Wise young man

I strongly suspect that I am a good bit older than most of the bloggers I follow. But I relate well to them. I often wonder if they relate to my posts (judging by the amount of hits I’m getting not many). I write from the perspective of an adult, albeit an emotionally stunted one at times, with grown children, many years of life experience and the added bonus of chronic illness just to keep it interested. I think young because in my heart I’m a much younger man than my license suggests. And it has worked for me. A firm policy of consciously avoiding uttering the words “kids today” has served me well.

I am at a wonderful stage where I am still a player in the game of life but able to have an advantage. That advantage is wisdom.

Wis-dom

noun

1. the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.

Wisdom is gained through experience. I do have plenty of that. Good decisions come from experience and experience is gained through making bad decisions. I have made a lot of bad decisions. Among the things I wish I had told my father before he died is how many times he was right and I chose to do it my way. And it cost me. Other experience is gained through the course of living life, surviving what life throws at you. And I have been through a lot of shit. If God gives you all he thinks you can handle he must think I’m Rambo.

Now that I have it what do I do with it? Wisdom, in the form of advice, must be distributed carefully. By that I mean it shouldn’t be offered unsolicited. I firmly follow the “opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one” mantra. I’m not that guy that offers up “hey do you know what I think”. But lately I’ve found myself dispensing a lot of advice, advice that is being asked of me. Friends texting me, inboxing me, calling me with dilemmas of all nature. I think I have been able to help a bit in some cases.

I find it odd to be a source of good advice given my situation. I’m not in a good place at all. But people aren’t coming to me about matters of high finance and which fork to use for the appetizer. They are asking me about matters of life. Relationships, family matters, how to handle people, the list goes on. Apparently, I am known as a guy who has “been there” and knows what to do. Sadly, that is true. I have had some really bad jobs, horrible bosses, bad girlfriends, a lousy marriage, regrettable moments of anger with the family that I will always regret and on top of that several serious health scares. And I learned from all of them. The biggest lessons learned by adhering to the following:

• A man does what he has to do
• Life is not always fun
• It’s bigger than you, you have a family
• Get busy living or get busy dying
• Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does

I deliberately avoid giving advice, but I am glad to share what I know. We all have a purpose in life, maybe my recent assignment is to share what I have learned so that someone else may benefit. The biggest advice I would offer anyone is to live life, take your hits, learn from them and move on. You can’t learn from someone else’s experience. But there are people you can learn from. Take them up on it. Everyone can teach you something, even if by poor example they show you something you don’t want.