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

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

"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.

Alright... deep breaths.. deep breaths.. calm... okay.. push!!!

Its a saying playing on the ancient greek Kairos (knowing when to act). But introduces 'Keep Calm and Carry On' as its driving philosophy in the intervening periods of waiting. Dr Seus, a doctor of some repute, said of the Waiting Place, a most useless place for people just waiting, however it has been established by Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea that 'Keeping Calm and Carrying On' is a far more effective waybto think about the intervening periods waiting to act.

I'm not exactly sure who told me. I heard it ridiculously early in my life, and whoever said it was rather muffled and hard to hear. But I follow that advice every day!

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 may people have just stubbed their toe in the morning too.

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

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.

Be hard on the topic but soft to the person!

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"

Fake it till you make it

Don't be an asshole and if you have to ask yourself, "Am I being an asshole" then you're probably being an asshole.

We become what we think about • Earl Nightingale

We are what we pretend to be • Kurt Vonnegut

To be somethin’ you gotta go through somethin’ • Betty Wright

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.

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!"

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

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

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 make promises you can't keep."

In general, I try not to make any promises at all, and don't really trust any promises made by others. Humans are fickle creatures, and the world is an even more fickle place by comparison. Sure, I can try to do this thing for you tomorrow, but if I said I'll definitely do it, and a tornado suddenly touched down and tore the city apart, I wouldn't be able to make good on that promise, now would I?

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.

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.

It’s “its”, not “it’s”, unless you mean “it is”, in which case it is “it’s”.

Everett approaching a situation, challenge, or anything really; just try to leave with it slightly better. You can't check the world but you can pull a few pieces of trash out with you on your hike kinda thing.

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 panic.

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.

"Be excellent to each other"

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

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.

you will never be given time; you have to take it.

Every storm passes.

"Don't shit where you eat."

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

Every day, make one thing better.

Wear Sunscreen

Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.

"If you ain't doin' shots, get the fuck out the club."

"Just say no to drugs."

I know people take umbrage with the baggage surrounding the phrase, but as a general maxim it's served me well.