What is the WISEST thing anyone has said to you? (Or that you've learned.)

[BurtWorm]

I have to think about this. Not to put human beings down, but wise words are so far and few between that I have to do some digging to pull them out of my memory.

[Tredge]

1. Question...

Does it need to be spoken advice, or can it be something we've read?

[BurtWorm]

4. Okay, it can be something you read.

That should make it somewhat easier to think about.

[leftyandproud]

35. republicans are idiots. *NT*

[LibertyorDeath]

2. Relax....... forget who said it.

[RandomKoolzip]

3. "Fake it till you make it."

My dad used to say this to me whenever I was in the throes of severe depression-used to happen a lot...He'd been there too; what he meant was that even if there is no meaning to life and nothing matters and you want to end it all, you have to have hope, even if it's a placebo. A placebo is better than living in despair 24 hours a day...

And it gets better. These words have always resonated with me throughout my life, and have always taken on new shades of wisdom everytime I feel myself sliding into depression.

[Tredge]

14. For what it's worth...

"Fake it till you make it" is learned in Alcoholics Anonymous, I guess it could be called curriculum. I can't speak for other "-Anonymous" programs. It's such a simple thing to say to yourself, but I use it too (I've never been to AA, I've just researched). It's as if to say, suicide can't be taken away, but depression dissipates.

I think at least I understand the brand of depression you're talking about, personally speaking, and I think you have an excellent way of looking at it. It's a hard life but one worth living.

[Raenelle]

62. Other ways of saying the same thing as fake it till you make it

From Woody Allen: 80% of life is showing up.

Suit up and show up.

You can't think your way into sane living; you have to live your way into sane thinking.

[Chomskyite]

5. Nixon of all people

"Always remember, others may hate you. Those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself."

--Aug 9, 1974

[Misinformed01]

6. Don't run with that-

you'll put your eye out.

Save your money for a Republican Administration/rainy day.

[wtmusic]

7. Today is the first day of the rest of your life

j/k, j/k ;-)

[BurtWorm]

8. I am I, and you are you, and if by chance we two shall meet...

it's beautiful.

:cry:

[wtmusic]

19. Effinay, Burt...

that IS beautiful!!

:nopity: :nopity: :nopity: :nopity: :nopity:
:nopity: :nopity: :nopity: :nopity: :nopity:
:nopity: :nopity: :nopity: :nopity: :nopity:
:nopity: :nopity: :nopity: :nopity: :nopity:

[BurtWorm]

20. And your music to accompany it...

It's just so beautiful!

:cry:

[WeirdSceneGoldmine]

26. Pink Floyd - Echos

Strangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me
And do I take you by the hand
And lead you through the land
And help me understand the best I can

[BurtWorm]

27. "All we are is dust in the wind..."

My favorite allusion in "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure."

[RandomKoolzip]

9. If I may quote Michael O'Donoghue....

"Today is the first day of the rest of your life...and you've already fucked it up."

[kodi]

10. "the 1 good thing about poverty is that you're never on call"

followed closely by "buy land, they aint making any more of it."

[BurtWorm]

11. You don't even live once.

A Karl Kraus aphorism.

[BurtWorm]

17. More Kraus: How is the world ruled and how do wars start?

Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read.



No ideas and the ability to express them - that's a journalist.

[CandyCrim21]

12. There are actually a few!

Love is not a doormat!-my nana

Make the best out of every situation no matter how bad it is, you'll be glad you did in the end. -My dad

Make yourself number one. Take care of YOU first because you have to be happy with yourself before you can do anything else.- Grandpa and my best friend alicia

Some of that sounds like a bunch of optimistic junk huh. Well, its gotten me through more than a few days, but the number one wisest thing I've ever heard before is.......

Anything that CAN go wrong WILL go wrong! -Murphey's Law baby

[SOteric]

13. "Life

is short, and you don't get a do-over. You'd better figure out a way to enjoy the ride."

[HEyHEY]

15. I agree..there have been many..just can't remember now n/t

[onebigbadwulf]

16. The most

we can ever ask of perfection is a single moment.



It's not until we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.

[Tredge]

18. I might catch heat for it, but...

...the best advice I ever got was from my father, who told me to read Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson. When I did, I always returned to this:

"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

This has always seemed to me to be good advice, no matter where you stand, so long as you stand.

[dreissig]

21. Don't Shut a Door

Don't shut a door without the key in your hand. I once got locked out of my car with the keys in the trunk. I have also gone for the paper on the doorstep, walked to where it was thrown, only to hear the door go -click!- behind me.

I don't just focus on knowing where the key is, I have the key in my hand.

[BurtWorm]

22. That could be a larger metaphor, too.

:toast:

[nyrnyr1994]

24. Reminds me of something my grandfather used to say...

"With key in hand, lock the door."

[nyrnyr1994]

23. "Wherever you go...

there you are."

[kalashnikov]

25. "shut up!"

not enough people have said it to me. Or to others for that matter.

[LearnedHand]

28. Just because you had a crummy childhood...

...doesn't mean you have to drag it with you into adulthood.

[kalashnikov]

29. as my wise mother once said "Shut up!"

[WeirdSceneGoldmine]

30. Love is neither earned or deserved

It must be found and never lost.

--me

[Exultant Democracy]

31. this isn't the wisest thing

but it is up there. When I was little (probably like 4 or 5) I asked my mom donated money to NPR and she said "because it pisses off the Republicans."

[OneBlueSky]

32. "God helps those who help themselves." . . . Mom (n/t)

.

[MSchreader]

33. "Don't sweat the small stuff"

At the time, I really needed someone to tell me that, too.

Martin

[BritishHuman]

54. Don't sweat the petty stuff

It's much more fun to pet the sweaty stuff.

[MSchreader]

66. Now, now

We know some folks are upset now that Skinner put them in the chastity belt. No sense in 'jacking this virgin thread.

:evilgrin:

Martin

[Booberdawg]

34. Never let you feet end up higher than your ass.

It never ends up well.

[WeirdSceneGoldmine]

36. Right now my feet are on two pillows and a gun case

And my ass is sunk into the sofa. You're right - I can't move to get the mixer so I am taking it straight. My bad.

[Nlighten1]

37. Welcome to DU

The snake is long....seven miles...


LOL

[WeirdSceneGoldmine]

38. Thanks. This is not the end

It's only the beginning. There's danger on the edge of town but together we rise and divided we stand.

[ima_sinnic]

39. Small minds think about other people. Average minds . . .

think about things. Great minds think about ideas.

I swear my father taught me this a long time ago but when I mentioned it to him recently he was very flattered and said he wished he HAD said that--well, I know he did :)

[VOX]

40. "A good job or no job" and "You ain't the Lone Ranger"...

Both deep-dish cliches, but God, are they ever *true*.

:toast:

[WeirdSceneGoldmine]

41. Ok, it's not original but it holds water

"Don't take dump too close to home"

and

"you can't polish a turd"

[av8rdave]

42. I've always told my kids this...not sure where I heard it...

Your integrity is the only thing others cannot take away from you. Only you can do that.

Was also given some great pearls of wisdom by a friend when I turned 40, but probably should't repeat them here.

av8rdave

[trof]

43. "It ain't what you DON'T know that gets you in trouble.

It's what you DO know that ain't so."
From a journalism professor in the early 60s.
Think about it.
It made a lifelong fact checker out of me.

[radwriter0555]

44. To learn something from EVERY experience. Whether it's a good experience

or something unfortunate, the point of living our lives is to LEARN from each thing we do and encounter.

That was from Mrs. Urquiza. She came here an immigrant from Mexico some 60 years ago. She got legal, and worked as a secretary at ARCO. With her paychecks she started buying houses around Los Angeles, and upon her death, with her stock options and real estate some 15 years ago, she was worth several million dollars -- as a secretary at ARCO.

Gal like that earns my respect and attention. She raised 5 children, every single one of whom became genuinely something.... 2 of the boys are architects, 1 is an artist and teacher, the girls married good men and traveled, got great educations and are involved in their communities.

So learn something from every experience. Contemplate what you're doing, and how you can learn from it.

[Amaya]

45. My personal fav..

You got to know when to hold em', know when to fold em', know when to walk away and know when to run.--Kenny Rogers :):)


But seriously I love this one: I don't think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains.--Anne Frank

[bmbmd]

46. The second wisest advice

I've ever gotten? "Don't work the breeding stock, and don't breed the working stock."

[grannylib]

47. Never let your last words to someone be those you would regret...

if you never had the chance to say something kind to them again.
When my daughter died, one of the biggest comforts to me and my husband were that the last words we ever said to each other were "I love you." I cannot imagine how much worse our grief would have been had our last words to one another been negative...
Life is short! Fill it with positive, uplifting, loving words whenever possible...you never know when your opportunity may be taken from you in an instant.

[ScreamingMeemie]

48. They can take everything from you...but they can't take your

family. Said by my dad at a particularly rough point in my life.

[MissMillie]

49. Enjoy the journey

Because it's along trip and the destination is going to change over and over and over again.

[chefgirl]

50. When I was pregnant

I was a very worried, young, expectant mother and my Mom told me that the secret to raising kids is:
"Always search your heart for your best judgement and make your decisions based on that. We all make mistakes with our kids, but if you did what you thought was right at the time, then you will always be able to live with your mistakes"

The other thing that I try and live by was from my Dad:
"You can't control the things others do to you, all you can control is your reaction to them. Just refuse to react the way they want you to, and you take away their control over you"

Thanks Mom and Dad.

-chef-

[rasputin1952]

51. When I was growing up in NY...

I hadf a Jewish friend whos father was a Rabbi. I used to get into theological/philisophical discussions with him. I held that being a Lutheran at the time, I knew everything, and every utterance from me was divinely inspired.

This wise and wonderful Rabbi said to me in the gentlest of tones:

"One of the things Christians have rarely learned, you ask God for or about something; but you never wait for the answer".

From that day forward, I have tried to bring patience and humility into my life. Sometimes it's there, sometimes, it's not, but I keep trying.

O8)

[Zorro]

52. Get an education

it's something no one can ever take away from you.

[cmd]

53. Mom's advice when I married

Make your own traditions. You don't have to wake up in this house on Christmas morning.

[TrogL]

55. There's often little point in getting upset

Will it matter in 100 years?
Will babies die?

[DemExpat]

56. A Counsellor once told me to make my life better

by seeing it as a little postage stamp on the world.....

Not to try to change the whole world, but to concentrate on my little sphere of influence, the people I love and care about, what goes on in my little radius.

This was the best advice I ever received, and she was right.

Make your own world as good as possible, then and only then do you have the energy to move out further.

:kick:
DemEx

[Character Assassin]

57. Place no head above your own

Guatama and I were on the 17th at Spyglass, and it had just started to rain, forcing us to quit the course on hole early. He turned to me and just blurted it out.

[davsand]

58. The older you get the more dead people you know.

At the time I though it overly simplistic, but as I've lost more people thru the years it makes a lot more sense to me. If you spend any time with elderly people you hear them talking about "So and So" who did _____. They died in (insert year here.)

I'm not quite that bad yet, but I do find my memories sometimes include people who are gone now. There is a wistfullness about it once the initial pain of the loss passes. It is amazing how big the list of dead folks gets over time and that wistful feeling becomes a more frequent companion.

Laura

[pdx_prog]

59. Keep your mind full, and your bowels empty....lol

[pdx_prog]

60. Admit when you are wrong and shut up when you are right.

[thom1102]

61. My momma once told me...

when I thought that I couldn't handle things any longer:

"You aren't going to feel this way forever. All you have to do is muddle through until then."

[Raenelle]

63. I'm not OK, you're not OK, but that's OK.

Also, just about anything John Lennon ever said--koo-koo-ka-chu. Kepp on playing those mind games together.

[Scottie72]

64. This actually came

from someone who I did not like all that much.. but to paraphrase what he told me:

"True spirituality cannot be found in ANY book it is located with in yourself. You cannot gain spirituality by memorizing books on the subject, it is a very private journey, and the books are just mere guides and remember they were written by humans so they all contain mistakes."

[geniph]

65. From one of my older sisters:

"At my age, I've finally decided that if, I've been civil and pleasant, and people still don't like me, that's their problem. If they don't like an attractive, intelligent, charming person such as myself, then fuck 'em, who needs 'em? Stop trying to please everyone - some people are just not going to like you no matter what you do."

[midnight armadillo]

67. Oh, that's easy

During sword practice in aikido class (using shinai, split bamboo swords) "Stop thinking so much!" I was then struck so hard in the ribs with the shinai (having been caught thinking too much again...) that I feared for a cracked rib. You know, they used to tell me that all the time down there.

Yeah, sometimes you gotta stop thinking and just go for it. :-)

[BurtWorm]

68. There's a lot of wisdom in this thread.

Thank you everyone.