Advice For Young People Quotes

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction. Deceptive images of a vague happiness hover before us in our dreams, and we search in vain for their original. Much would have been gained if, through timely advice and instruction, young people could have had eradicated from their minds the erroneous notion that the world has a great deal to offer them.

This is what I tell young women who ask me for career advice. People are going to try to trick you. To make you feel that you are in competition with one another. "You're up for a promotion. If they go for a woman, it'll be between you and Barbara." Don't be fooled. You're not in competition with other women. You're in competition with everyone.

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. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've 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 bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday. Do one thing everyday 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 of 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 your 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're 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 with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you 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.

The function of the artist is to make people like life better than before,

Advice to my younger self: 1 Start where you are with what you have 2 Try not to hurt other people 3 Take more chances 4 If you fail, keep trying

I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do---the actual act of writing---turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.

I never want you to deny anything about yourself because you have grown up thinking it’s unacceptable or inconvenient for the people around you.

Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.

I don't think anybody can teach anybody anything. I think that you learn it, but the young writer that is as I say demon-driven and wants to learn and has got to write, he don't know why, he will learn from almost any source that he finds. He will learn from older people who are not writers, he will learn from writers, but he learns it -- you can't teach it.

That’s another thing,” she said. “You no longer need other people in your life once you have found your true love. No wonder Magnus feels he cannot open up to you, when you rely so heavily upon these other people. When love is true, you should meet each other people. When love is true, you should meet each other’s every desire, every need—A re you listening, young A lexander? For my advice is precious, and not given often…

And only well-informed, warm-hearted people can teach others things they’ll always remember and love. Computers and TV don’t do that. A computer teaches a child what a computer can become. An educated human being teaches a child what a child can become.

The young open the paper to forget about life by reading the funny strips. The old do it to forget about death by reading other people's obits. My advice: don't open the paper and go on with your life.

I have some advice for the young generation who are wanting to become successful in life: become more grateful. Once you do that, Allah says, "If you are grateful, I will surely increase you (in everything)." If you're having a hard time in math, science, language and whatever else, become grateful to Allah and He will open doors for you. You'll even get better at basketball and become more athletic. I pray that Allah makes you grateful young people who are examples for others all over the world, ameen.

Today, young girls measure the quality of their beauty based upon its entertainment value. The more people are entertained by their beauty, the more beautiful they think they must be. This is very unfortunate and I would like young girls to know that their beauty is a crown; not a clown. And crowns are best worn with elegance and serenity.

my father always said, “early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” it was lights out at 8 p.m. in our house and we were up at dawn to the smell of coffee, frying bacon and scrambled eggs. my father followed this general routine for a lifetime and died young, broke, and, I think, not too wise. taking note, I rejected his advice and it became, for me, late to bed and late to rise. now, I’m not saying that I’ve conquered the world but I’ve avoided numberless early traffic jams, bypassed some common pitfalls and have met some strange, wonderful people one of whom was myself—someone my father never knew.

Generations of Chinese mothers have perfected the art of sniffing out guilt, and Vera can practically see waves of guilt churning out of the young people gathered before her.

...one should not only be smart in his head, but one should also be smart in how he relates to other people.

The atomic bomb which we dropped on the people of Hiroshima was first envisioned by a woman, not a man. She was, of course, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. She didn't call it an "atomic bomb." She called it "the monster of Frankenstein.

The same teen who can't legally operate a four-wheeler, or [ATV]...in a farm lane workplace environment can operate a jacked-up F-250 pickup on a crowded urban expressway. By denying these [farm work] opportunities to bring value to their own lives and the community around them, we've relegated our young adults to teenage foolishness. Then as a culture we walk around shaking our heads in bewilderment at these young people with retarded maturity. Never in life do people have as much energy as in their teens, and to criminalize leveraging it is certainly one of our nation's greatest resource blunders.

Men want a lot of pals—and they don’t want people to get mad at them.

Poverty is not caused by men and women getting married; it's not caused by machinery; it's not caused by "over-production"; it's not caused by drink or laziness; and it's not caused by "over-population". It's caused by Private Monopoly. That is the present system. They have monopolized everything that it is possible to monopolize; they have got the whole earth, the minerals in the earth and the streams that water the earth. The only reason they have not monopolized the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it. If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe. And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air - or of the money to buy it - even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless the had the money to pay for it. Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so. Even as you think at present that it's right for so few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air. In exactly the same spirit as you now say: "It's Their Land," "It's Their Water," "It's Their Coal," "It's Their Iron," so you would say "It's Their Air," "These are their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing?" And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on "Christian Duty" in the Sunday magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young. And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some of the air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers. And when you are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or dying for want of air, if one of your number suggests smashing a hole in the side of one of th gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from limb, you'll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest Police Station and deliver him up to "justice" in the hope of being given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble.

A writer or any artist can’t expect to be embraced by the people. I've done records where it seemed like no one listened to them. You write poetry books that maybe 50 people read. And you just keep doing your work because you have to, because it’s your calling. But it’s beautiful to be embraced by the people. Some people have said to me, “Well, don’t you think that kind of success spoils one as an artist? If you’re a punk rocker, you don’t want to have a hit record…” And I say to them, “Fuck you!” One does their work for the people. And the more people you can touch, the more wonderful it is. You don’t do your work and say, “I only want the cool people to read it.” You want everyone to be transported, or hopefully inspired by it. When I was really young, William Burroughs told me, “Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises. Don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned with doing good work. And make the right choices and protect your work. And if you can build a good name, eventually that name will be its own currency.

Young people, especially young women, often ask me for advice. Here it is, valeat quantum. Do not undertake a scientific career in quest of fame or money. There are easier and better ways to reach them. Undertake it only if nothing else will satisfy you; for nothing else is probably what you will receive. Your reward will be the widening of the horizon as you climb. And if you achieve that reward you will ask no other.

Here my advice to young gay person or actor its to be yourself and not to be pressured into what other people want you to be

They keep telling you, when you’re older, you’ll have experience—and that’s supposed to be so great. What would you say about that, sir? Is it really any use, would you say?" "What kind of experience?” “Well—places you’ve been to, people you’ve met. Situations you’ve been through already, so you know how to handle them when they come up again. All that stuff that’s supposed to make you wise, in your later years.” “Let me tell you something, Kenny. For other people, I can’t speak—but, personally, I haven’t gotten wise on anything. Certainly, I’ve been through this and that; and when it happens again, I say to myself, Here it is again. But that doesn’t seem to help me. In my opinion, I, personally, have gotten steadily sillier and sillier and sillier—and that’s a fact.” “No kidding, sir? You can’t mean that! You mean, sillier than when you were young?” “Much, much sillier.” “I’ll be darned. Then experience is no use at all? You’re saying it might just as well not have happened?” “No. I’m not saying that. I only mean, you can’t use it. But if you don’t try to—if you just realize it’s there and you’ve got it—then it can be kind of marvelous.

You will not remember much from school. School is designed to teach you how to respond and listen to authority figures in the event of an emergency. Like if there's a bomb in a mall or a fire in an office. It can, apparently, take you more than a decade to learn this. These are not the best days of your life. They are still ahead of you. You will fall in love and have your heart broken in many different, new and interesting ways in college or university (if you go) and you will actually learn things, as at this point, people will believe you have a good chance of obeying authority and surviving, in the event of an emergency. If, in your chosen career path, there are award shows that give out more than ten awards in one night or you have to pay someone to actually take the award home to put on your mantlepiece, then those awards are more than likely designed to make young people in their 20's work very late, for free, for other people. Those people will do their best to convince you that they have value. They don't. Only the things you do have real, lasting value, not the things you get for the things you do. You will, at some point, realise that no trophy loves you as much as you love it, that it cannot pay your bills (even if it increases your salary slightly) and that it won't hold your hand tightly as you say your last words on your deathbed. Only people who love you can do that. If you make art to feel better, make sure it eventually makes you feel better. If it doesn't, stop making it. You will love someone differently, as time passes. If you always expect to feel the same kind of love you felt when you first met someone, you will always be looking for new people to love. Love doesn't fade. It just changes as it grows. It would be boring if it didn't. There is no truly "right" way of writing, painting, being or thinking, only things which have happened before. People who tell you differently are assholes, petrified of change, who should be violently ignored. No philosophy, mantra or piece of advice will hold true for every conceivable situation. "The early bird catches the worm" does not apply to minefields. Perfection only exists in poetry and movies, everyone fights occasionally and no sane person is ever completely sure of anything. Nothing is wrong with any of this. Wisdom does not come from age, wisdom comes from doing things. Be very, very careful of people who call themselves wise, artists, poets or gurus. If you eat well, exercise often and drink enough water, you have a good chance of living a long and happy life. The only time you can really be happy, is right now. There is no other moment that exists that is more important than this one. Do not sacrifice this moment in the hopes of a better one. It is easy to remember all these things when they are being said, it is much harder to remember them when you are stuck in traffic or lying in bed worrying about the next day. If you want to move people, simply tell them the truth. Today, it is rarer than it's ever been. (People will write things like this on posters (some of the words will be bigger than others) or speak them softly over music as art (pause for effect). The reason this happens is because as a society, we need to self-medicate against apathy and the slow, gradual death that can happen to anyone, should they confuse life with actually living.)

...if you were to bother to read my books, to behave as any educated person would, you would learn that they are not sexy, and do not argue in favor of wildness of any kind. They beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are. It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely. That is because people speak coarsely in real life. Especially soldiers and hardworking men speak coarsely, and even our most sheltered children know that. And we all know, too, that those words really don’t damage children much. They didn’t damage us when we were young. It was evil deeds and lying that hurt us.

My advice to young people; never allow anyone to look down upon you because you are young. Live exemplary life and be of good conduct.

Seeing the world with all the unspoiled simplicity of a young child, you are free from concepts of beauty and ugliness, good and evil, and no longer fall prey to conflicting tendencies driven by desire or repulsion. Why trouble yourself about all the ups and downs of daily life, like a child who delights in building a sand castle but cries when it collapses? To get what they want and be rid of what they dislike, look how people throw themselves into torments, like moths plunging into the flame of a lamp! Would it not be better to put down your heavy burden of dreamlike obsessions once and for all? 

The other question young people always ask me is: "What advice do you have for a person like me, an Asian American woman wanting to get into Hollywood?" Here it is: Let go of seeing yourself as nothing more than an Asian American woman. Ask yourself who you are outside of that.

If you can’t accept your body and your mind, you can’t be a home for yourself. Many young people don’t accept who they are, and yet they want to be a home for someone else. But how can they be if they’re not yet a home for themselves?

People have a much greater chance of finding something they’ll enjoy doing and making those greatest contributions when they trust themselves and are free to make their own life choices (are not marionettes in the hands of their parents).

The young must learn to appreciate the wisdom of elderly people and learn from their life experiences.

We are so lonely because we don’t have enough friends and relatives. Human beings are supposed to live in stable, like-minded, extended families of fifty people or more.

Young people should be moving fast, take the world by its male genitalia, and so on.

It's been well-documented that there is a growing sense of entitlement among young people. I have certainly seen that in my classrooms. So many graduating seniors have this notion that they should get hired because of their creative brilliance. Too many are unhappy with the idea of starting at the bottom. My advice has always been: 'You ought to be thrilled you got a job in the mailroom. And when you get there, here's what you do: Be really great at sorting mail.' No one wants to hear someone say: 'I'm not good at sorting mail because the job is beneath me.' No job should be beneath us. And if you can't (or won't) sort mail, where is the proof that you can do anything?

[...] grew up here, in what show business people, which now includes our best-known politicians and so-called journalists, often call 'flyover country.' We are somewhere between television cameras in Washington DC, and New York, and Los Angeles. Please join me in saying to the undersides of their airplanes, 'Go to hell.

When I was a young philosopher, I asked a senior colleague, Pat Suppes (then and now a famous philosopher of science and an astute student of human nature), what the secret of happiness was. Instead of giving me advice, he made a rather droll observation about what a lot of people who were happy with themselves seem to have done, namely: 1. Take a careful inventory of their shortcomings and flaws 2. Adopt a code of values that treats these things as virtues 3. Admire themselves for living up to it Brutal people admire themselves for being manly; compulsive pedants admire themselves for their attention to detail; naturally selfish and mean people admire themselves for their dedication to helping the market reward talent and punish failure, and so on.

[Referring to passage by Alice Munro] Finally, the passage contradicts a form of bad advice often given young writers -- namely, that the job of the author is to show, not tell. Needless to say, many great novelists combine "dramatic" showing with long sections of the flat-out authorial narration that is, I guess, what is meant by telling. And the warning against telling leads to a confusion that causes novice writers to think that everything should be acted out -- don't tell us a character is happy, show us how she screams "yay" and jumps up and down for joy -- when in fact the responsibility of showing should be assumed by the energetic and specific use of language.

And anyway, isn’t this how young people are told to live their lives now? To fake it until they make it? She’s going to do just that. She will fake it even better than a mediocre man interviewing for a job he’s not qualified for.

Hah.” Vera sniffs. “You young people always waking up late, is very bad for your health.” “So you woke up …

The best way to advise young people is to find out what they really want to do and then advise them to do it.

Third, it is helpful to seek advice from those who are spiritually mature and solid in their faith. A godly counselor or pastor can assist you in avoiding the common mistakes that confuse many young people.

Identify your Radar – it’s your brain functioning optimally; not a vague intuition or cosmic sixth sense. Train your Radar in key areas like: evaluating people, personal safety, healthy relationships, physical and mental well-being, money and credit cards, career choice, how to get organized. Meet the Radar Jammers. They have the power to turn down or turn off our clear thinking Radars.
Some are well known: alcohol and drugs, peer pressure, infatuation, sleep deprivation.
Others are surprising: showing off, fake complexity, anger, unthinking religions, the need for speed, dangerous personality disorders, and even fast food!
Learn reasonable approaches and specific techniques to deal with them all.

...My advice to young people might be as follows: 1. Don't get down when your life takes a bad turn. Out of adversity comes challenge and often success. 2. Don't blame others for your setbacks. 3. When things go well, always give credit to others. 4. Don't talk all the time. Listen to your friends and mentors and learn from them. 5. Don't brag about yourself. Let others point out your virtues, your strong points. 6. Give someone else a hand. When a friend is hurting, show that friend you care. 7. Nobody likes an overbearing big shot. 8. As you succeed, be kind to people. Thank those who help you along the way. 9. Don't be afraid to shed a tear when your heart is broken because a friend is hurting. 10. Say your prayers!!

A critical analysis of the present global constellation-one which offers no clear solution, no “practical” advice on what to do, and provides no light at the end of the tunnel, since one is well aware that this light might belong to a train crashing towards us-usually meets with reproach: “Do you mean we should do nothing? Just sit and wait?” One should gather the courage to answer: “YES, precisely that!” There are situations when the only true “practical” thing to do is to resist the temptation to engage immediately and to “wait and see” by means of a patient, critical analysis. Engagement seems to exert its pressure on us from all directions. In a well-known passage from his ‘Existentialism and Humanism’, Sartre deployed the dilemma of a young man in France in 1942, torn between the duty to help his lone, ill mother and the duty to enter the war and fight the Germans; Sartre’s point is, of course, that there is no a priori answer to this dilemma. The young man needs to make a decision grounded only in his own abyssal freedom and assume full responsibility for it. An obscene third way out of this dilemma would have been to advise the young man to tell his mother that he will join the Resistance, and to tell his Resistance friends that he will take care of his mother, while, in reality, withdrawing to a secluded place and studying. There is more than cheap cynicism in this advice. It brings to mind a well-known Soviet joke about Lenin. Under socialism; Lenin’s advice to young people, his answer to what they should do, was “Learn, learn, and learn.” This was evoked all the time and displayed on the school walls. The joke goes: Marx, Engels, and Lenin are asked whether they would prefer to have a wife or a mistress. As expected, Marx, rather conservative in private matters, answers, “A wife!” while Engels, more of a bon vivant, opts for a mistress. To everyone’s surprise, Lenin says, “I’d like to have both!” Why? Is there a hidden stripe of decadent jouisseur behind his austere revolutionary image? No-he explains: “So that I can tell my wife that I am going to my mistress and my mistress that I am going to my wife. . .” “And then, what do you do?” “I go to a solitary place to learn, learn, and learn!” Is this not exactly what Lenin did after the catastrophe in 1914? He withdrew to a lonely place in Switzerland, where he “learned, learned, and learned,” reading Hegel’s logic. And this is what we should do today when we find ourselves bombarded with mediatic images of violence. We need to “learn, learn, and learn” what causes this violence.

None of us has an obligation to accept the definitions of ‘respect’ and ‘gratitude’ our parents espoused, especially when those definitions can be used to guilt-trip us, or when they are being used for the purpose of forcing us to do certain things (as an extortion mechanism).

When young people ask me for advice today, I generally say, “Decide what is sacred to you, and put your best life energies at its service. Make that the focus of your studies, your work, the test for your pleasures and your relationships. Don’t ever let fear or craving for security turn you aside.

My advice to someone like you is to always stay close to the gray area and keep yourself and your family safe. Stay away from any place where you can run into police-that's the advice I give to you and to all young black men in this country. The police is for the protection of white people, my brother. Maybe black women and black children sometimes, but not black men. Never black men. Black men and police are palm oil and water. You understand me, eh?

As they were making their way out, they went through a narrow passage and Mather suddenly warned, “Stoop! Stoop!” Franklin, not understanding the exhortation, bumped his head on a low beam. As was his wont, Mather turned it into a homily: “Let this be a caution to you not always to hold your head so high. Stoop, young man, stoop—as you go through this world—and you’ll miss many hard thumps.” As Franklin later recalled to Mather’s son, “This advice, thus beat into my head, has frequently been of use to me, and I often think of it when I see pride mortified and misfortunes brought upon people by carrying their heads too high.

Just be yourself” sounds like good advice at first, but what if you’re a jerk? What if you’re a serial killer? Maybe you should be someone else. “Believe in yourself” is fine, but “anything is possible”? No, it’s not. Expressing yourself, respecting yourself, and being honest with yourself are somewhat tautological but not usually directly harmful. But “you have to love yourself first” has a crucial flaw: people who really love themselves are called narcissists, and they make horrible relationship partners.

Nature had obviously color-coded people for a reason. Otherwise, what the hell were all these different colors for?

I were to travel back in time, I might urge the young man I was to set the books aside for a minute, open the windows, and let in some fresh air (my smoking habit was then in full bloom). I’d tell him to relax, go meet some people, and enjoy the pleasures that life reserves for those in their twenties. The few friends I had in New York tried to offer similar advice.

I imagine that, one day, I will invite young queers over for tea and cheese platters and advice, and I will be able to tell them: you can be hurt by people who look just like you. Not only can it happen, it probably will, because the world is full of hurt people who hurt people. Even if the dominant culture considers you an anomaly, that doesn’t mean you can’t be common, common as fucking dirt.

as a member of a zippier generation, with sparkle in its eyes and a snap in its stride, let me tell you what kept us as high as kites a lot of the time: hatred. All my life I’ve had people to hate—from Hitler to Nixon, not that those two are at all comparable in their villainy. It is a tragedy, perhaps, that human beings can get so much energy and enthusiasm from hate. If you want to feel ten feet tall and as though you could run a hundred miles without stopping, hate beats pure cocaine any day. Hitler resurrected a beaten, bankrupt, half-starved nation with hatred and nothing more. Imagine

So now here we were with David's second big bout against whatever it was, and it had pretty well gotten him. He was taking a lot of morphine for the paid and looked terrible, although the spirit was still in his eyes, weak as it was. "Do you have any advice for me on my music going forward?" I asked David. "Just make sure to have as much of you in the recording as you can," he said. "Stay simple. No one gives a shit about anything else." He tole me to keep it simple and focused, have as much of my playing and singing as possible, and not to hide it with other things. Don't embellish it with other people I don't need or hide it in any way. Simple and focused. That is what I took away. He didn't exactly say that, but I got the message. I have failed to do that in some instances. "Be great or be gon," his famous phrase, choes in my head. I have to remember that for sure. Damn. So I left the apartment after a hug. It was devastating. He died a week later. He wanted to go. His body was all fucked up and it was not easy. His tenacious spirit would not let him go.

As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-color joke. This side of me is usually lying in wait to ambush the other one, which is much purer, deeper and finer. No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that everyone’s had enough of me to last a month. Actually, I’m what a romantic movie is to a profound thinker—a mere diversion, a comic interlude, something that is soon forgotten: not bad, but not particularly good either. I hate having to tell you this, but why shouldn’t I admit it when I know it’s true? My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne—to beat her down, hide her. But it doesn’t work, and I know why. I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the “lighthearted” Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the “deeper” Anne is too weak. If I force the good Anne into the spotlight for even fifteen minutes, she shuts up like a clam the moment she’s called upon to speak, and lets Anne number one do the talking. Before I realize it, she’s disappeared. So the nice Anne is never seen in company. She’s never made a single appearance, though she almost always takes the stage when I’m alone. I know exactly how I’d like to be, how I am … on the inside. But unfortunately I’m only like that with myself. And perhaps that’s why—no, I’m sure that’s the reason why—I think of myself as happy on the inside and other people think I’m happy on the outside. I’m guided by the pure Anne within, but on the outside I’m nothing but a frolicsome little goat tugging at its tether. As I’ve told you, what I say is not what I feel, which is why I have a reputation for being boy-crazy as well as a flirt, a smart aleck and a reader of romances. The happy-go-lucky Anne laughs, gives a flippant reply, shrugs her shoulders and pretends she doesn’t give a darn. The quiet Anne reacts in just the opposite way. If I’m being completely honest, I’ll have to admit that it does matter to me, that I’m trying very hard to change myself, but that I’m always up against a more powerful enemy. A voice within me is sobbing, “You see, that’s what’s become of you. You’re surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people who dislike you, and all because you don’t listen to the advice of your own better half.” Believe me, I’d like to listen, but it doesn’t work, because if I’m quiet and serious, everyone thinks I’m putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then I’m not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be sick, stuff me with aspirins and sedatives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movements and berate me for being in a bad mood, until I just can’t keep it up anymore, because when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if … if only there were no other people in the world. Yours, Anne M. Frank ANNE’S DIARY ENDS HERE.

... those Yalta nights, with extraordinary women who could drink vodka without swooning until six in the morning and sweaty young people from the Association of Proletarian Writers of Crimea who came to ask for literary advice at four in the afternoon.

Desperately trying to remember her manners, she curtseyed and murmured, "Your Grace." The smile lines at his eyes deepened subtly. "You appear to be in need of rescue. Why don't you come inside with me, away from this riffraff? The duchess is eager to meet you." As Pandora hesitated, thoroughly intimidated, he assured her. "I'm quite trustworthy. In fact, I'm very nearly an angel. You'll come to love me in no time." "Take heed," Lord St. Vincent advised Pandora sardonically, fastening the loose sides of his vest. "My father is the pied piper of gullible women." "That's not true," the duke said, "The non-gullible ones follow me as well." Pandora couldn't help chuckling. She looked up into silvery-blue eyes lit with sparks of humor and playfulness. There was something reassuring about his presence, the sense of a man who truly liked women. When she and Cassandra were children, they had fantasized about a handsome father who would lavish them with affection and advice, and spoil them just a little, but not too much. A father who might have let them stand on his feet to dance. This man looked very much like the one Pandora had imagined. She moved forward and took his arm. "How was your journey, my dear?" the duke asked as he escorted her into the house. Before Pandora could reply, Lord St. Vincent spoke from behind them. "Lady Pandora doesn't like small talk, Father. She would prefer to discuss topics such as Darwin, or women's suffrage." "Naturally an intelligent young woman would wish to skip over mundane chitchat," the duke said, giving Pandora such an approving glance that she fairly glowed. "However," he continued thoughtfully, "most people need to be guided into a feeling of safety before they dare reveal their opinions to someone they've only just met. There's a beginning to everything, after all. Every opera has its prelude, every sonnet its opening quatrain. Small talk is merely a way of helping a stranger to trust you, by first finding something you can both agree on." "No one's ever explained it that way before," Pandora said with a touch of wonder. "It actually makes sense. But why must it be so often about weather? Isn't there something else we all agree on? Runcible spoons- everyone likes those, don't they? And teatime, and feeding ducks." "Blue ink," the duke added. "And a cat's purr. And summer storms- although I suppose that brings us back to weather." "I wouldn't mind talking about weather with you, Your Grace," Pandora said ingenuously. The duke laughed gently. "What a delightful girl.

Read. Read as much as possible. Read the big stuff, the challenging stuff, the confronting stuff, and read the fun stuff too. Visit galleries and look at paintings, watch movies, listen to music, go to concerts – be a little vampire running around the place sucking up all the art and ideas you can. Fill yourself with the beautiful stuff of the world. Have fun. Get amazed. Get astonished. Get awed on a regular basis, so that getting awed is habitual and becomes a state of being. Fully understand your enormous value in the scheme of things because the planet needs people like you, smart young creatives full of awe, who can minister to the world with positive, mischievous energy, young people who seek spiritual enrichment and who see hatred and disconnection as the corrosive forces they are. These are manifest indicators of a human being with immense potential. Absorb into yourself the world’s full richness and goodness and fun and genius, so that when someone tells you it’s not worth fighting for, you will stick up for it, protect it, run to its defence, because it is your world they’re talking about, then watch that world continue to pour itself into you in gratitude. A little smart vampire full of raging love, amazed by the world – that will be you, my young friend, the earth shaking at your feet.

Individuals are labeled “different,” “geeky,” “abnormal,” or even “Aspergian” or “autistic” at a young age. Among other things, these labels suggest that the people around them—their family, friends, teachers, and counselors—can’t relate to their actions and expressions.

I imagine that, one day, I will invite young queers over for tea and cheese platters and advice, and I will be able to tell them: you can be hurt by people who look like you. Not only can it happen, it probably will, because the world is full of hurt people who hurt people.

I have said this before, and so has Neil, but it bears repeating: if we learned one thing from all of this, it was a young artist's greatest asset is the word "no". It's an immensely valuable word. There will always be pressure on you to compromise, pressure to sell your dreams short, and there will always be people who want you to be something that you're not, but none of these things can happen without your permission. My most urgent advice to aspiring artists is always" Be true to yourself and just say no". Oh, and always take your wallet onstage with you. Bada-bing!

In Terry Pratchett’s novel Carpe Jugulum, the character Granny Weatherwax expressed the principle more succinctly. A young man tried to tell Granny that the nature of sin was a complicated thing. She said that, no, it was very simple. “Sin,” she said, “is when you treat people as things.

A lot of young people like to be paid attention to, praised and supported in everything. There is nothing wrong with this. However, anyone who has ever become anything worth writing home about has had to handle fire and brimstone with naked hands, wander in the wilderness and survive under severe limitations.

But if you will not take this Counsel, and persist in thinking a Commerce with the Sex inevitable, then I repeat my former Advice, that in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. You call this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons. They are these: 1. Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor'd with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreable. 2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman. 3. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc'd may be attended with much Inconvenience. 4. Because thro' more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People might be rather inclin'd to excuse an old Woman who would kindly take care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and prevent his ruining his Health and Fortune among mercenary Prostitutes. 5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding2 only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement. 6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy. 7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy. 8thly and Lastly They are so grateful!! Thus much for my Paradox. But still I advise you to marry directly; being sincerely Your affectionate Friend.

I’m not in the advice business. However, people have been sending increasing amounts of books / videos / manuscripts / poems / photographs / artworks / long raving emails describing plans for certain masterpieces. Mostly this is a pleasure, but I would like to take the opportunity to offer one piece of advice to young artists and writers. Be disciplined. Be hard on yourself. Remember that you are competing with some of the greatest minds in history. If you are a painter, for example, you are entering into a race where Michelangelo and Picasso already have leads. Ask yourself if you have done everything you can, everything in your power, to compete with those guys. It’s not a matter of painting like them or of conceiving of art like them. You can do your own thing. It’s a matter of pushing yourself, the way they pushed themselves, to do in art what no one else could do. Why accept anything less of yourself? Wittgenstein: “What you have achieved cannot mean more to others than it does to you. Whatever it has cost you, that’s what they’ll pay.

If I could give the young people ... but one word of advice, it would be this - 'Believe in yourself with all your might'. That is, believe that your destiny is inside you, that there is a power within you which if awakened, aroused, developed and matched with honest effort, will not only make a noble man or woman of you, but will also make you successful and happy.

Artists frequently hide the steps that lead to their masterpieces. They want their work and their career to be shrouded in the mystery that it all came out at once. It’s called hiding the brushstrokes, and those who do it are doing a disservice to people who admire their work and seek to emulate them. If you don’t get to see the notes, the rewrites, and the steps, it’s easy to look at a finished product and be under the illusion that it just came pouring out of someone’s head like that. People who are young, or still struggling, can get easily discouraged, because they can’t do it like they thought it was done. An artwork is a finished product, and it should be, but I always swore to myself that I would not hide my brushstrokes.

It kept coming back to joy-- how could I live a life filled with it? And always, the answer that came back to me was "Write." ... I am here because of the indigenous people of this country, because of the enslaved people who were here before me, the young people of the civil rights movements who fought hard to get me to this moment. My biggest responsibility is to recognize that I am part of the continuum, that I didn't just appear and start writing stuff down. I'm writing stuff down because Andre Lorde wrote stuff down, because James Baldwin wrote stuff down... and all the people who came before me -- set the stage for my work. I have to keep all of that in my heart as I move through the world, not only for the deep respect I have for them, but also for my own strength. So my advice to other young writers: Read widely. Study other writers. Be thoughtful, Then go out and do the work of changing the form, finding your own voice, and saying what you need to say. Be fearless. And care. The fact that young people continue to rise brings me such joy. They are where I look to find my hope. -- "Continue to Rise: A Conversation with Jacqueline Woodson

All ye young people now take my advice Before crossing the ocean you'd better think twice Cause you can't live without love, without love alone The proof is round London in the nobody zone Where the summer is fine, but the winter's a fridge Wrapped up in old cardboard under Charing Cross Bridge And I'll never go home now because of the shame Of misfit's reflection in a shop window pane.

While washing up, Bep began talking to Mother and Mrs van Daan about how discourages she gets. What help did those two offer her? Our tactless mother, especially, only made things go from bad to worse. Do you know what her advice was? That she should think about all the other people in the world who are suffering! How can thinking about the misery of others help if you're miserable yourself?

Kids want to be grown ups, adults want to be young and careless again. Single people desperately want a relationship, but those who are in one still complain almost all the time and wish for freedom. The poor want money, the rich want more of it. This means that changing your situation doesn’t prevent you from suffering, doesn’t make your desires go away. So you need to change something on the inside.

early childhood she had given her deepest trust, and which for half a century has suggested what she might do, think, feel, desire, and become, has suddenly fallen silent. Now, at last, all those books have no instructions for her, no demands—because she is just too old. In the world of classic British fiction, the one Vinnie knows best, almost the entire population is under fifty, or even under forty—as was true of the real world when the novel was invented. The few older people—especially women—who are allowed into a story are usually cast as relatives; and Vinnie is no one’s mother, daughter, or sister. People over fifty who aren’t relatives are pushed into minor parts, character parts, and are usually portrayed as comic, pathetic, or disagreeable. Occasionally one will appear in the role of tutor or guide to some young protagonist, but more often than not their advice and example are bad; their histories a warning rather than a model. In most novels it is taken for granted that people over fifty are as set in their ways as elderly apple trees, and as permanently shaped and scarred by the years they have weathered. The literary convention is that nothing major can happen to them except through subtraction. They may be struck by lightning or pruned by the hand of man; they may grow weak or hollow; their sparse fruit may become misshapen, spotted, or sourly crabbed. They may endure these changes nobly or meanly. But they cannot, even under the best of conditions, put out new growth or burst into lush and unexpected bloom. Even today there are disproportionately few older characters in fiction. The

...people ask me [Alfred Eisenstaedt], "Do young photographers come to you and ask for advice?" "No," I say. "I ask them for advice. They know everything better." Naturally, they want to reach the pinnacle of their profession in six months. It took me a lifetime. They know more than I do about photography, about lighting equipment, but not about seeing. You know, it's not the camera which takes the picture; it's the eye.

Over the years I've found it much more helpful to follow the advice of Sister Liebert and seek to treat each young person as a teacher from God, someone God has placed in my life in order to help me grow in faith. When I encounter a young person, I find it much more helpful to think that she (or he) may be the only Jesus I'll ever know. Perhaps by seeking to encounter the presence of Christ in young people, we'll find ourselves better able to see them, hear them, feel compassion for them, and respond in kindness.

The great Russian literature is above all a literature of pessimism, more accurately of passive pessimism.... Russian passive pessimism educated the cadre of "superfluous people," or to put it more simply, parasites, "dreamers," people "without any given responsibilities," "whimperers," "grey little people" of the "twentieth rank.".... In contemporary Russian ethnographic romanticism such an idealization of past Razins and Pugachevs fuses with a sense of Russian "imperial" patriotism and obscures dreams concerning the future. It is incapable of going beyond this. The great Russian literature has reached its limit and has halted at the crossroads.... And the illiterate advice to found our orientation upon Muscovite art sounds like a malicious irony directed at the same Russian literature. By the will of history entirely the opposite will come to pass: Russian literature can only find the magical balm for its revival beneath the luxuriant, vital tree of the renaissance of young national republics, in the atmosphere of the springtime of once oppressed nations.

Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them.” ECCLESIASTES 12:1 NOVEMBER 9 I was once interviewed by reporters from a hometown of mine—Findlay, Ohio. They asked me the usual questions. Finally, one of them asked, “Dr. Peale, have you any advice for young people about how to work for a good future for themselves, and, beyond that, how they can help make the world a better place for people everywhere?” With that question in mind, I would suggest that the essential first step would be to let God release a fuller measure of our potential. Everyone has potential. God put it in you. That is a tremendous word: potential. Eleven men once got their potential freed and began to use it, and they turned the whole world upside down with their message of Christ. They were so dynamic that wherever they went, they turned things upside down, bringing new life, new understanding, and new joy. Did anyone ever say that about you? How to release our potential—this is the challenge.

Stepan Arkadyevitch had not chosen his political opinions or his views; these political opinions and views had come to him of themselves, just as he did not choose the shapes of his hat and coat, but simply took those that were being worn. And for him, living in a certain society—owing to the need, ordinarily developed at years of discretion, for some degree of mental activity—to have views was just as indispensable as to have a hat. If there was a reason for his preferring liberal to conservative views, which were held also by many of his circle, it arose not from his considering liberalism more rational, but from its being in closer accordance with his manner of life. The liberal party said that in Russia everything is wrong, and certainly Stepan Arkadyevitch had many debts and was decidedly short of money. The liberal party said that marriage is an institution quite out of date, and that it needs reconstruction; and family life certainly afforded Stepan Arkadyevitch little gratification, and forced him into lying and hypocrisy, which was so repulsive to his nature. The liberal party said, or rather allowed it to be understood, that religion is only a curb to keep in check the barbarous classes of the people; and Stepan Arkadyevitch could not get through even a short service without his legs aching from standing up, and could never make out what was the object of all the terrible and high-flown language about another world when life might be so very amusing in this world. And with all this, Stepan Arkadyevitch, who liked a joke, was fond of puzzling a plain man by saying that if he prided himself on his origin, he ought not to stop at Rurik and disown the first founder of his family—the monkey. And so Liberalism had become a habit of Stepan Arkadyevitch's, and he liked his newspaper, as he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight fog it diffused in his brain. He read the leading article, in which it was maintained that it was quite senseless in our day to raise an outcry that radicalism was threatening to swallow up all conservative elements, and that the government ought to take measures to crush the revolutionary hydra; that, on the contrary, "in our opinion the danger lies not in that fantastic revolutionary hydra, but in the obstinacy of traditionalism clogging progress," etc., etc. He read another article, too, a financial one, which alluded to Bentham and Mill, and dropped some innuendoes reflecting on the ministry. With his characteristic quickwittedness he caught the drift of each innuendo, divined whence it came, at whom and on what ground it was aimed, and that afforded him, as it always did, a certain satisfaction. But today that satisfaction was embittered by Matrona Philimonovna's advice and the unsatisfactory state of the household. He read, too, that Count Beist was rumored to have left for Wiesbaden, and that one need have no more gray hair, and of the sale of a light carriage, and of a young person seeking a situation; but these items of information did not give him, as usual, a quiet, ironical gratification. Having finished the paper, a second cup of coffee and a roll and butter, he got up, shaking the crumbs of the roll off his waistcoat; and, squaring his broad chest, he smiled joyously: not because there was anything particularly agreeable in his mind—the joyous smile was evoked by a good digestion.

If you cannot drop a wrong problem, then the first time you meet one you will be stuck with it for the rest of your career. Einstein was tremendously creative in his early years, but once he began, in midlife, the search for a unified theory, he spent the rest of his life on it and had about nothing to show for all the effort. I have seen this many times while watching how science is done. It is most likely to happen to the very creative people; their previous successes convince them they can solve any problem, but there are other reasons besides overconfidence why, in many fields, sterility sets in with advancing age. Managing a creative career is not an easy task, or else it would often be done. In mathematics, theoretical physics, and astrophysics, age seems to be a handicap (all characterized by high, raw creativity), while in music composition, literature, and statesmanship, age and experience seem to be an asset. As valued by Bell Telephone Laboratories in the late 1970s, the first 15 years of my career included all they listed, and for my second 15 years they listed nothing I was very closely associated with! Yes, in my areas the really great things are generally done while the person is young, much as in athletics, and in old age you can turn to coaching (teaching), as I have done. Of course, I do not know your field of expertise to say what effect age will have, but I suspect really great things will be realized fairly young, though it may take years to get them into practice. My advice is if you want to do significant things, now is the time to start thinking (if you have not already done so) and not wait until it is the proper moment—which may never arrive!

March 2, 1944 Love, what is love? I don't think you can really put it into words. Love is understanding someone, caring for him, sharing his joys and sorrows. This eventually includes physical love. You've shared something, given something away and received something in return...Losing your virtue doesn't matter, as long as you know that for as long as you live you'll have someone at your side who understands you, and who doesn't have to be shared with anyone else! March 7, 1944 ...I'd like to live that seemingly carefree and happy life for an evening, a few days, a week. At the end of that week I'd be exhausted, and would be grateful to the first person to talk to me about something meaningful. I want friends, not admirers. People who respect me for my character and my deeds, not my flattering smile. The circle around me would be smaller, but that does that matter, as long as they're sincere? ... At such moments I don't think about all the misery, but about the beauty that still remains. This is where Mother and I differ greatly. Her advice in the face of melancholy is: "Think about all the suffering in the world and be thankful you're not part of it." My advice is: "Go outside, to the country, enjoy the sun and all nature has to offer. Go outside and try to recapture the happiness within yourself; think of all the beauty in yourself and in everything around you and be happy." I don't think Mother's advice can be right, because what are you supposed to do if you become part of the suffering? You'd be completely lost. On the contrary, beauty remains, even in misfortune. If you just look for it, you discover more and more happiness and regain your balance. A person who's happy will make others happy; a person who has courage and faith will never die in misery!

As far as Immigration is concerned, there are many things that are illegal and many that are gray, and by 'gray' I mean the things that are illegal but which the government doesn't want to spend time worrying about. You understand me, abi? My advice to someone like you is to always stay close to the gray area and keep yourself and your family safe. Stay away from any place where you can run into police- that's the advice I give to you and to all young black men in this country. The police is for the protection of white people, my brother. Maybe black women and black children sometimes, but not black men. Never black men' (74).

I'm going to throw some suggestions at you now in rapid succession, assuming you are a father of one or more boys. Here we go: If you speak disparagingly of the opposite sex, or if you refer to females as sex objects, those attitudes will translate directly into dating and marital relationships later on. Remember that your goal is to prepare a boy to lead a family when he's grown and to show him how to earn the respect of those he serves. Tell him it is great to laugh and have fun with his friends, but advise him not to be "goofy." Guys who are goofy are not respected, and people, especially girls and women, do not follow boys and men whom they disrespect. Also, tell your son that he is never to hit a girl under any circumstances. Remind him that she is not as strong as he is and that she is deserving of his respect. Not only should he not hurt her, but he should protect her if she is threatened. When he is strolling along with a girl on the street, he should walk on the outside, nearer the cars. That is symbolic of his responsibility to take care of her. When he is on a date, he should pay for her food and entertainment. Also (and this is simply my opinion), girls should not call boys on the telephone-at least not until a committed relationship has developed. Guys must be the initiators, planning the dates and asking for the girl's company. Teach your son to open doors for girls and to help them with their coats or their chairs in a restaurant. When a guy goes to her house to pick up his date, tell him to get out of the car and knock on the door. Never honk. Teach him to stand, in formal situations, when a woman leaves the room or a table or when she returns. This is a way of showing respect for her. If he treats her like a lady, she will treat him like a man. It's a great plan. Make a concerted effort to teach sexual abstinence to your teenagers, just as you teach them to abstain from drug and alcohol usage and other harmful behavior. Of course you can do it! Young people are fully capable of understanding that irresponsible sex is not in their best interest and that it leads to disease, unwanted pregnancy, rejection, etc. In many cases today, no one is sharing this truth with teenagers. Parents are embarrassed to talk about sex, and, it disturbs me to say, churches are often unwilling to address the issue. That creates a vacuum into which liberal sex counselors have intruded to say, "We know you're going to have sex anyway, so why not do it right?" What a damning message that is. It is why herpes and other sexually transmitted diseases are spreading exponentially through the population and why unwanted pregnancies stalk school campuses. Despite these terrible social consequences, very little support is provided even for young people who are desperately looking for a valid reason to say no. They're told that "safe sex" is fine if they just use the right equipment. You as a father must counterbalance those messages at home. Tell your sons that there is no safety-no place to hide-when one lives in contradiction to the laws of God! Remind them repeatedly and emphatically of the biblical teaching about sexual immorality-and why someone who violates those laws not only hurts himself, but also wounds the girl and cheats the man she will eventually marry. Tell them not to take anything that doesn't belong to them-especially the moral purity of a woman.

Matt’s housekeeper let him in with a grimace. “I’m harmless today,” Tate assured the woman as she led the way to where Matt Holden was standing just outside the study door. “Right. You and two odd species of cobra,” Matt murmured sarcastically, glaring at his son from a tanned face. “What do you want, a bruise to match the other one?” Tate held up both hands. “Don’t start,” he said. Matt moved out of the way with reluctance and closed the study door behind them. “Your mother’s gone shopping,” he said. “Good. I don’t want to talk to her just yet.” Matt’s eyebrows levered up. “Oh?” Tate dropped into the wing chair across from the senator’s bulky armchair. “I need some advice.” Matt felt his forehead. “I didn’t think a single malt whiskey was enough to make me hallucinate,” he said to himself. Tate glowered at him. “You’re not one of my favorite people, but you know Cecily a little better than I seem to lately.” “Cecily loves you,” Matt said shortly, dropping into his chair. “That’s not the problem,” Tate said. He leaned forward, his hands clasped loosely between his splayed knees. “Although I seem to have done everything in my power to make her stop.” The older man didn’t speak for a minute or two. “Love doesn’t die that easily,” he said. “Your mother and I are a case in point. We hadn’t seen each other for thirty-six years, but the instant we met again, the years fell away. We were young again, in love again.” “I can’t wait thirty-six years,” Tate stated. He stared at his hands, then he drew in a long breath. “Cecily’s pregnant.” The other man was quiet for so long that Tate lifted his eyes, only to be met with barely contained rage in the older man’s face. “Is it yours?” Matt asked curtly. Tate glowered at him. “What kind of woman do you think Cecily is? Of course it’s mine!” Matt chuckled. He leaned back in the easy chair and indulged the need to look at his son, to find all the differences and all the similarities in that younger version of his face. It pleased him to find so many familiar things. “We look alike,” Tate said, reading the intent scrutiny he was getting. “Funny that I never noticed that before.” Matt smiled. “We didn’t get along very well.” “Both too stubborn and inflexible,” Tate pointed out. “And arrogant.” Tate chuckled dryly. “Maybe.

Which philosophers would Alain suggest for practical living? Alain’s list overlaps nearly 100% with my own: Epicurus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Michel de Montaigne, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Bertrand Russell. * Most-gifted or recommended books? The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Essays of Michel de Montaigne. * Favorite documentary The Up series: This ongoing series is filmed in the UK, and revisits the same group of people every 7 years. It started with their 7th birthdays (Seven Up!) and continues up to present day, when they are in their 50s. Subjects were picked from a wide variety of social backgrounds. Alain calls these very undramatic and quietly powerful films “probably the best documentary that exists.” TF: This is also the favorite of Stephen Dubner on page 574. Stephen says, “If you are at all interested in any kind of science or sociology, or human decision-making, or nurture versus nature, it is the best thing ever.” * Advice to your 30-year-old self? “I would have said, ‘Appreciate what’s good about this moment. Don’t always think that you’re on a permanent journey. Stop and enjoy the view.’ . . . I always had this assumption that if you appreciate the moment, you’re weakening your resolve to improve your circumstances. That’s not true, but I think when you’re young, it’s sort of associated with that. . . . I had people around me who’d say things like, ‘Oh, a flower, nice.’ A little part of me was thinking, ‘You absolute loser. You’ve taken time to appreciate a flower? Do you not have bigger plans? I mean, this the limit of your ambition?’ and when life’s knocked you around a bit and when you’ve seen a few things, and time has happened and you’ve got some years under your belt, you start to think more highly of modest things like flowers and a pretty sky, or just a morning where nothing’s wrong and everyone’s been pretty nice to everyone else. . . . Fortune can do anything with us. We are very fragile creatures. You only need to tap us or hit us in slightly the wrong place. . . . You only have to push us a little bit, and we crack very easily, whether that’s the pressure of disgrace or physical illness, financial pressure, etc. It doesn’t take very much. So, we do have to appreciate every day that goes by without a major disaster.

Amy found out she had cancer not long after finishing Textbook, and she called me. She knew that in the years after my book The Fault in Our Stars was published, I’d come to know many young people who were gravely ill, and she wanted to know if I had advice for her. I told her what I think is true—that love survives death. But she wanted to know how young people react to death. How her kids would. She wanted to know if her kids and her husband would be okay, and that ripped me up. Although I’m usually quite comfortable talking with sick people, with my friend I found myself stumbling over words, overwhelmed by my own sadness and worry. They won’t be okay, of course, but they will go on, and the love you poured into them will go on. That’s what I should’ve said. But what I actually said, while crying, was, “How can this be happening? You do so much yoga.” In my experience, dying people often have wonderful stories of the horrible things healthy people say to them, but I’ve never heard of anybody saying something as stupid as, “You do so much yoga.” I hope that Amy at least got some narrative mileage out of it. But I also know I failed her, after she was there for me so many times. I know she forgives me—present tense—but still, I desperately wish I could’ve said something useful. Or perhaps not said anything at all. When people we love are suffering, we want to make it better. But sometimes—often, in fact—you can’t make it better. I’m reminded of something my supervisor said to me when I was a student chaplain: “Don’t just do something. Stand there.

—I’ll pay you your dues, father, when you cease turning the house of God into a pollingbooth. —A nice answer, said Dante, for any man calling himself a catholic to give to his priest. —They have only themselves to blame, said Mr Dedalus suavely. If they took a fool’s advice they would confine their attention to religion. —It is religion, Dante said. They are doing their duty in warning the people. —We go to the house of God, Mr Casey said, in all humility to pray to our Maker and not to hear election addresses. —It is religion, Dante said again. They are right. They must direct their flocks. —And preach politics from the altar, is it? asked Mr Dedalus. —Certainly, said Dante. It is a question of public morality. A priest would not be a priest if he did not tell his flock what is right and what is wrong.

GET BEYOND THE ONE-MAN SHOW Great organizations are never one-man operations. There are 22 million licensed small businesses in America that have no employees. Forbes suggests 75 percent of all businesses operate with one person. And the average income of those companies is a sad $44,000. That’s not a business—that’s torture. That is a prison where you are both the warden and the prisoner. What makes a person start a business and then be the only person who works there? Are they committed to staying small? Or maybe an entrepreneur decides that because the talent pool is so poor, they can’t hire anyone who can do it as well as them, and they give up. My guess is the latter: Most people have just given up and said, “It’s easier if I just do it myself.” I know, because that’s what I did—and it was suicidal. Because my business was totally dependent on me and only me, I was barely able to survive, much less grow, for the first ten years. Instead I contracted another company to promote my seminars. When I hired just one person to assist me out of my home office, I thought I was so smart: Keep it small. Keep expenses low. Run a tight ship. Bigger isn’t always better. These were the things I told myself to justify not growing my business. I did this for years and even bragged about how well I was doing on my own. Then I started a second company with a partner, a consulting business that ran parallel to my seminar business. This consulting business quickly grew bigger than my first business because my partner hired people to work for us. But even then I resisted bringing other people into the company because I had this idea that I didn’t want the headaches and costs that come with managing people. My margins were monster when I had no employees, but I could never grow my revenue line without killing myself, and I have since learned that is where all my attention and effort should have gone. But with the efforts of one person and one contracted marketing company, I could expand only so much. I know that a lot of speakers and business gurus run their companies as one-man shows. Which means that while they are giving advice to others about how to grow a business, they may have never grown one themselves! Their one-man show is simply a guy or gal going out, collecting a fee, selling time and a few books. And when they are out speaking, the business terminates all activity. I started studying other people and companies that had made it big and discovered they all had lots of employees. The reality is you cannot have a great business if it’s just you. You need to add other people. If you don’t believe me, try to name one truly great business that is successful, ongoing, viable, and growing that doesn’t have many people making it happen. Good luck. Businesses are made of people, not just machines, automations, and technology. You need people around you to implement programs, to add passion to the technology, to serve customers, and ultimately to get you where you want to go. Consider the behemoth online company Amazon: It has more than 220,000 employees. Apple has more than 100,000; Microsoft has around the same number. Ernst & Young has more than 200,000 people. Apple calls the employees working in its stores “Geniuses.” Don’t you want to hire employees deserving of that title too? Think of how powerful they could make your business.

So, about that one sentence of advice: Don’t feel behind. Two Roman historians recorded that when Julius Caesar was a young man he saw a statue of Alexander the Great in Spain and broke down in tears. “Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations, and I have all this time done nothing that is memorable,” he supposedly said. Pretty soon, that concern was a distant memory and Caesar was in charge of the Roman Republic—which he turned into a dictatorship before he was murdered by his own pals. It’s fair to say that like most youth athletes with highlight reels, he peaked early. Compare yourself to yourself yesterday, not to younger people who aren’t you. Everyone progresses at a different rate, so don’t let anyone else make you feel behind. You probably don’t even know where exactly you’re going, so feeling behind doesn’t help. Instead, as Herminia Ibarra suggested for the proactive pursuit of match quality, start planning experiments. Your personal version of Friday night or Saturday morning experiments, perhaps.

I can hardly believe that our nation’s policy is to seek peace by going to war. It seems that President Donald J. Trump has done everything in his power to divert our attention away from the fact that the FBI is investigating his association with Russia during his campaign for office. For several weeks now he has been sabre rattling and taking an extremely controversial stance, first with Syria and Afghanistan and now with North Korea. The rhetoric has been the same, accusing others for our failed policy and threatening to take autonomous military action to attain peace in our time. This gunboat diplomacy is wrong. There is no doubt that Secretaries Kelly, Mattis, and other retired military personnel in the Trump Administration are personally tough. However, most people who have served in the military are not eager to send our young men and women to fight, if it is not necessary. Despite what may have been said to the contrary, our military leaders, active or retired, are most often the ones most respectful of international law. Although the military is the tip of the spear for our country, and the forces of civilization, it should not be the first tool to be used. Bloodshed should only be considered as a last resort and definitely never used as the first option. As the leader of the free world, we should stand our ground but be prepared to seek peace through restraint. This is not the time to exercise false pride! Unfortunately the Trump administration informed four top State Department management officials that their services were no longer needed as part of an effort to "clean house." Patrick Kennedy, served for nine years as the “Undersecretary for Management,” “Assistant Secretaries for Administration and Consular Affairs” Joyce Anne Barr and Michele Bond, as well as “Ambassador” Gentry Smith, director of the Office for Foreign Missions. Most of the United States Ambassadors to foreign countries have also been dismissed, including the ones to South Korea and Japan. This leaves the United States without the means of exercising diplomacy rapidly, when needed. These positions are political appointments, and require the President’s nomination and the Senate’s confirmation. This has not happened! Moreover, diplomatically our country is severely handicapped at a time when tensions are as hot as any time since the Cold War. Without following expert advice or consent and the necessary input from the Unites States Congress, the decisions are all being made by a man who claims to know more than the generals do, yet he has only the military experience of a cadet at “New York Military Academy.” A private school he attended as a high school student, from 1959 to 1964. At that time, he received educational and medical deferments from the Vietnam War draft. Trump said that the school provided him with “more training than a lot of the guys that go into the military.” His counterpart the unhinged Kim Jong-un has played with what he considers his country’s military toys, since April 11th of 2012. To think that these are the two world leaders, protecting the planet from a nuclear holocaust….

The hardest thing is actually not to be a mother—to refuse to be a mother to anyone. To not be a mother is the most difficult thing of all. There is always someone ready to step into the path of a woman’s freedom, sensing that she is not yet a mother, so tries to make her into one. There will always be one man or another, or her mother or her father, or some young woman or some young man who steps into the bright and shimmering path of her freedom, and adopts themselves as that woman’s child, forcing her to be their mother. Who will knock her up this time? Who will emerge, planting their feet before her, and say with a smile, Hi mom! The world is full of desperate people, lonely people and half-broken people, unsolved people and needy people with shoes that stink, and socks that stink and are holey—people who want you to arrange their vitamins, or who need your advice at every turn, or who just want to talk and get a drink—and seduce you into being their mother. It’s hard to detect this is even happening, but before you realize it—it’s happened.

ONCE, a youth went to see a wise man, and said to him: “I have come seeking advice, for I am tormented by feelings of worthlessness and no longer wish to live. Everyone tells me that I am a failure and a fool. I beg you, Master, help me!” The wise man glanced at the youth, and answered hurriedly: “Forgive me, but I am very busy right now and cannot help you. There is one urgent matter in particular which I need to attend to...”—and here he stopped, for a moment, thinking, then added: “But if you agree to help me, I will happily return the favor.” “Of...of course, Master!” muttered the youth, noting bitterly that yet again his concerns had been dismissed as unimportant. “Good,” said the wise man, and took off a small ring with a beautiful gem from his finger. “Take my horse and go to the market square! I urgently need to sell this ring in order to pay off a debt. Try to get a decent price for it, and do not settle for anything less than one gold coin! Go right now, and come back as quick as you can!” The youth took the ring and galloped off. When he arrived at the market square, he showed it to the various traders, who at first examined it with close interest. But no sooner had they heard that it would sell only in exchange for gold than they completely lost interest. Some of the traders laughed openly at the boy; others simply turned away. Only one aged merchant was decent enough to explain to him that a gold coin was too high a price to pay for such a ring, and that he was more likely to be offered only copper, or at best, possibly silver. When he heard these words, the youth became very upset, for he remembered the old man’s instruction not to accept anything less than gold. Having already gone through the whole market looking for a buyer among hundreds of people, he saddled the horse and set off. Feeling thoroughly depressed by his failure, he returned to see the wise man. “Master, I was unable to carry out your request,” he said. “At best I would have been able to get a couple of silver coins, but you told me not to agree to anything less than gold! But they told me that this ring is not worth that much.” “That’s a very important point, my boy!” the wise man responded. “Before trying to sell a ring, it would not be a bad idea to establish how valuable it really is! And who can do that better than a jeweler? Ride over to him and find out what his price is. Only do not sell it to him, regardless of what he offers you! Instead, come back to me straightaway.” The young man once more leapt up on to the horse and set off to see the jeweler. The latter examined the ring through a magnifying glass for a long time, then weighed it on a set of tiny scales. Finally, he turned to the youth and said: “Tell your master that right now I cannot give him more than 58 gold coins for it. But if he gives me some time, I will buy the ring for 70.” “70 gold coins?!” exclaimed the youth. He laughed, thanked the jeweler and rushed back at full speed to the wise man. When the latter heard the story from the now animated youth, he told him: “Remember, my boy, that you are like this ring. Precious, and unique! And only a real expert can appreciate your true value. So why are you wasting your time wandering through the market and heeding the opinion of any old fool?

Shanks snickered with delight. “It’s the end result that matters, doll. Only the victor walks away with his head intact. Every soldier on this ship knows that as well.” Eena glared hard at the smirking giant. “Oh, and one more thing. Kira really hates you.” Shanks broke out in such a fit of laughter that even Kode found it contagious. Niki smacked her boyfriend on the back of the head for being insensitive. (Kira did not say that,) Ian groaned critically. (So what? It’s true,) Eena grumbled. (I hate him too.) (I don’t know why you let the guy get under your skin. Who cares what he thinks? You have nothing to prove to him.) Eena glared harder at the laughing Viidun as she thought about what bothered her most. It was the way Shanks acted, as if he considered himself superior to everyone. The thug was always bossing people around, snubbing their opinions, surpassing others at even the most trivial accomplishments. But the worst thing was that he honestly saw himself as invincible. (The guy is full of himself, so what? Just let it roll off your back.) If only simple advice were as simple to carry out.

Mrs. Indianapolis was in town again. She looked like a can of Sprite in her green and yellow outfit. She always likes to come down to the front desk just to chat. It was 4:04 am and thankfully I was awake and at the front desk when she got off the elevator and walked towards me. 
 “Good morning, Jacob,” she said.
 “My name is Jarod,” I replied.
 “When did you change your name?” “I was born Jarod, and I’ll probably die. Maybe.”
 “You must be new here. You look like a guy named Jacob that used to work at the front desk.”
 “Nope, I’m not new. And there’s no Jacob that’s worked the front desk, nor anybody who looks or looked like me. How can I assist you, Mrs. Indianapolis?”
 “I’d like to inform you that the pool is emitting a certain odor.”
 “What sort of odor?”
 “Bleach.”
 “Ah, that’s what we like to call chlorine. It’s the latest craze in the sanitation of public pools. Between you and me, though, I think it’s just a fad.”
 “Don’t get sassy with me, young man. I know what chlorine is. I expect a clean pool when I go swimming. But what I don’t expect is enough bleach to get the grass stain out of a shirt the size of Kentucky.”
 “That’s not our policy, ma’am. We only use about as much chlorine as it would take to remove a coffee stain the size of Seattle from a light gray shirt the size of Washington.” “Jerry, I don’t usually give advice to underlings, but I’m feeling charitable tonight. So I’ll tell you that if you want to get ahead in life, you have to know when to talk and when not to talk. And for a guy like you, it’d be a good idea if you decided not to talk all the time. Or even better, not to talk at all.”
 “Some people say some people talk too much, and some people, the second some people, say the first some people talk to much and think too little. Who is first and who is second in this case? Well, the customer—that’s you, lady—always comes first.”
 “There you go again with the talking. I’d rather talk to a robot than to you.”
 “If you’d rather talk to a robot, why don’t you just find your husband? He’s got all the personality and charm of a circuit board. Forgive me, I didn’t mean that.”
 “I should hope not!”
 “What I meant to say was fried circuit board. It’d be quite absurd to equate your husband’s banter to a functioning circuit board.”
 “I’m going to have a talk to your manager about your poor guest service.”
 “Go ahead. Tell him that Jerry was rude and see what he says. And by the way, the laundry room is off limits when no lifeguard is on duty.

Poverty is not caused by men and women getting married; it's not caused by machinery; it's not caused by "over-production"; it's not caused by drink or laziness; and it's not caused by "over-population". It's caused by Private Monopoly. That is the present system. They have monopolized everything that it is possible to monopolize; they have got the whole earth, the minerals in the earth and the streams that water the earth. The only reason they have not monopolized the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it. If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe. And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air - or of the money to buy it - even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless the had the money to pay for it. Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so. Even as you think at present that it's right for so few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air. In exactly the same spirit as you now say: "It's Their Land," "It's Their Water," "It's Their Coal," "It's Their Iron," so you would say "It's Their Air," "These are their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing?" And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on "Christian Duty" in the Sunday magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young. And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some of the air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers. And when you are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or dying for want of air, if one of your number suggests smashing a hole in the side of one of th gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from limb, you'll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest Police Station and deliver him up to "justice" in the hope of being given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble

Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '99: 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; oh never mind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've 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 4:00 pm on some idle Tuesday. Do one thing everyday 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 wanna 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're 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. Baz Luhrmannk, William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (1996)

Motor-scooter riders with big beards and girl friends who bounce on the back of the scooters and wear their hair long in front of their faces as well as behind, drunks who follow the advice of the Hat Council and are always turned out in hats, but not hats the Council would approve. Mr. Lacey, the locksmith,, shups up his shop for a while and goes to exchange time of day with Mr. Slube at the cigar store. Mr. Koochagian, the tailor, waters luxuriant jungle of plants in his window, gives them a critical look from the outside, accepts compliments on them from two passers-by, fingers the leaves on the plane tree in front of our house with a thoughtful gardener's appraisal, and crosses the street for a bite at the Ideal where he can keep an eye on customers and wigwag across the message that he is coming. The baby carriages come out, and clusters of everyone from toddlers with dolls to teenagers with homework gather at the stoops. When I get home from work, the ballet is reaching its cresendo. This is the time roller skates and stilts and tricycles and games in the lee of the stoop with bottletops and plastic cowboys, this is the time of bundles and packages, zigzagging from the drug store to the fruit stand and back over to the butcher's; this is the time when teenagers, all dressed up, are pausing to ask if their slips shows or their collars look right; this is the time when beautiful girls get out of MG's; this is the time when the fire engines go through; this is the time when anybody you know on Hudson street will go by. As the darkness thickens and Mr. Halpert moors the laundry cart to the cellar door again, the ballet goes under lights, eddying back nad forth but intensifying at the bright spotlight pools of Joe's sidewalk pizza, the bars, the delicatessen, the restaurant and the drug store. The night workers stop now at the delicatessen, to pick up salami and a container of milk. Things have settled down for the evening but the street and its ballet have not come to a stop. I know the deep night ballet and its seasons best from waking long after midnight to tend a baby and, sitting in the dark, seeing the shadows and hearing sounds of the sidewalk. Mostly it is a sound like infinitely patterning snatches of party conversation, and, about three in the morning, singing, very good singing. Sometimes their is a sharpness and anger or sad, sad weeping, or a flurry of search for a string of beads broken. One night a young man came roaring along, bellowing terrible language at two girls whom he had apparently picked up and who were disappointing him. Doors opened, a wary semicircle formed around him, not too close, until police came. Out came the heads, too, along the Hudsons street, offering opinion, "Drunk...Crazy...A wild kid from the suburbs" Deep in the night, I am almost unaware of how many people are on the street unless someone calls the together. Like the bagpipe. Who the piper is and why he favored our street I have no idea.

My Future Self My future self and I become closer and closer as time goes by. I must admit that I neglected and ignored her until she punched me in the gut, grabbed me by the hair and turned my butt around to introduce herself. Well, at least that’s what it felt like every time I left the convalescent hospital after doing skills training for a certification I needed to help me start my residential care business. I was going to be providing specialized, 24/7 residential care and supervising direct care staff for non-verbal, non-ambulatory adult men in diapers! I ran to the Red Cross and took the certified nurse assistant class so I would at least know something about the job I would soon be hiring people to do and to make sure my clients received the best care. The training facility was a Medicaid hospital. I would drive home in tears after seeing what happens when people are not able to afford long-term medical care and the government has to provide that care. But it was seeing all the “young” patients that brought me to tears. And I had thought that only the elderly lived like this in convalescent hospitals…. I am fortunate to have good health but this experience showed me that there is the unexpected. So I drove home each day in tears, promising God out loud, over and over again, that I would take care of my health and take care of my finances. That is how I met my future self. She was like, don’t let this be us girlfriend and stop crying! But, according to studies, we humans have a hard time empathizing with our future selves. Could you even imagine your 30 or 40 year old self when you were in elementary or even high school? It’s like picturing a stranger. This difficulty explains why some people tend to favor short-term or immediate gratification over long-term planning and savings. Take time to picture the life you want to live in 5 years, 10 years, and 40 years, and create an emotional connection to your future self. Visualize the things you enjoy doing now, and think of retirement saving and planning as a way to continue doing those things and even more. However, research shows that people who interacted with their future selves were more willing to improve savings. Just hit me over the head, why don’t you! I do understand that some people can’t even pay attention or aren’t even interested in putting money away for their financial future because they have so much going on and so little to work with that they feel like they can’t even listen to or have a conversation about money. But there are things you’re doing that are not helping your financial position and could be trouble. You could be moving in the wrong direction. The goal is to get out of debt, increase your collateral capacity, use your own money in the most efficient manner and make financial decisions that will move you forward instead of backwards. Also make sure you are getting answers specific to your financial situation instead of blindly guessing! Contact us. We will be happy to help!

Probably my favorite method of funding school, other than saving for it, is scholarships. There is a dispute as to how many scholarships go unclaimed every year. Certainly there are people on the Web who will hype you on this subject. However, legitimately there are hundreds of millions of dollars in scholarships given out every year. These scholarships are not academic or athletic scholarships either. They are of small- to medium-sized dollar amounts from organizations like community clubs. The Rotary Club, the Lions Club, or the Jaycees many times have $250 or $500 per year they award to some good young citizen. Some of these scholarships are based on race or sex or religion. For instance, they might be designed to help someone with Native American heritage get an education. The lists of these scholarships can be bought online, and there are even a few software programs you can purchase. Denise, a listener to my show, took my advice, bought one of the software programs, and worked the system. That particular software covered more than 300,000 available scholarships. She narrowed the database search until she had 1,000 scholarships to apply for. She spent the whole summer filling out applications and writing essays. She literally applied for 1,000 scholarships. Denise was turned down by 970, but she got 30, and those 30 scholarships paid her $38,000. She went to school for free while her next-door neighbor sat and whined that no money was available for school and eventually got a student loan.

Dear Windowpane, Aren’t you lucky? The sun rays of faith beam on you. How does it feel? Is it enlightenment? Do you feel free, loved, or suffocated? I admire you and envy you at the same time. I admire you because you have the ability to freely open up and let go. I am jealous of you because you have the ability to feel the warm embrace. You get to travel to different places. I know I might be thinking silly, but Windowpane, do you endure a lot of people’s pain? I mean—because many people lean on you, and I am sure you feel their energy, or maybe they tell you their problems. How do you handle all of that? Do you wait for the rain to come; therefore, you can wash off everyone’s problems and create new ones? It seems like you would be filled with clarity because, after all, everyone can see right through you. With that being said, you do not have anything to hide. What is so amazing about you—is that you remind me of water. I can see right through you, and I can see my reflection too. Now that is pretty cool. However, it is a Catch-22 as well. Now, I see you do not carry other people’s problems. You let us look at our reflections and go within to seek the answers we are searching for. Aww, you are something else. I want to give you some advice. Although I love your strategy, make sure that the person who is resting their head on you doesn’t quiet their mind too much. If so, their quiet mind might be filled with too much noise. We do not want that. Here’s a little secret, if a person starts thinking too long, then they are thinking wrong. Keep that in mind. Well, I love the scenery, and I enjoyed the talk. Best of luck to you.

One might think that Protestants, who had been persecuted so viciously for their heresies against Catholic doctrines, would take a dim view of the idea of persecuting heretics, but no. In his 65,000-word treatise On the Jews and Their Lies, Martin Luther offered the following advice on what Christians should do with this “rejected and condemned people”: First, . . . set fire to their synagogues or schools and . . . bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them.... Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed.... Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.... Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb.... Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews.... Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen. 3[:19]). For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. Let us emulate the common sense of other nations . . . [and] eject them forever from the country.35 At

As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-color joke. This side of me is usually lying in wait to ambush the other one, which is much purer, deeper and finer. No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me. Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that everyone’s had enough of me to last a month. Actually, I’m what a romantic movie is to a profound thinker—a mere diversion, a comic interlude, something that is soon forgotten: not bad, but not particularly good either. I hate having to tell you this, but why shouldn’t I admit it when I know it’s true? My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne—to beat her down, hide her. But it doesn’t work, and I know why. I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the “lighthearted” Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the “deeper” Anne is too weak. If I force the good Anne into the spotlight for even fifteen minutes, she shuts up like a clam the moment she’s called upon to speak, and lets Anne number one do the talking. Before I realize it, she’s disappeared. So the nice Anne is never seen in company. She’s never made a single appearance, though she almost always takes the stage when I’m alone. I know exactly how I’d like to be, how I am … on the inside. But unfortunately I’m only like that with myself. And perhaps that’s why—no, I’m sure that’s the reason why—I think of myself as happy on the inside and other people think I’m happy on the outside. I’m guided by the pure Anne within, but on the outside I’m nothing but a frolicsome little goat tugging at its tether. As I’ve told you, what I say is not what I feel, which is why I have a reputation for being boy-crazy as well as a flirt, a smart aleck and a reader of romances. The happy-go-lucky Anne laughs, gives a flippant reply, shrugs her shoulders and pretends she doesn’t give a darn. The quiet Anne reacts in just the opposite way. If I’m being completely honest, I’ll have to admit that it does matter to me, that I’m trying very hard to change myself, but that I’m always up against a more powerful enemy. A voice within me is sobbing, “You see, that’s what’s become of you. You’re surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people who dislike you, and all because you don’t listen to the advice of your own better half.” Believe me, I’d like to listen, but it doesn’t work, because if I’m quiet and serious, everyone thinks I’m putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then I’m not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be sick, stuff me with aspirins and sedatives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movements and berate me for being in a bad mood, until I just can’t keep it up anymore, because when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if … if only there were no other people in the world.

My mother made me into the type of person who is at ease standing in the middle of moving traffic, the type of person who ends up having more adventures and making more mistakes. Mum never stopped encouraging me to try, fail and take risks. I kept pushing myself to do unconventional things because I liked the reaction I got from her when I told her what I'd done. Mum's response to all my exploits was to applaud them. Great, you're living your life, and not the usual life prescribed for a woman either. Well done! Thanks to her, unlike most girls at the time, I grew up regarding recklessness, risk-taking and failure as laudable pursuits. Mum did the same for Vida by giving her a pound every time she put herself forward. If Vida raised her hand at school and volunteered to go to an old people's home to sing, or recited a poem in assembly, or joined a club, Mum wrote it down in a little notebook. Vida also kept a tally of everything she'd tried to do since she last saw her grandmother and would burst out with it all when they met up again. She didn't get a pound if she won a prize or did something well or achieved good marks in an exam, and there was no big fuss or attention if she failed at anything. She was only rewarded for trying. That was the goal. This was when Vida was between the ages of seven and fifteen, the years a girl is most self-conscious about her voice, her looks and fitting in, when she doesn't want to stand out from the crowd or draw attention to herself. Vida was a passive child – she isn't passive now. I was very self-conscious when I was young, wouldn't raise my voice above a whisper or look an adult in the eye until I was thirteen, but without me realizing it Mum taught me to grab life, wrestle it to the ground and make it work for me. She never squashed any thoughts or ideas I had, no matter how unorthodox or out of reach they were. She didn't care what I looked like either. I started experimenting with my clothes aged eleven, wearing top hats, curtains as cloaks, jeans torn to pieces, bare feet in the streets, 1930s gowns, bells around my neck, and all she ever said was, 'I wish I had a camera.

I still remember a small story from the Pañca Tantra which I was told as a small child. One rainy day, a monkey was sitting on a tree branch getting completely drenched. Right opposite on another branch of the same tree there was a small sparrow sitting in its hanging nest. Normally a sparrow builds its nest on the edge of a branch so it can hang down and swing around gently in the breeze. It has a nice cabin inside with an upper chamber, a reception room, a bedroom down below and even a delivery room if it is going to give birth to little ones. Oh yes, you should see and admire a sparrow’s nest sometime. It was warm and cozy inside its nest and the sparrow peeped out and, seeing the poor monkey, said, “Oh, my dear friend, I am so small; I don’t even have hands like you, only a small beak. But with only that I built a nice house, expecting this rainy day. Even if the rain continues for days, I will be warm inside. I heard Darwin saying that you are the forefather of human beings, so why don’t you use your brain? Build a nice, small hut somewhere to protect yourself during the rain.” You should have seen the face of that monkey. It was terrible! “Oh, you little devil! How dare you try to advise me? Because you are warm and cozy in your nest you are teasing me. Wait, you will see where you are!” The monkey proceeded to tear the nest to pieces, and the poor bird had to fly out and get drenched like the monkey. This is a story I was told when I was quite young and I still remember it. Sometimes we come across such monkeys, and if you advise them they take it as an insult. They think you are proud of your position. If you sense even a little of that tendency in somebody, stay away. He or she will have to learn by experience. By giving advice to such people, you will only lose your peace of mind. Is there any other category you can think of? Patañjali groups all individuals in these four ways: the happy, the unhappy, the virtuous and the wicked. So have these four attitudes: friendliness, compassion, gladness and indifference. These four keys should always be with you in your pocket. If you use the right key with the right person you will retain your peace. Nothing in the world can upset you then. Remember, our goal is to keep a serene mind. From the very beginning of Patañjali’s Sūtras we are reminded of that. And this sūtra will help us a lot.

Korie’s parents came to the house to see me, and I sat on the couch with Johnny and Chrys. It was not pretty. The argument was so loud that Alan came out of his room. He looked at us and asked, “What in the world is going on?” Johnny was making all of his arguments, and I was acting like a little punk, twisting his words to put them in my favor, which only made him madder and madder. Johnny told me that according to studies he’d read, 50 percent of all marriages between young people ended in divorce. He had the articles with him to support his arguments. “So you’re calling that right now?” I asked him. “In all your wisdom, you know we’re going to get divorced?” “I’m not saying that,” Johnny told me. “You just said it,” I responded. “You just said half end in divorce. Well, what if we’re the good half?” Then Johnny went on to say that if we got married, he didn’t want me coming to him for advice. But then later on in the conversation, he told me I could ask him about anything. He was completely irrational, and I, of course, had to point that out to him. “You just said I couldn’t ask you for advice,” I told him. He was so mad, I thought he was going to leap off the couch and hit me. Before they left, Johnny looked at me and asked me one last question. “What’s your plan?” he asked. “What’s my plan?” I said to him. “What exactly is your plan?” he said. “Where are you going to work? Where are you going to live?” “Well, I reckon I’ll just buy a trailer and put it on the back property at Phil’s house,” I told him. That threw Johnny over the top. He and Chrys stormed out of Alan and Lisa’s house, and I was convinced there was no way they were going to give us their blessing to get married. I called Korie to tell her how the meeting went. “It went terrible,” I told her. “We were yelling at each other. It was pretty ugly.” Then Korie had to hang up because her parents were calling her phone. She called me back a few minutes later. Much to my surprise, her parents told her, “Okay, if you’re determined to do this, we’re going to support you.” Johnny didn’t say much to me for the next few months, during the planning of the wedding, and I knew Korie’s parents still didn’t like the idea of her getting married so young. I told Phil that Korie’s parents didn’t want us getting married and asked him what I should do. “Here’s what I’d do,” Phil said, while sitting back in his recliner. “I’d call them up and say, “Y’all missed that. The wedding was last week when we went to the justice of the peace and got married. Y’all missed the whole thing.

As Dr. Fauci’s policies took hold globally, 300 million humans fell into dire poverty, food insecurity, and starvation. “Globally, the impact of lockdowns on health programs, food production, and supply chains plunged millions of people into severe hunger and malnutrition,” said Alex Gutentag in Tablet Magazine.27 According to the Associated Press (AP), during 2020, 10,000 children died each month due to virus-linked hunger from global lockdowns. In addition, 500,000 children per month experienced wasting and stunting from malnutrition—up 6.7 million from last year’s total of 47 million—which can “permanently damage children physically and mentally, transforming individual tragedies into a generational catastrophe.”28 In 2020, disruptions to health and nutrition services killed 228,000 children in South Asia.29 Deferred medical treatments for cancers, kidney failure, and diabetes killed hundreds of thousands of people and created epidemics of cardiovascular disease and undiagnosed cancer. Unemployment shock is expected to cause 890,000 additional deaths over the next 15 years.30,31 The lockdown disintegrated vital food chains, dramatically increased rates of child abuse, suicide, addiction, alcoholism, obesity, mental illness, as well as debilitating developmental delays, isolation, depression, and severe educational deficits in young children. One-third of teens and young adults reported worsening mental health during the pandemic. According to an Ohio State University study,32 suicide rates among children rose 50 percent.33 An August 11, 2021 study by Brown University found that infants born during the quarantine were short, on average, 22 IQ points as measured by Baylor scale tests.34 Some 93,000 Americans died of overdoses in 2020—a 30 percent rise over 2019.35 “Overdoses from synthetic opioids increased by 38.4 percent,36 and 11 percent of US adults considered suicide in June 2020.37 Three million children disappeared from public school systems, and ERs saw a 31 percent increase in adolescent mental health visits,”38,39 according to Gutentag. Record numbers of young children failed to reach crucial developmental milestones.40,41 Millions of hospital and nursing home patients died alone without comfort or a final goodbye from their families. Dr. Fauci admitted that he never assessed the costs of desolation, poverty, unhealthy isolation, and depression fostered by his countermeasures. “I don’t give advice about economic things,”42 Dr. Fauci explained. “I don’t give advice about anything other than public health,” he continued, even though he was so clearly among those responsible for the economic and social costs.

Anna Chapman was born Anna Vasil’yevna Kushchyenko, in Volgograd, formally Stalingrad, Russia, an important Russian industrial city. During the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II, the city became famous for its resistance against the German Army. As a matter of personal history, I had an uncle, by marriage that was killed in this battle. Many historians consider the battle of Stalingrad the largest and bloodiest battle in the history of warfare. Anna earned her master's degree in economics in Moscow. Her father at the time was employed by the Soviet embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, where he allegedly was a senior KGB agent. After her marriage to Alex Chapman, Anna became a British subject and held a British passport. For a time Alex and Anna lived in London where among other places, she worked for Barclays Bank. In 2009 Anna Chapman left her husband and London, and moved to New York City, living at 20 Exchange Place, in the Wall Street area of downtown Manhattan. In 2009, after a slow start, she enlarged her real-estate business, having as many as 50 employees. Chapman, using her real name worked in the Russian “Illegals Program,” a group of sleeper agents, when an undercover FBI agent, in a New York coffee shop, offered to get her a fake passport, which she accepted. On her father’s advice she handed the passport over to the NYPD, however it still led to her arrest. Ten Russian agents including Anna Chapman were arrested, after having been observed for years, on charges which included money laundering and suspicion of spying for Russia. This led to the largest prisoner swap between the United States and Russia since 1986. On July 8, 2010 the swap was completed at the Vienna International Airport. Five days later the British Home Office revoked Anna’s citizenship preventing her return to England. In December of 2010 Anna Chapman reappeared when she was appointed to the public council of the Young Guard of United Russia, where she was involved in the education of young people. The following month Chapman began hosting a weekly TV show in Russia called Secrets of the World and in June of 2011 she was appointed as editor of Venture Business News magazine. In 2012, the FBI released information that Anna Chapman attempted to snare a senior member of President Barack Obama's cabinet, in what was termed a “Honey Trap.” After the 2008 financial meltdown, sources suggest that Anna may have targeted the dapper Peter Orzag, who was divorced in 2006 and served as Special Assistant to the President, for Economic Policy. Between 2007 and 2010 he was involved in the drafting of the federal budget for the Obama Administration and may have been an appealing target to the FSB, the Russian Intelligence Agency. During Orzag’s time as a federal employee, he frequently came to New York City, where associating with Anna could have been a natural fit, considering her financial and economics background. Coincidently, Orzag resigned from his federal position the same month that Chapman was arrested. Following this, Orzag took a job at Citigroup as Vice President of Global Banking. In 2009, he fathered a child with his former girlfriend, Claire Milonas, the daughter of Greek shipping executive, Spiros Milonas, chairman and President of Ionian Management Inc. In September of 2010, Orzag married Bianna Golodryga, the popular news and finance anchor at Yahoo and a contributor to MSNBC's Morning Joe. She also had co-anchored the weekend edition of ABC's Good Morning America. Not surprisingly Bianna was born in in Moldova, Soviet Union, and in 1980, her family moved to Houston, Texas. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, with a degree in Russian/East European & Eurasian studies and has a minor in economics. They have two children. Yes, she is fluent in Russian! Presently Orszag is a banker and economist, and a Vice Chairman of investment banking and Managing Director at Lazard.

If you want an average, successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths: 1) Become the best at one specific thing. 2) Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things. The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try. The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it. I always advise young people to become good public speakers (top 25%). Anyone can do it with practice. If you add that talent to any other, suddenly you’re the boss of the people who have only one skill. Or get a degree in business on top of your engineering degree, law degree, medical degree, science degree, or whatever. Suddenly you’re in charge, or maybe you’re starting your own company using your combined knowledge. Capitalism rewards things that are both rare and valuable. You make yourself rare by combining two or more “pretty goods” until no one else has your mix. . . . At least one of the skills in your mixture should involve communication, either written or verbal. And it could be as simple as learning how to sell more effectively than 75% of the world. That’s one. Now add to that whatever your passion is, and you have two, because that’s the thing you’ll easily put enough energy into to reach the top 25%. If you have an aptitude for a third skill, perhaps business or public speaking, develop that too. It sounds like generic advice, but you’d be hard-pressed to find any successful person who didn’t have about three skills in the top 25%.

Indeed Sartre, like Russell, failed to achieve any kind of coherence and consistency in his views of public policy. No body of doctrine survived him. In the end, again like Russell, he stood for nothing more than a vague desire to belong to the left and the camp of youth. The intellectual decline of Sartre, who after all at one time did seem to be identified with a striking, if confused, philosophy of life, was particularly spectacular. But there is always a large section of the educated public which demands intellectual leaders, however unsatisfactory. Despite his enormities, Rousseau was widely honoured at and after his death. Sartre, another monstre sacré, was given a magnificent funeral by intellectual Paris. Over 50,000 people, most of them young, followed his body into Montparnasse Cemetery. To get a better view, some climbed into the trees. One of them came crashing down onto the coffin itself. To what cause had they come to do honour? What faith, what luminous truth about humanity, were they asserting by their mass presence? We may well ask.

Well, then—they were all children there, and I was always among children and only with children. They were the children of the village in which I lived, and they went to the school there—all of them. I did not teach them, oh no; there was a master for that, one Jules Thibaut. I may have taught them some things, but I was among them just as an outsider, and I passed all four years of my life there among them. I wished for nothing better; I used to tell them everything and hid nothing from them. Their fathers and relations were very angry with me, because the children could do nothing without me at last, and used to throng after me at all times. The schoolmaster was my greatest enemy in the end! I had many enemies, and all because of the children. Even Schneider reproached me. What were they afraid of? One can tell a child everything, anything. I have often been struck by the fact that parents know their children so little. They should not conceal so much from them. How well even little children understand that their parents conceal things from them, because they consider them too young to understand! Children are capable of giving advice in the most important matters. How can one deceive these dear little birds, when they look at one so sweetly and confidingly? I call them birds because there is nothing in the world better than birds! "However, most of the people were angry with me about one and the same thing; but Thibaut simply was jealous of me. At first he had wagged his head and wondered how it was that the children understood what I told them so well, and could not learn from him; and he laughed like anything when I replied that neither he nor I could teach them very much, but that they might teach us a good deal.

what is the holdup? Young people should be moving fast, take the world by its male genitalia, and so on.

Read. Read as much as possible. Read the big stuff, the challenging stuff, the confronting stuff, and read the fun stuff too. Visit galleries and look at paintings, watch movies, listen to music, go to concerts – be a little vampire running around the place sucking up all the art and ideas you can. Fill yourself with the beautiful stuff of the world. Have fun. Get amazed. Get astonished. Get awed on a regular basis, so that getting awed is habitual and becomes a state of being. Fully understand your enormous value in the scheme of things because the planet needs people like you, smart young creatives full of awe, who can minister to the world with positive, mischievous energy, young people who seek spiritual enrichment and who see hatred and disconnection as the corrosive forces they are. These are manifest indicators of a human being with immense potential. Absorb into yourself the world’s full richness and goodness and fun and genius, so that when someone tells you it’s not worth fighting for, you will stick up for it, protect it, run to its defence, because it is your world they’re talking about, then watch that world continue to pour itself into you in gratitude. A little smart vampire full of raging love, amazed by the world – that will be you, my young friend, the earth shaking at your feet.

Unfortunately, empaths of all ages are favorite targets for energy vampires and abusers of all kinds. Teach your young empath how to build boundaries, to set their own standards for relationships, and to walk away from people who wish them harm. Make a point of telling them that they can always come to you if they want or need advice on how to handle a toxic friend or bully. Practice saying “No,” and use role-playing to rehearse how your child can extricate themselves from difficult situations.

Having spent so much time navigating my own career transition and counseling others through theirs, I have found that there are three key steps to identifying your own core personal projects. First, think back to what you loved to do when you were a child. How did you answer the question of what you wanted to be when you grew up? The specific answer you gave may have been off the mark, but the underlying impulse was not. If you wanted to be a fireman, what did a fireman mean to you? A good man who rescued people in distress? A daredevil? Or the simple pleasure of operating a truck? If you wanted to be a dancer, was it because you got to wear a costume, or because you craved applause, or was it the pure joy of twirling around at lightning speed? You may have known more about who you were then than you do now. Second, pay attention to the work you gravitate to. At my law firm I never once volunteered to take on an extra corporate legal assignment, but I did spend a lot of time doing pro bono work for a nonprofit women’s leadership organization. I also sat on several law firm committees dedicated to mentoring, training, and personal development for young lawyers in the firm. Now, as you can probably tell from this book, I am not the committee type. But the goals of those committees lit me up, so that’s what I did. Finally, pay attention to what you envy. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire. I met my own envy after some of my former law school classmates got together and compared notes on alumni career tracks. They spoke with admiration and, yes, jealousy, of a classmate who argued regularly before the Supreme Court. At first I felt critical. More power to that classmate! I thought, congratulating myself on my magnanimity. Then I realized that my largesse came cheap, because I didn’t aspire to argue a case before the Supreme Court, or to any of the other accolades of lawyering. When I asked myself whom I did envy, the answer came back instantly. My college classmates who’d grown up to be writers or psychologists. Today I’m pursuing my own version of both those roles.

I was in charge of decisions and marketing, and Sean was in charge of research and operations. When we were trying to identify our target customer, he spent a ton of time putting together spreadsheets comparing all the different markets we should consider. When he showed them to me and asked me what I thought, I replied, “Yoga.” Huh? “We could easily do multiple products serving people who do yoga,” I told him. “It’s an emerging trend. And I know a ton of those people; I can ask them what they want. Let’s start a yoga business.” Sean’s initial response was, “That’s not a quantitative analysis, Ryan!” I’ve never been one to overthink things—most people spend way too much time in the research period. I make decisions fast and adjust later. With our target customer identified, we made a list of possible products and chose our gateway product—a yoga mat. With that, we began the process of product development. We looked up the top-selling yoga mats on Amazon and read through the reviews; we asked questions on Facebook groups, subreddits, and Instagram influencer accounts. It didn’t take long before we had an idea of the main pain points we needed to address with our first product. I remembered Don’s advice and began looking for people to make the product. With a quick scroll and a click, we could choose between a wholesaler in China, a private label supplier out of India, or a contract manufacturer in Vietnam. For about fifty bucks, we were able to order a set of yoga mat samples that had the exact features we were looking for. It was that easy. Samples in hand, we needed to refine our product idea to make sure we were really hitting the pain points we’d identified. At that time, I’d done yoga maybe two or three times in my life, and I wasn’t nearly the right demographic for our mats anyway. That forced me to ask questions. We were targeting yoga-loving millennials, so I went where they often congregate: Starbucks. There, I did the kind of tough field work that really makes an entrepreneur sweat: asking young women questions over coffee. “Which yoga mat do you prefer? Why?” “What makes the difference between a bad yoga mat and a good one?” “What’s wrong with your current yoga mat?” “What do you think of this one? And what about this one?” Next, I headed over to local yoga studios to see how our samples stacked up against the strenuous demands of a yoga class. A few classes later, Sean and I had everything we needed to narrow down our product development. Armed with all our data, we went back to the manufacturers. From a couple yoga-clueless guys, we’d become knowledgeable enough to know not just what a good yoga mat looked like, but how it had to feel and perform. We knew what we needed our yoga mat to do. Now we just had to find the manufacturer to supply it.

Books have always meant a great deal to me. When I was young, people used to have all kinds of advice as to how the working class could free themselves from factory life and all of that frustration, but for me the true secret tunnel, the hidden escape route, was in the library, reading books.

On November 22nd, 2018, my mother Vernita Lee passed away. I was conflicted about our relationship up until the very end. The truth is, it wasn't until I became successful that my mother started to show more interest in me. I wrestled with the question of how to take care of her - what did I owe the woman who gave me life, The bible says 'honor thy father and mother', but what did that actually mean? I decided one of the ways I could honor her would be to help care for her financially ... but there was never any real connection. I would say that the audience who watched me on television knew me better than my mother did. When her health began to decline a few years ago, I knew I needed to prepare myself for her transition. Just a few days before Thanksgiving my sister Patricia called to tell me she thought it was time. I flew to Milwaukee ... I tried to think of something to say, at one point I even picked up the manual left by the hospice care people. I read their advice thinking the whole time, how sad it was that I, Oprah Winfrey, who had spoken to thousands of people one on one should have to read a hospice manual to figure out what to say to my mother. When it was finally time to leave, something told me it would be the last time I'd ever see her but as I turned to go, the words I needed to say still wouldn't come. All I could muster was 'bye, I'll be seeing you' and I left for, ironically, a speaking engagement. On the flight home the next morning a little voice in my head whispered what I knew in my heart to be true: "you are going to regret this, you haven't finished the work". ... I turned around and went back to Milwaukee. I spent another day in that hot room and still no words came. That night I prayed for help. In the morning I meditated, and as I prepared to leave the bedroom I picked up my phone and noticed the song that was playing - Mahalia Jackson's 'Precious Lord'. If ever there was a sign, this was it. I had no idea how Mahalia Jackson appeared on my playlist. As I listened to the words, Precious Lord, take my hand Lead me on, let me stand. I am tired, I'm weak, I am worn Lead me on to the light, Take my hand, precious Lord And lead me home. I suddenly knew what to do. When I walked into my mothers room I asked if she wanted to hear the song. She nodded, and then I had another idea. I called my friend Wintley Phipps, a preacher and gospel artist, and asked him to sing Precious Lord to my dying mother. Over FaceTime from his kitchen table he sang the song a cappella and then prayed that our family would have no fear, just peace. I could see that my mother was moved. The song and the prayer had created a sort of opening for both of us. I began to talk to her about her life, her dreams, and me. Finally the words were there. I said, "It must have been hard for you, not having an education, not having a skill, not knowing what the future held. When you became pregnant, I'm sure a lot of people told you to get rid of that baby." She nodded. "But you didn't", I said. "And I want to thank you for keeping this baby". I paused, "I know that many times you didn't know what to do. You did the best you knew how to do and that's okay with me. That is okay with me. So you can leave now, knowing that it is well. It is well with my soul. It's been well for a long time." It was a sacred, beautiful moment, one of the proudest of my life. As an adult I'd learned to see my mother through a different lens; not as the mother who didn't care for me, protect me, love me or understand anything about me, but as a young girl still just a child herself; scared, alone, and unequipped to be a loving parent. I had forgiven my mother years earlier for not being the mother I needed, but she didn't know that. And in our last moments together I believe I was able to release her from the shame and the guilt of our past. I came back and I finished the work that needed to be done.

You don't have to be the smartest person at work, just know who the smart people are...

hung up the phone. For a moment, the room was silent, everyone’s eyes glued on me. I had given Mubarak my best advice. I had offered him a plan for a graceful exit. Any leader who replaced him, I knew, might end up being a worse partner for the United States—and potentially worse for the Egyptian people. And the truth was, I could have lived with any genuine transition plan he might have presented, even if it left much of the regime’s existing network intact. I was enough of a realist to assume that had it not been for the stubborn persistence of those young people in Tahrir Square, I’d have worked with Mubarak for the rest of my presidency, despite what he stood for—just as I would continue to work with the rest of the “corrupt, rotting authoritarian order,” as Ben liked to call it, that controlled life in the Middle East and North Africa.

Because even though she can dish out advice to us like it’s her job, she rarely tells us anything she’s going through. And I think it’s because she’s doing what she did when she was young, when Paige showed up. She’ll give these tiny windows of opportunity, and if you don’t take them, you won’t get another chance. My sister is one of the strongest, most incredible people I know, but she will shut down anyone if she’s afraid they’ll hurt her.” I swiped a hand over my mouth, regarding Molly with unfiltered curiosity. “Why are you telling me all of this? You don’t even know me.” Her smile was mysterious. “Because I know my sister. And if she’s refusing to talk about you, then you’ve wedged a foot in the door, and that means you’re important to her.” She stepped closer. “What I’m giving you, Aiden, is a chance.

I know what women want. Women want a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything.

The book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, was written in 1986 by a minister, Robert Fulghum, and it’s full of simple-sounding life advice, like “share everything,” “play fair,” and “clean up after your own mess.” Chen believes that these skills—the elementary, pre-literate skills of treating other people well, acting ethically, and behaving in prosocial ways, all of which I consider “analog ethics”—are badly needed for an age in which our value will come from our ability to relate to other people. He writes: While I know that we’ll need to layer on top of that foundation a set of practical and technical know-how, I agree with [Fulghum] that a foundation rich in EQ [emotional quotient] and compassion and imagination and creativity is the perfect springboard to prepare people—the doctors with the best bedside manner, the sales reps solving my actual problems, crisis counselors who really understand when we’re in crisis—for a machine-learning powered future in which humans and algorithms are better together. Research has indicated that teaching analog ethics can be effective. One 2015 study that tracked children from kindergarten through young adulthood found that people who had developed strong prosocial, noncognitive skills—traits like positivity, empathy, and regulating one’s own emotions—were more likely to be successful as adults. Another study in 2017 found that kids who participated in “social-emotional” learning programs were more likely to graduate from college, were arrested

This relatively hands-off style of rule practiced by the Eastern European empires was born of pragmatism. Social divisions were not a flaw to be overcome, but a tool to be used. In these realms, universal citizenship did not exist. People lived not as individuals but as parts of wider social estates, each of which came with its own set of privileges and prohibitions. Everyone was discriminated against to some extent, except for the sultan or czar. Everyone also had a function. To most people, before the arrival of modernity, the idea of equality before the law was unthinkable. What mattered most in life was to be allowed to fulfill their role undisturbed. Meanwhile, what mattered most to rulers was that the sum total of these various roles added up to them staying in power. For this, outsiders could be just as useful as locals and often showed themselves to be more dependable. The process of inviting helpful strangers into Eastern Europe began very early. Eastern European monarchs began looking abroad for talent in the Middle Ages Compared to Western Europe, the East was under-populated, lacking sities and the specialized craftsmen and traders who inhabited them. Eastern rulers also sat uneasily on the intersection of multiple frontiers: between pagan and Christian, Christian and Muslim, and Catholic and Orthodox. Because of this, they needed all the help they could get cultivating, defending, and administering their realms. In the eleventh century, A Hungarian king lectured his son about the usefulness of immigrants: 'As guests come from various areas and lands, so they bring with them various languages and customs, various examples and forms of armaments, which adorn and glorify the royal court. . . . For a kingdom of one language and one custom is weak and fragile. Therefore, my son, I order that you should feed them with goodwill and honor them so that they will prefer to live with you rather than inhabit any other place.' The young prince took his father's advice to heart. By the thirteenth century, the kingdom of Hungary harbored, within its ragile borders, groups of Jews, Muslims, Armenians, Slavs, Italians, Franks, Spaniards, and Germans

In Buddhism, there are said to be four "divine" states of mind: kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. The "divine" properties are present to various degrees in all people, but they emerge in accentuated form in meditation, almost as a by-product, as people learn to relate to their egos in a new way. It is here that we can apply the analogy to athletes finding "the flow" when they learn to get out of their own way. When self-centered preoccupations quiet down, these more "selfless" feelings come to the fore. Ancient texts compare kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity to the feelings a mother has for four sons: "a child, an invalid, one in the flush of youth, and one busy with his own affairs." Kindness is what a mother naturally feels for her young child, compassion is what she feels when her child is ill, sympathetic joy arises when she sees him thriving in the glory of his youth, and equanimity is what she knows when her child is grown and taking care of him- or herself.

the only right way is to feel your heart hammering inside you and to listen to what its timpani is saying.6 It sure feels like Ms. Quindlen is giving my little internal timpani a lot of credit. What if your timpani is homophobic, xenophobic, racist, and sexist? Or can all vice simply be attributed to our love of lockstep—you know, all the bad people follow the crowd and all the good people do their own thing? And what if you follow Quindlen’s advice and reject her list of bigotries? Does that make you another lockstep loser? Can you listen to your timpani and the graduation speaker at the same time? I suppose it’s the central creed of postmodernism that you can march to the beat of your own drummer as long as it beats in time with mine.

Kennedy may not have cared what Ike had to say. But he knew he at least had to appear to. If nothing else, the image of the two of them consulting would go a long way to reassuring people that the young president was getting the advice he needed.

When I’m with all my little ones, people with grown or teenage children always tell me, “You’re going to miss this.” I have to assume they are talking about my children being young and not the conversation I’m having with them, because I am not going to miss people giving me advice about children.

David Sassoon For several decades, British designer David Sassoon has provided the best in evening wear for fashionable and famous customers from his high-profile store in London. His work has been featured in many international fashion shows and museums throughout the world, and his garments are in high demand at such notable stores as Sak’s Fifth Avenue, Harrods, and Neiman Marcus. The Princess of Wales would often make surprise visits to my shop, as I had made her going-away dress and many other outfits for her trousseau. In August 1982, Diana came to my shop with Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, the daughter of Princess Margaret, who had been a bridesmaid at Diana’s wedding. The Princess was wearing a blue-and-white-striped sailor-style two-piece outfit; Sarah wore a white shirt and a cotton skirt, as it was a very hot day. Diana said that she would like to choose a long evening dress for Sarah as a present. The dress was to be worn at a ball at Balmoral Castle. This was Sarah’s first long dress, and Diana wanted her to have her dream dress. There were lots of giggles and excitement as Diana helped Sarah try on some of the dresses, and the dressing room was full of laughter. Finally, Sarah chose a bright red strapless taffeta ball dress, which made her feel very grown up. We brought them tea while the dress was being fitted, and Sarah, who obviously adored Diana, listened to her advice about what accessories would complement the dress. Sarah was so excited about her beautiful and glamorous present when they left the shop. Diana had made a young girl’s dream come true.

HARRY: I need your help. I need your advice. Bane says Albus is in danger. How do I protect my son, Dumbledore? DUMBLEDORE: You ask me, of all people, how to protect a boy in terrible danger? We cannot protect the young from harm. Pain must and will come. HARRY: So I'm supposed to stand and watch? DUMBLEDORE: No. You're supposed to teach him how to meet life.

Rolando pursed his lips and sighed. “Just be careful.” “Why, because her father carries a gun?” Isaac said. “Aren’t you the one who always said guns don’t shoot people?” “No, it was you who said that.” Rolando corrected his son. “I’ve said fathers with guns and beautiful daughters shoot people. Boys in particular.” “You worry too much, dad.” “One day, when you are a father, you will understand.

this “right to marry” argument has enormous contemporary cultural traction in the West, which requires explanation if it is indeed obviously worthless. I suspect that the felt force lies in another contemporary Western cultural assumption, that it is necessary to be sexually active to be a fulfilled, or even a properly adult, human being. We could no doubt trace the root of this assumption to Freud, but I trust it is evident once named, displayed repeatedly in our popular music, in the Hollywood assumption that the existence of a “40-Year-Old Virgin” is self-evidently hilarious, in our newspaper advice columns that prioritise sexual satisfaction as a personal need, and in countless other ways.18 The (Protestant) churches have visibly surrendered to this cultural assumption, making marriage an inevitable part of Christian maturity for much of the twentieth century. We looked askance at ministerial candidates who were not married and constructed church programmes on the basis that the only single people around were young adults preparing for marriage or widows.

The chief and most damaging of the competing attachments that undermine parenting authority and parental love is the increasing bonding of our children with their peers. The disorder affecting the generations of young children and adolescents now heading toward adulthood is rooted in the lost orientation of children toward the nurturing adults in their lives. Far from seeking to establish yet one more medicalpsychological disorder here — the last thing today's bewildered parents need — we are using the word disorder in its most basic sense: a disruption of the natural order of things. For the first time in history young people are turning for instruction, modeling, and guidance not to mothers, fathers, teachers, and other responsible adults but to people whom nature never intended to place in a parenting role — their own peers. They are not manageable, teachable, or maturing because they no longer take their cues from adults. Instead, children are being brought up by immature persons who cannot possibly guide them to maturity. They are being brought up by each other. The term that seems to fit more than any other for this phenomenon is peer orientation. It is peer orientation that has muted our parenting instincts, eroded our natural authority, and caused us to parent not from the heart but from the head — from manuals, the advice of “experts,” and the confused expectations of society.

This is what I tell young women who ask me for career advice. People are going to try to trick you. To make you feel that you are in competition with one another.

the fully realized personality is what attracts and for mature people, nothing less is desirable.

People, especially wives, imagine a wandering husband is temporarily obsessed by other company, but that somewhat misstates the case. Love heightens one's sense of particularity, of being somebody, and one strength of a mistress is her paradoxical gift of restoring native loneliness. For this a man gives up an empire and sails the open sea.

You’re too young.” Most of history was built by young people. They just got credit when they were older.

When I was a young and aspiring speaker, I sought mentorship from a man who had been a Dale Carnegie trainer for decades. Eagerly wanting to know how to improve my stage presence and build my career, I contacted Dr. Joe Carnley in Destin, Florida and invited him out to lunch. After we placed our order at the Harbor Docks Restaurant, he dove right in and gave me some of the best advice of my life. He said, “Susan, you have to make them laugh! When they leave your presentations, you want them to feel better and leave happier than when they came in. Help them enjoy your time together.” He continued to describe the magical power that humor has over the human spirit. When we craft humor into our speeches, we can take our audiences on a journey they will never forget. Immediately after our delightful lunch ended, I drove straight to a Books-a-Million store and headed for the humor section. Since I was not a particularly funny person, I needed all the help I could get. For over an hour I stood there reading titles, flipping through funny books, and enjoying outrageous belly laughs, giggles, and snorts. People were staring, and probably thinking, “I want what she is having!” The humor section was one of the smallest in the entire bookstore, but it may well have been the most important. When I turned around, I noticed the opposite aisle was the “Self-Improvement” section. It ran half the length of the store and displayed hundreds of books. At that cathartic moment, I had a huge "Ah-Ha" moment.

The young are usually full of self-confidence, with grand dreams and ambitions. Up to a certain age, we believe that all of our plans will work. Many of our peers advise enthusiastically, “Go for it!” That advice may be encouraging and what we want to hear—but it’s in our own best interests to seek the experience and wisdom of those who have lived life with all its ups and downs, successes and failures. If we listen carefully to these older, wiser folks, we can avoid the pitfalls our own exuberance might plunge us into. Resist the assumption that older people are out of touch with today’s world—that their hard-earned wisdom is not relevant to our modern situations. The temptation is to wonder what they could possibly tell us about relationship problems or career choices when they haven’t the first clue about how to send a text message or change the settings on a computer. Never confuse knowledge—especially of technical things—with wisdom.

The experts counter by saying that travel is so rewarding that it should take precedence over other things younger people spend money on. They believe travel has special benefits for the young because it broadens their horizons, helps them to find a focus for their lives, and challenges them in new ways.

They (parents) want life to unfold according to what they believe. Most people want that. The last thing they want and need, is somebody (let alone their own child) telling them that their beliefs about life are bullshit / full of holes/ severely flawed.

Stay away from any place where you can run into police—that’s the advice I give to you and to all young black men in this country. The police is for the protection of white people, my brother. Maybe black women and black children sometimes, but not black men. Never black men. Black men and police are palm oil and water. You understand me, eh?

What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the “real world”? What advice should they ignore? Nobody really knows what the world and the job market will look like in 2040, hence nobody knows what to teach young people today. Consequently, it is likely that most of what you currently learn at school will be irrelevant by the time you are 40. So what should you focus on? My best advice is to focus on personal resilience and emotional intelligence. Traditionally, life has been divided into two main parts: a period of learning followed by a period of working. In the first part of life you built a stable identity and acquired personal and professional skills; in the second part of life you relied on your identity and skills to navigate the world, earn a living, and contribute to society. By 2040, this traditional model will become obsolete, and the only way for humans to stay in the game will be to keep learning throughout their lives and to reinvent themselves again and again. The world of 2040 will be a very different world from today, and an extremely hectic world. The pace of change is likely to accelerate even further. So people will need the ability to learn all the time and to reinvent themselves repeatedly—even at age 60.

When people ask me how I write, I always answer, “Out loud.” It’s the single most important piece of advice I give young writers. I insist, unequivocally, the greatest works that have every been written were – every one of them – written out loud. Learn that trick, teach yourself to listen to what you’re writing, and your writing will improve immeasurably.

Truly competent people not only ask for advice, but they delegate wherever and whenever they can.

Getting Rid of the Mud We have a custom at weddings. Before you go to the wedding canopy, there is the veiling of the bride. At the veiling of the bride, I usually gather together all the blood relatives into a room, to ask them each to forgive each other, because it’s impossible to grow up in a family, with siblings and parents, without having some secret anger. And you don’t want people to have to go into the next phase of life with all this karmic load. So that is why bringing in those people is so important. That way they can forgive each other and really bless each other. It is a very powerful thing. On one occasion, a young girl was present while we were doing this forgiveness, and she wanted to know how to do it. I tell you, it was a wonderful thing that she asked this question. She really wanted to know how to do it. It was as if nobody had ever shown her how to do forgiving. So I said to her, “Could you imagine that you have a beautiful shiny white dress on, and here comes this big clump of mud and dirties it? You would want to clean it off, wouldn’t you?” “Oh, yes,” she said. “Could you imagine then, instead of the mud being on the outside on your dress, the mud is on your heart?” “Uh huh.” “And being angry with people and not forgiving them is like mud on your heart.” “I sure want to get rid of that,” she said. “OK, how are you going to go about doing that?” I suggested that she close her eyes, raise up her hands in her imagination, and draw down some golden light and let it flow over that mud on her heart until it was all washed away. In this way she really understood forgiving. Do you understand how important it is, just as with this child, to respond decently when somebody says, “You ought to …,” and starts giving you advice and you want to say, “I’ve been trying to do it myself. You don’t have to scold me—show me how to do it”? This is the issue in all spiritual direction work. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi

I know I have a long way to go but for now I am taking my life one day at a time. Enjoying every minute of my youth as far as I could. I know I am still young but no one is ever too young to have a dream so big to inspire many people.

next day I went with Mother to the American consulate on the Place de la Concorde. It was a palatial building, with many people working at reception desks, information - all civilians. As we were sitting there, I noticed a young man in uniform coming and going, talking to the American personnel. I had the impression that the man was Jewish. When he came out again, I approached him and asked him whether I could ask him for some advice. I told him that I was in possession of an American student visa, but that my parents desperately needed tickets on one of the boats: Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth, in order to get their preferential visas. He introduced himself as Mr. Ungar and thus the contact was established.

The young man making a hash of his visit to the Garden of Allah that December evening was a mess of contradictions. He was a cofounder of one of the most successful startups ever, but he didn’t want to be seen as a businessman. He craved the advice of mentors, and yet resented those in power. He dropped acid, walked barefoot, wore scraggly jeans, and liked the idea of living in a commune, yet he also loved nothing more than speeding down the highway in a finely crafted German sports car. He had a vague desire to support good causes, but he hated the inefficiency of most charities. He was impatient as hell and knew that the only problems worth solving were ones that would take years to tackle. He was a practicing Buddhist and an unrepentant capitalist. He was an overbearing know-it-all berating people who were wiser and immensely more experienced, and yet he was absolutely right about their fundamental marketing naïveté. He could be aggressively rude and then truly contrite. He was intransigent, and yet eager to learn. He walked away, and he walked back in to apologize. At the Garden of Allah he displayed all the brash, ugly behavior that became an entrenched part of the Steve Jobs myth. And he showed a softer side that would go less recognized over the years. To truly understand Steve and the incredible journey he was about to undergo, the full transformation that he would experience over his rich life, you have to recognize, accept, and try to reconcile both sides of the man.

Was there perhaps a fable or parable that he might tell to a grandchild about what has happened in his country? Koppel asks. “Here is a fable that I learned some years ago,” replies Gorbachev. “A young ruler wanted to rule in a more humane way in his kingdom. And he asked the views of the wise men. And it took ten years to bring twenty volumes of advice. He said, ‘When am I going to read all that? I have to govern my country.’ Ten years later they brought him just ten volumes of advice. He said that is still too much. Five years later he was brought just one volume. But by then twenty-five years have passed and he was on his deathbed. And one of the wise men said, ‘All that is here can be summarized in a simple formula—people are born, people suffer, and people die.

This is what I tell young women who ask me for career advice. People are going to try to trick you. To make you feel that you are in competition with one another. “You’re up for a promotion. If they go with a woman, it’ll be between you and Barbara.” Don’t be fooled. You’re not in competition with other women. You’re in competition with everyone.

young IT manager defined being the boss as developing people around him who would then rely upon him for his advice and expertise in correcting their weaknesses.

When I worked at Saturday Night Live, I had a five A.M. argument with one of our most intelligent actresses. It was rumored that Lorne was adding another woman to the cast, and she was irate. (In fairness, she was also exhausted. It was five A.M. after writing all night.) She felt there wouldn’t be enough for the girls and that this girl was too similar to her. There wouldn’t be enough screen time to go around. I revived my old argument: How could this be true if we made up the show? A bunch of us suggested that they collaborate instead of compete. And, of course, that’s what they did, with great success, once they were actually in a room together. But where does that initial panic come from? This is what I tell young women who ask me for career advice. People are going to try to trick you. To make you feel that you are in competition with one another. “You’re up for a promotion. If they go with a woman, it’ll be between you and Barbara.” Don’t be fooled. You’re not in competition with other women. You’re in competition with everyone.

You have a great talent and a great role in the world.

For as many as 25,000 other children who reach their eighteenth birthdays each year, the emotions are similar. But there is a defining difference. These are young people who step through a doorway into a world full of unknowns, without the connections and supports that other children take for granted. Something has happened in their lives that forever makes them different: Usually through no fault of their own, they were taken away from their families and placed in foster care.1 They entered a bureaucratic system peopled with strangers who had complete control over where they lived, where they went to school, and even whether they ever saw their families again. The supports in their lives were not people who loved them, but people who were paid for the roles they played—caseworkers, judges, attorneys, and either shift workers in group homes or a succession of often kind, but always temporary, foster parents. In most states, on the day that a child in foster care turns eighteen, these supports largely disappear. The people who once attended to that child’s needs are now either unable or unwilling to continue; a new case demands their time, a new child requires the bed. There is often no one with whom to share small successes. And with no one to approach for advice, garden-variety emergencies—a flat tire, a stolen wallet, a missing birth certificate—escalate into full-blown crises.

not in any of their plans. What a crushing heartbreak it must have been. Is the word providence still in the back of your mind? God is about to “shake things up” even more! When Esther’s year of preparations is complete, she is told that it is at last her turn to see the king — rather, for the king to see her. Now when the turn came for Esther the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her as his daughter, to go in to the king, she requested nothing but what Hegai the king’s eunuch, the custodian of the women, advised. Esther 2:15 In addition to beauty preparations and diet, surely Esther has received instruction concerning protocol as well. She is aware of the fact that she will be allowed to carry one small item with her when she is received by the king. Remember, Esther has continued throughout this year to be faithful to Mordecai’s instructions and careful upbringing as well as submitting herself to Hegai’s authority. Esther is a young woman who is accustomed to being under authority; she recognizes the importance of sound advice. Esther receives counsel from Hegai, and takes with her only what he suggests to her. Who would be better than Hegai to advise her in how to make a pleasing first impression with King Ahasuerus? Hegai was in charge in preparing these women; he must have had a good idea of Ahasuerus’ likes and dislikes. During this year of preparation, Esther has most likely recognized Hegai’s important role. She goes to him for advice as to what to take with her, and it serves her well. It is not recorded that any other woman sought Hegai’s advice — perhaps it was mentioned because it was peculiar only to Esther. This shows us one more aspect of Esther’s personality: she is not threatened by the gifts in other people. Esther has submitted herself to God’s will, and recognizes that God is placing people around her who are potentially a help to her, if she is humble enough to recognize and receive advice from someone else. She recognizes that Hegai’s knowledge can help her. One more thought for today: do not over look the important difference between Esther’s asking for advice, and King Ahasuerus’ asking for advice. Remember in chapter one, when Ahasuerus sought after advice, he went to people in a very similar situation or even beneath him. Remember Memucan and the other princes? How could men who did not even live with the queen or know her well have any idea how to handle her? In Esther 2:15, we have an example of Esther being able to discern wisely her situation — there were times to keep to herself, and also times to ask for help. When Esther sought advice, she sought it from a good source. Just as it made all the difference in the world for Esther, it will make all the difference in the world for you.   Take a moment to thank God for the people in your life whose advice and character are an encouragement and help to you. Pray that He will cause you to be someone whose encouragement will be a blessing to others this week!

suddenly, you’re going to have to lead it a different way, and what you’re really going to have to do is develop people. The advice I’d give to anyone young is it’s really about developing people who are going to do the work.

The young bourgeoisie, which seems stricken by premature senility, ignores the advice proffered and proves incapable of understanding that it is in its own interest to veil, even slightly, its exploitation of the people.

So, about that one sentence of advice: Don’t feel behind. Two Roman historians recorded that when Julius Caesar was a young man he saw a statue of Alexander the Great in Spain and broke down in tears. “Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations, and I have all this time done nothing that is memorable,” he supposedly said. Pretty soon, that concern was a distant memory and Caesar was in charge of the Roman Republic—which he turned into a dictatorship before he was murdered by his own pals. It’s fair to say that like most youth athletes with highlight reels, he peaked early. Compare yourself to yourself yesterday, not to younger people who aren’t you.

What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise? “You’re too young.” Most of history was built by young people. They just got credit when they were older.

You should know that when a husband and wife fight, it may seem to be about money or sex or power. But what they're really yelling at each other about is loneliness. What they're really saying is, "You're not enough people.

whenever you feel like critizing any one," he told me," Just remember that all the people in the world haven't had the advantages that you've had.

The greatest thing that can be given to the younger generations is to make them have a universal purpose! Making money, being happy, traveling the world, these are simple trivial individual goals! The young person should have great ideals and gigantic universal goals that will bring him glory and honour beyond all these simple goals.

Blanket advice to “be colorblind” regarding our students, to “celebrate” their or others’ diversity, or to “recognize” their “race” and our own is not that helpful in real life. In daily life, sometimes educators’ being colorblind is quite harmful to young people, since they live in a world that often treats them racially; sometimes a particular celebration of diversity can be reductive and stereotypic; sometimes seeing a person primarily as a member of a “race” detracts from recognizing our common humanity.

That emphasis on tolerance is so paramount that for many people one of the worst character flaws a person can have is to be “judgmental.”* And, since we don’t know right from wrong, or what is good, just about the most inappropriate thing an adult can do is give a young person advice about how to live.

The most common bad advice I hear is: “You’re too young.” Most of history was built by young people. They just got credit when they were older. The only way to truly learn something is by doing it. Yes, listen to guidance. But don’t wait.

Most of history was built by young people. They just got credit when they were older.

Young people must respect the elderly.

If I were to travel back in time, I might urge the young man I was to sit the books aside for a minute, open the windows, and let in some fresh air. I would tell him to relax, go meet some people, and enjoy the pleasures that life preserves for those in their twenties, the few friends I have in new your tried to offer some advice, you need to lighten up Barak. you need to get laid, you are so idealistic, it’s great, but I don’t know if what you are saying is really possible. I resisted these voices, I resisted precisely because I feared they were right.

The most common bad advice I hear is: “You’re too young.” Most of history was built by young people. They just got credit when they were older.

The life downward spiral begins when one starts to think parents are brain-dead, a coach is dumb and teachers waste their time. The moment one thinks everything is figured out that's when everything is falling apart.

If you work hard now and postpone instant gratification and play very little; then time will come when everybody will be working very hard and wondering how comes you enjoy life, work a little and play very hard.

Nobody is interested in everything, and everyone is interested in something. So matching your job to what captures your attention and imagination is a good idea. It may not guarantee happiness and success, but it sure helps the odds. That said, I don’t think most young people need encouragement to follow their passion. Most would do exactly that—in a heartbeat—if only they had a passion in the first place. If I’m ever invited to give a commencement speech, I’ll begin with the advice to foster a passion. And then I’ll spend the rest of my time trying to change young minds about how that actually happens.

Step 2: Understand the childhood origins or your lifetrap. Fee the wounded child inside of you: To feel your lifetrap, you will need to remember your childhood. We will ask you to close your eyes and let the images come. DO not force the images - just let one rise to the top of mind. Get into each one as deeply as you can. Try to picture these early memories as vividly as possible. If you do this a few times, you will begin to remember what you felt as a child. You will feel the pain or emotions connected with your lifetrap. This kind of imagery is painful. If you feel completely overwhelmed or frightened by the experience, that is a sign you need therapy. Your childhood was so painful that you should not remember it alone. You need a guide, an ally. A therapist can be this for you. Giving comfort to your inner child, offering guidance and advice, and empathizing with how the child feels are some of the things we will ask you to do. Even though these exercises may seem silly or uncomfortable to you at first, we have found that most people benefit enormously from them.

Step 2: Understand the childhood origins of your lifetrap and feel the wounded child inside of you: To feel your lifetrap, you will need to remember your childhood. We will ask you to close your eyes and let the images come. Do not force the images – just let one rise to the top of your mind. Get into each one as deeply as you can. Try to picture these early memories as vividly as possible. If you do this a few times, you will begin to remember what you felt as a child. You will feel the pain or emotions connected with your lifetrap. This kind of imagery is painful. If you feel completely overwhelmed or frightened by the experience, that is a sign you need therapy. Your childhood was so painful that you should not remember it alone. You need a guide, an ally. A therapist can be this for you. Giving comfort to your inner child, offering guidance and advice, and empathizing with how the child feels are some of the things we will ask you to do. Even though these exercises may seem silly or uncomfortable to you at first, we have found that most people benefit enormously from them.

There are people around the world who would risk their lives, who are currently risking their lives, for a tiny fraction of the opportunity you have obtained simply by virtue of having been born here and not there. You have been given a precious gift. Do not squander it.

In fact, Kunal Nayyar reached out to Friends star Matt LeBlanc for advice. At the time Nayyar told Glamour, “[Matt] told me that the journey is crazy, the journey is long, and everybody’s going to want something from you, [but] just keep your sanity and stay grounded.” Now, eight years later, Nayyar is still grateful for that advice. Kunal Nayyar: That’s what I reached out to him about, really. In relation to that, I would go home to India, and I would have cousins I didn’t even know come out of the woodwork. It was a huge deal for India, as a culture, to have an Indian character on America’s biggest sitcom. Not an Indian-American, but an Indian, from New Delhi, who sounds and looks like this. It was huge. I understand the cultural responsibility that I held being on this show. So as someone who had been through a similar journey, at least in terms of massive fame, Matt said to stay humble and keep your head down because it’s a long haul. That’s what Chuck Lorre had said to me, too. It’s not that I didn’t know that already, but to hear it from people who really have gone through that journey is very powerful, especially when you’re young and you’re searching.

... but conventional wisdom frowns upon it and is greatly opposed to young graduates continuing in the same department; lips are pursed, the evils of academic inbreeding piously rehearsed, and sentiments hardly more lofty or original than that "travel broadens the mind" are urged upon any graduate with an inclination to stay put. .... Inbreeding is often the way in which a great school of research is built up. If a graduate understands and is proud of the work going on in his department, he may do best to fall into step with people who know where they are going. A graduate student should by all means attach himself to a department doing work that has aroused his enthusiasm, admiration or respect; no good will come of merely going wherever a job offers, irrespective of the work in progress.

When young people eager to start their own lives and careers ask me for advice I smile and always say: “Passion and persistence are what matter. Dreams are achievable and you can make your fantasy come true, but there are no shortcuts. Nothing happens without hard work.

If I were to travel back in time, I might urge the young man I was to sit the books aside for a minute, open the windows, and let in some fresh air. I would tell him to relax, go meet some people, and enjoy the pleasures that life preserves for those in their twenties, the few friends I have in new your tried to offer some advice, you need to lighten up Barak. you need to get laid, you are so idealistic, it’s great, but I don’t know if what you are saying is really possible. I resisted these voices, I resisted precisely because I feared they were right.

Advice that will guide a young person's life is an easy task, but advice that will guide his life in the right direction is a difficult task!

Griffith Thomas’s advice to young preachers was: “Think yourself empty, read yourself full, write yourself clear, pray yourself keen—then enter the pulpit and let yourself go!

For any aspiring physicians I have one word of advice: be sure that you love people and are a “people person.” Everything in medicine seems ephemeral. Nothing stays the same for long—with one exception: those people we call patients. They are still the same fascinating individuals that make the practice of medicine worthwhile. The child’s smile, the old man’s rambling stories, the anxious mother’s concerns, the young man’s insecurity, the hypochondriac’s fear of cancer, . . . and the list is endless—each one of these individuals is a wonderful human being fashioned in the very image of the Creator.

It never happens in the timescale you want, or they want, but it does happen. [4] Apply specific knowledge with leverage and eventually, you will get what you deserve. It takes time—even once you have all of these pieces in place, there is an indeterminate amount of time you have to put in. If you’re counting, you’ll run out of patience before success actually arrives. Everybody wants to get rich immediately, but the world is an efficient place; immediate doesn’t work. You do have to put in the time. You do have to put in the hours, and so I think you have to put yourself in the position with the specific knowledge, with accountability, with leverage, with the authentic skill set you have, to be the best in the world at what you do. You have to enjoy it and keep doing it, keep doing it, and keep doing it. Don’t keep track, and don’t keep count because if you do, you will run out of time. [78] The most common bad advice I hear is: “You’re too young.” Most of history was built by young people. They just got credit when they were older. The only way to truly learn something is by doing it. Yes, listen to guidance. But don’t wait. [3]

...You see, I’ve always swam against the grain. The ruling class who influences the crown always controlled what I did, how I did it, and when. But of lately, I’ve made my own choices that they don’t like it. They’re pressuring me, forcing me, really, to agree to certain protocols and even choosing certain bachelors. But I don’t want those bachelors. Or their choices. I want you. I need you. I need you to help me to understand my people. I need your help to fix wrongs. I need your support and advice, because I can’t do it alone.” - Royal Matchmaking Competition: Princess Qloey

Attributes of Healthy and Unhealthy Relationships Regard for both oneself as well as other people is a vital quality of sound relationships. Conversely, in undesirable relationships, one partner attempts to apply control over the other physically, sexually, and/or emotionally.

Long after we've experimented with the final bizarre thing to feed cows, they will still do best eating grass. After we've exhausted the drugs, vaccines, and transgenic modification, our animals will still want to express their distinctives, live in historically normal habitats, and fill their traditional role. Long after the final i-gadget has been discovered, we'll still yearn for hugs, kisses, and personal conversations. When we've traveled to the last exotic place and finished participating in the last recreational or entertainment venue on our list, we will want a haven and we will call it home. ...I'm surrounded by loving family - multiple generations. I'm surrounded by enthusiastic young people. I'm surrounded by land that I've watched heal over these last fifty years, from a worn-out, gullied mess to verdant pastures supporting poultry, cows, pigs, and rabbits. The intensity of my feelings springs from the intimacy of my knowledge of this place, its surroundings, the weather patterns, the seasons. I believe this is historically normal, and I covet that for others. Now go be a normal person.

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There was so much that was “right” about my friend’s Mr. Right. He was my age, also an indie parent to a young son. He was smart, funny, and handsome. We both valued family above all else. He really in many ways was everything I thought I was looking for in a partner. The only thing that was missing was that magic, the sense that we had been brought together by a force greater than ourselves. Within three months, we knew that what we had was good, but it wasn’t what either of us really desired.

Six pillar advice for young people: Know thy Creator. Know thy sacred soul. Educate thyself. Don’t doubt your dreams. Pursue your passion. Never lose hope.

Look for instance at the notorious Dan Savage, the gay advice columnist whose work is featured in arts newspapers across the country. His language is habitually violent and obscene. He seems to be filled with hatred against anybody who believes in anything less than what the furthest advanced of the sexual revolutionaries demand. It’s a mark of our madness and irresponsibility that this fellow, who is deeply unbalanced, is invited to public schools to advise the students that being homosexual “gets better,” thus encouraging them in the kinds of sexual experimentation that would land some of them at the same horrible place where he himself is standing. When, at one school, he began to rail against Jesus, some of the Christian students quietly got up and left the hall, whereupon he subjected them to a volley of ridicule, to the applause of some of their fellows in the audience. I cannot imagine for any reason subjecting young people to ridicule. But the self-contradiction seems to have escaped the notice of the promoters of Savage, who is pretending to go about fighting the bullies, when he himself is a bully, spoiled, hurt, angry, and vindictive, as even a passing acquaintance with his advice would show. Porn’s all right for him, mutually agreed-upon cruelty, multiple partners, prostitution, whatever; everything is all right except what really is all right. Yet for all his wealth and fame, he hasn’t gotten better at all.

He was sprightly and uncommonly good looking, with a quiet, magnanimous confidence that attracted people. He was my hero, too, and I listened to him. He gave me lots of wise advice. He told me to put myself in win-win situations, and that, “You have to know what you want, and you have to get it,

If nothing of spiritual significance is happening in your church, your Bible study, your small group, or your family, it may be because nothing spiritually significant is happening in your life. I love the line from Robert Murray M’Cheyne: “My people’s greatest need is my personal holiness.” I’ve given that advice to others dozens of times, and I’ve repeated it to myself a hundred times. Almost my whole philosophy of ministry is summed up in M’Cheyne’s words. My congregation needs me to be humble before they need me to be smart. They need me to be honest more than they need me to be a dynamic leader. They need me to be teachable more than they need me to teach at conferences. If your walk matches your talk, if your faith costs you something, if being a Christian is more than a cultural garb, they will listen to you.

I think up through probably 35, I was very much a control freak, because the size of the organizations I commanded, and I was part of, were small enough where I could micromanage them. I had a fairly forceful personality, and if you worked hard and studied hard, you could just about move all the chess pieces, no problem. Around age 35 to 40, as you get up to battalion level, which is about 600 people, suddenly, you’re going to have to lead it a different way, and what you’re really going to have to do is develop people. The advice I’d give to anyone young is it’s really about developing people who are going to do the work. Unless you are going to go do the task yourself, then the development time you spend on the people who are going to do that task, whether they are going to lead people doing it or whether they are actually going to do it, every minute you spend on that is leveraged, is exponential return.

enemies at all costs, and permit yourself to destroy them. Rest assured that reputable colleges, universities, and employers can detect, and rightly despise, cheating and laziness, which are reflective of poor character. Focus instead on sound values and hard work. These will both pay off for you in the end. Smile genuinely, everywhere, or learn to do so; this radiates outward and affects people positively! If you want to be an entrepreneur, then please heed this advice: Entrepreneurship is hard. In no particular order, you need to attract and work with only A-game players who share your vision, values, mission, goals, and chemistry

Then what’s America’s excuse?” Dixon inquir’d, mild as Country Tea. “Unfortunately, young people,” recalls the Revd, “the word Liberty, so unreflectively sacred to us today, was taken in those Times to encompass even the darkest of Men’s rights,— to injure whomever we might wish,— unto extermination, were it possible,— Free of Royal advice or Proclamation Lines and such. This being, indeed and alas, one of the Liberties our late War was fought to secure.

Interviewer (Mike Sacks): Many of the readers of this book weren't born when you started writing humor. In fact, many of the readers' grandparents hadn't yet been born. If anyone in this book is entitled to give young humor writers advice, it's you. Irving Brecher: I would say that if you think you're funny, then do it. As long as people genuinely respond to what you produce, keep at it. If their laughs seem genuine, keep writing. And don't stop. Never stop. On the other hand, if nobody likes what you create, well...find another profession. Like interviewing.

But every time I felt upset, depressed, or plain pissed off, I remembered a piece of advice a former English teacher had give me: "Why wait until tomorrow to feel better?" This made complete sense to me when I'd thought how many times I'd thought, "Well, tomorrow will be another day... a new day!" What's wrong with today? What's wrong with right now?

You're learning that you do not inhabit a solid, reliable social structure - that the older people around you are worried, moody, goofy human beings who themselves were little kids only a few days ago.