Words of Wisdom

This is the Words of Wisdom thread, hosted by yours truly. As many of you are shifting into adulthood, or even just over the threshold, you will find challenges you didn't have to deal with before. I want to put this here to give you all some guidance; some things that have helped me through my darkest times.

One thing my mom always told me was "You can't change circumstance. You can change your attitude about the circumstance." It didn't really sink in until a couple years ago. The only thing you can truly control is you. Yes, people suck. Yes, the videogame is frustrating. Yes, money is tight. The fact of the matter is that, despite all the excuses you may make, you are accountable for how you react. Don't blame hormones. Don't blame Jo Schmoe from down the street. The fact of the matter is that YOU are the one responsible for your anger, for your sulking, for whatever you're doing. Your attitude will make the difference between a mediocre life and a great one.

The advice works for positive emotions as well, not just controlling negative ones. I'm not saying to fake a smile or to do a dance when you're down. Sometimes you need to feel bad things to process the situation. However, you cannot let it control you. Feel sad, feel angry, do whatever you gotta do and then move on. It may seem impossible as you read this but I promise you, it only seems that way because you are allowing it. Change your attitude, change your quality of life. If you don't, you will be stuck, frozen, until you (again, accountability) press on.

Overview:

You control who you are and how you react.
Sometimes, circumstance sucks, but you process it and move forward.
If you read this and felt insulted or angry, then you're probably the one who needs to take this advice the most.

That's all. For now. PM me if you need anything.

That reminds me of something my uncle used to tell me back in the days I was a dark, sad kid. I've always been complaining back in the day about how life sucked and people were complete jackasses. He tried for hours talking me out of that negative attitude, but I was too damn stubborn to listen to what he said, as I hated people who were giving me lectures and were acting like their own life were perfect. And yet, that simple sentence he told stuck into me, and is still something I think about everyday, and everytime I face hardships.

"Nobody can help you until the day you decide to help yourself." was what he had told me, or something similar to that (trying to translate a saying from French in English kinda sounds weird in the final result).

I think what he meant by that is that no matter how hard people will try to help others, it can only be done if the person in need is willing to change attitude and receive said help. I believe my own ego and pessimist view of the world blinded me to what good the others were offering me, and it kept on until the day I would finally mature up to see that I was mainly at fault for being so gloomy and lonesome.

Even if I joke a lot about my uncle's lectures and all that morality jazz he been telling me for years, I kind of see the good some of it has brought me in my adult years. I kind of miss that actually, hahaha.

So yeah, I ended up writing a lot more thanI should have, but I guess this thread got me reminiscing about nostalgic thoughts of my past and how people helped me become what I am today.



TL;DR - If you want to be helped, start by changing your attitude towards the world and open yoursself to the words of others.

Well, in the end, it sounds a lot like what Aro said, but from another perspective. Ah lectures, somehow they sound different, but they still come to the same conclusion.

I wouldn't say these are words of wisdom, but they damn well should be.

It's not homophobia. You're not afraid of gays, you're being an arrogant dick about it. You wouldn't want people criticizing you for your lover whoever they are, so don't do the same to others.

Max I believe the American equivalent is "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink," except in this case you're the horse.

I'll elaborate on these later but I'll jot them down now as place holders.

"Just becuase something is not your fault does not mean that it is not your responsibility."

On a similar note, in the adult word people care far less about whose fault something is as they do by who and how it is going to get fixed.


"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

Now let's add some Batman quotes for flavor.

"It's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you."

"A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy's shoulders to let him know that the world hasn't ended."