do not point out things to someone when they can’t fix them right now. For example, don’t tell me I have a stain on my jumper when we are out in the office with no change to fix it. I will remain conscious about it the rest of the day.

Another was misunderstandings are the norm not an exception. They are happening just as often as successful communication.

"Don't shit where you eat."

Every day, make one thing better.

Met an old guy in the 90's who was one of the OG Hells Angels. He said, "Getting old ain't for pussies." He wasn't wrong. All the stupid things you did when you were younger so find you when you get older.

Don't panic.

Take heart, because nobody knows what the fuck they are doing. Some of them are just decent at faking it.

Kiss the girl.

More specifically "Give in to temptation; you never know if it'll pass your way again."

If we relax the rules a bit here, most of the "Notebooks of Lazarus Long" apply. Many of Heinlein's comments held a lot of value and have helped me be happy with who I've become in the 36 years since I started reading the words he put on pages.

Enjoy your life whenever you can, and hopefully find someone to enjoy it with. The end comes sooner than you know.

"They don't pay your bills. [Stop worrying about what they say]"