Thanks,
Preston
__________________________
A gift list from the Experienced to the Innocent
By Preston L. Allen
From the forthcoming book
51 RULES FOR THE INNOCENT TO LIVE BY (© copyright 2008 Preston L. Allen)
Live by these rules, young people, and your life will have few regrets when you are 30.
--Preston
1) Do not learn to gamble or to play games of chance. It is a vexation to the spirit and the bank account. Learn to play games of skill instead. Games of skill build character and may even add to your bank account. Do all things in moderation. Don’t kid yourself. There is no way to gamble in moderation once you have become addicted.
2) Do not over eat. Do the math. A full year of your adult life will be spent trying to lose every two pounds that you gain now. If you do not want to spend your adult life on diets, this is the time to avoid gaining weight.
3) Master a skill. Learn to play the piano. Learn to play the violin. Learn to paint. Learn to rebuild an engine. If you do it now while you are young, you have time to master it. It will be hard to find time to master it if you begin when you are an adult. Yes, you can learn it in adulthood, but free time is a gift for the young. With enough free time, you can learn to do anything. Anything.
4) Do not over indulge in sleep. Life is lived while awake. Live life. Free time for young people like you should be spent with your eyes open. Do not become addicted to sleep. Sleep, like procrastination, is the thief of time. Watching TV, too much TV, is a kind of sleep. Do not over indulge in this TV sleep either.
5) Get a good night’s sleep. A proper amount of sleep restores the body. Do not rob the body of sleep. Do all things in moderation. You need not be awake all the time.
6) Never let your boss catch you sleepy or asleep. Always appear alert in the presence of your superiors. This is a key to wealth.
7) Do not smoke. There is no need to spend your adult life trying to kick the habit. Do not begin the habit. You have better things to do with your time and your money. But if you must smoke, smoke a pipe or a cigar, but then only once in a while to relax or to celebrate. Do all things in moderation.
8) Do not use illegal drugs. There is no need to spend your adult life trying to kick the habit—and hiding from the police AND your own children. If an illegal drug becomes legal, do not use it. That it was once an illegal drug should answer all of your questions about it. You have better things to do with your time and money.
9) Do not drink alcoholic beverages. There is no need to spend your adult life trying to kick the habit. Do not begin the habit. But if you must drink strong drink, drink wine or champagne and then only once in a while to relax or to celebrate. Do all things in moderation.
10) Join a gym and develop a regular habit of exercise. But do all things in moderation. Do not become a gym freak. Be normal. There are many young women who are attracted to the strong, but slender type of man. There are many young men who are attracted to the healthy, fit, but fleshy woman. Almost no one is attracted to excess. Do all things in moderation. To some, being too skinny or too muscular is as unattractive as being too fat or too soft and flabby.
11) Eat breakfast every day.
12) Go to the dentist. You do not want to lose your teeth. You will regret it forever. Teeth are a gift.
13) Go to the doctor. You have time for it. You do. Your good health is a gift.
14) The worst place to look for a job is in the newspaper. Consult the newspaper if you want to get a job in network marketing or selling plastic jewelry door to door. Ignore those ads that read “$5,000.00 a month guaranteed, no degree necessary.” It sounds good, but that ad is a lie. Go get a degree and get a real job. There are no short cuts in life.
15) A good way to get a job is to volunteer. Go to a company that you like or perhaps would like to work for and volunteer a few hours a week for a few months. If you do a good enough job, they will probably offer you a real job with pay. Furthermore, if you volunteer at a company, you get to know people; remember, often it is who you know, not what you know, that gets you the job. Finally, if you volunteer at the company, you are often privy to inside information about jobs that are not posted to the public. Or while at the company, you might see someone doing a job that you like but hadn’t ever heard of before. “What exactly is your job title?” you might ask her. “And what do you do? It seems interesting.” Conversations like this often lead to fun and interesting jobs that others might never even think of applying for.
16) You can have anything you want if you give enough other people what they want. This is a key to wealth.
17) Get your money out of the bank and into a solid investment program as soon as you possibly can. This is a key to wealth.
18) Before you pay your bills, pay yourself. Set aside a little money for fun. Have fun with your money. This is a key to happiness.
19) Purchase a house as soon as you possibly can. Renting makes no sense. If you rent, your money goes down the drain. A house is a money tree. In the future, after your equity has grown, your house will be worth much more than you owe on it. This equity will be the beginning of wealth for you. You will probably, and you should, purchase several more houses—not to live in, but to rent to others. Renting houses you own is not as hard as you think. It is quite easy, in fact. The fruit will continue to grow on your money tree. This is a key to wealth.
20) Beware of credit cards. Why do you need seven, ten, or even twenty credit cards? You need only three—a major credit card (Visa or Mastercard), an American Express, and one gas card. Credit cards are not money. Credit cards allow you to purchase mostly worthless trinkets today for all of the precious money you will make tomorrow. Credit cards can get you into a lot of trouble if you do not handle them responsibly. When you see yourself sinking into credit card debt, talk to your parents immediately and beg them to bale you out—I don’t care how deep in the hole you are. Ask them for help. It is better for them to bale you out before you ruin your credit. Turn to them. They will understand. Parents know more than you think they do. They have experienced more than you think they have. I am willing to bet that your parents have a bad credit story buried somewhere deep in their closet. They were young once too.
21) Do not ruin your credit rating. But be grateful that if you ruin your credit rating in our country that all is not lost. A bad credit rating does not last forever. If there are no more problems and you pay off your old debt, or make settlements with your lenders, you will be credit worthy again in 5 to 7 years. You are young. Five to seven years without credit will not kill you. Use those 5 to 7 years to ponder what you did wrong and to practice good credit habits so that when you are again able to borrow, you will borrow responsibly.
22) Purchase your first car with the help of a parent or older relative or friend. If it is a used car, have a trusted mechanic check it out first. If it is a new car, negotiate the best deal you can and then ask to see the rebate check. These days ninety percent of all new cars have some sort of rebate from the manufacturer. Don’t let the salesman (or saleswoman) fool you. Demand your rebate check.
23) Do not speed when you drive. There is no need to speed, ever. A car going a safe forty or fifty or fifty-five miles per is faster than any horse the minutemen ever rode, and they were always on time. You do not want ever to crash a car. You do not want to deal with insurance, police officers, courts, the other driver if there be another car involved, and you do not want to deal with death. Death is permanent. So is paralysis. The car is a great gift. Use it wisely.
24) Learn a sport, and practice it to the point where you become good at it. This is now your sport, should anyone ask you.
25) Learn to play golf, or racquetball, or tennis, or ping pong, or to shoot pool. You need not be good at it (unless it is your sport). You need only be competent. If it is your sport, then strive to be good at it.
26) Do not discuss sex, politics, or religion in public.
27) “But is there a God, Preston? The preacher says yes. The scientist says no.” Well, does He live in your heart? Yes? No? You have your answer. That’s all you need to know, young people. What is there to discuss? Why do we have to argue over this? And in public?
28) Do not use profanity in public, unless you absolutely have to, especially in front of the opposite sex. Use profanity only with your close friends and kin—though never with your parents, no matter your age or theirs. Profanity may be a part of your private face, if you like, but never with your parents.
29) To be an adult means that you must occasionally tell a lie. Find one person that you can always tell the truth to, and tell him/her the truth after you have told others the necessary lie.
30) Do not argue with fools. Do not do it—especially in public. The Bible says that He that argues with a fool is a fool himself. That makes sense to me.
31) Pay attention in your English classes. Read great books. Read more than you watch TV. When you do watch TV, in between the silliness, listen to and model people who speak well. Learn to be comfortable speaking in public. Join a school or college club and become an officer, preferably the club’s president. Enjoy your role as leader. Learn to give orders. Learn to fight for causes. Learn to motivate others. This is a key to wealth.
32) Pay attention in math classes. Math is not difficult. Math is philosophy. Math is a game. Learn the rules and learn to play the game. The great professions—medicine, law, business, engineering—do not require that you know math. The great professions require that you did well in math. So do well in it. Don’t depend on your teachers to teach it to you, either. Go out and do some study on your own. Math is really not hard at all. It just has a lot of rules.
33) Learn a trade while you are young. If your career does not kick in right away, you should be able to sustain yourself by cutting hair, doing hair, playing piano at churches, giving instrument and voice lessons to children, working as an electrician’s assistant, fixing leaky roofs, hanging closet doors, and so on. Such skills and trades can also help you to pay for your education when scholarships, loans, and fellowships fall short.
34) Learn a foreign language. Master a foreign language.
35) Smell nice. Spend money on cologne and perfume. The nose will get you in good with people. It is better for a young man to wear too much cologne than too little. Your scent will linger long after you have left. This is not a bad thing, unless you are wearing an obnoxious scent. A young woman should always smell nice. Make sure your breath smells nice, too. The better you smell, the closer people will get to you, the more they will like you. You will also become more attractive in their eyes because of your nice smell, believe it or not.
36) Be beautiful by your own standard. Don’t try to be beautiful by someone else’s standard. Be the most beautiful you that you can be, and never let that standard lag.
37) Have a public face and a private face. Be careful who you show your public face to. Do not insult your mother and father and siblings by showing them your public face unless you are in public.
38) Learn to say thank you. Learn to say you’re welcome. Spend some money on a nice set of thank you cards. People are so happy when you thank them. This is a key to wealth.
39) Give compliments. Give compliments for a job well done, or for a noble effort. Recognize those who do exceptional deeds with a compliment and they will continue to bless us with these deeds. People are so happy when they receive genuine compliments. This is a key to wealth.
40) Remember birthdays and anniversaries. Write them down in a book. People are so happy when you remember their special days. This is a key to wealth.
41) Smile. People like people who smile. This is a key to wealth.
42) Be friendly and conversational in public. People like a good conversationalist. Learn to bend a good conversation, but do not gossip. Avoid those who gossip.
43) Admire beauty, but put your faith in intelligence, experience, a good work ethic, and integrity. Beauty without intelligence, experience, a good work ethic, or integrity is one paycheck away from prostitution. This is a key to wealth. Likewise, admire talent, but put your faith in intelligence, experience, a good work ethic, and integrity. Talent without intelligence, experience, a good work ethic, or integrity is one paycheck away from bankruptcy. This is a key to weath.
44) Do not make a baby too soon, unless you come from an independently wealthy family. A baby you make too soon can’t help but hinder your progress in life, unless you are independently wealthy. A baby is a joy. A baby is supposed to be a source of much love and a recipient of much love. But a baby made too soon often impoverishes the mother and the mother’s parents. A baby made too soon often turns the father, who is much too young for a father’s responsibilities, into a shirker and a deadbeat. Resentments abound on both sides. In the best of situations, a baby made too soon is a harsh lesson about the burden of responsibility for the young parents, who struggle against amazing odds to make it work. More often than not, their ideal vision of love cannot fix the problems they create by making a baby too soon. This is a key to wealth.
45) But take heart, a baby you make too soon does not remain a baby forever. The young father who turns his back on a baby he made too soon will soon grow to regret it. The young mother who bore a baby too soon quickly learns that the hardest parts come at the beginning when the baby first arrives, then they get easier as the baby develops into a young child, and they become mostly bearable and mostly routine when the baby starts going to school. Finally, when the baby grows into adulthood, the mother has lost all of the disadvantages of making a baby too soon and is now seeing the advantages. In fact, she may look all around her and see the interesting ironies: women her age (mid to late 30s) trying with the help of medical professionals to get pregnant, for sometimes it is difficult at that age to get pregnant; and women her age changing the diapers of children they recently bore. The woman who bore a baby too soon is still a relatively young woman and with her child out of the way, she can devote all of her energies to her education, her career, and her social life without “toddling” interference. Thus, if she is ambitious and is willing to work hard and has the help and support of her own parents (if not the support of her baby’s father), the mother who made a baby too soon eventually finds herself on a par with her peers who did not make a baby too soon, and then sometimes she finds herself having the advantage over them because she made a baby too soon. Life is funny in that way. The lesson is this: a baby born to us is a blessing, no matter how or when it comes to us; never give up on that blessing, especially if you got it too soon.
46) A baby made too soon is an act of ill advised passion, a common but forgivable error of the passionate young heart. A second baby made too soon is evidence of slackness, or perhaps a flaw in your capacity to reason, unless you are independently wealthy. Seek professional help.
47) Learn to listen. Listen to your heart. Do not lie to yourself about what you hear. He may not be the right man for you, but you do love him. Everyone says that you two are perfect for each other, but you know in your heart that you do not love her. Listen to your heart. But remember this: marry with the heart; divorce with the head. Listen to your parents. Listen to them even when they are wrong. Listen. Listen. What are they really saying? Listen to the wise. When you are around someone with genuine wisdom or intelligence, listen more than you speak. Shut your mouth. Learn as much as you can from the experience. Wisdom is a rare and precious commodity. Do not waste your time in the presence of a wise one by discussing your opinions on who will win this year’s World Series. Learn to listen. Learn to ask good questions, then listen to the answer, as it comes from the wise. More than anything, listen to the voice of experience. You do not have to put your hand in the fire to know that it burns. Too many have already burned their hand for you. Learn from their pain. Be wise, not redundant. There is no need to burn your hand. I have done it. I have burned my hand. And let me tell you, young people, it was not worth it. Learn from my pain.
48) Study first. Play later.
49) Work first. Play later.
50) Don’t over work.
51) Don’t over play, but don’t forget to play. Life is fun. Life is good. Life is about play. Life is not about work or study. We work so that we can play. We study so that we can play. Work and study hard so that you can play hard. Do all things in moderation. You will have a good life. Enjoy it.
By Preston L. Allen
From the forthcoming book
51 RULES FOR THE INNOCENT TO LIVE BY (© copyright 2008 Preston L. Allen)
Live by these rules, young people, and your life will have few regrets when you are 30.
--Preston
1) Do not learn to gamble or to play games of chance. It is a vexation to the spirit and the bank account. Learn to play games of skill instead. Games of skill build character and may even add to your bank account. Do all things in moderation. Don’t kid yourself. There is no way to gamble in moderation once you have become addicted.
2) Do not over eat. Do the math. A full year of your adult life will be spent trying to lose every two pounds that you gain now. If you do not want to spend your adult life on diets, this is the time to avoid gaining weight.
3) Master a skill. Learn to play the piano. Learn to play the violin. Learn to paint. Learn to rebuild an engine. If you do it now while you are young, you have time to master it. It will be hard to find time to master it if you begin when you are an adult. Yes, you can learn it in adulthood, but free time is a gift for the young. With enough free time, you can learn to do anything. Anything.
4) Do not over indulge in sleep. Life is lived while awake. Live life. Free time for young people like you should be spent with your eyes open. Do not become addicted to sleep. Sleep, like procrastination, is the thief of time. Watching TV, too much TV, is a kind of sleep. Do not over indulge in this TV sleep either.
5) Get a good night’s sleep. A proper amount of sleep restores the body. Do not rob the body of sleep. Do all things in moderation. You need not be awake all the time.
6) Never let your boss catch you sleepy or asleep. Always appear alert in the presence of your superiors. This is a key to wealth.
7) Do not smoke. There is no need to spend your adult life trying to kick the habit. Do not begin the habit. You have better things to do with your time and your money. But if you must smoke, smoke a pipe or a cigar, but then only once in a while to relax or to celebrate. Do all things in moderation.
8) Do not use illegal drugs. There is no need to spend your adult life trying to kick the habit—and hiding from the police AND your own children. If an illegal drug becomes legal, do not use it. That it was once an illegal drug should answer all of your questions about it. You have better things to do with your time and money.
9) Do not drink alcoholic beverages. There is no need to spend your adult life trying to kick the habit. Do not begin the habit. But if you must drink strong drink, drink wine or champagne and then only once in a while to relax or to celebrate. Do all things in moderation.
10) Join a gym and develop a regular habit of exercise. But do all things in moderation. Do not become a gym freak. Be normal. There are many young women who are attracted to the strong, but slender type of man. There are many young men who are attracted to the healthy, fit, but fleshy woman. Almost no one is attracted to excess. Do all things in moderation. To some, being too skinny or too muscular is as unattractive as being too fat or too soft and flabby.
11) Eat breakfast every day.
12) Go to the dentist. You do not want to lose your teeth. You will regret it forever. Teeth are a gift.
13) Go to the doctor. You have time for it. You do. Your good health is a gift.
14) The worst place to look for a job is in the newspaper. Consult the newspaper if you want to get a job in network marketing or selling plastic jewelry door to door. Ignore those ads that read “$5,000.00 a month guaranteed, no degree necessary.” It sounds good, but that ad is a lie. Go get a degree and get a real job. There are no short cuts in life.
15) A good way to get a job is to volunteer. Go to a company that you like or perhaps would like to work for and volunteer a few hours a week for a few months. If you do a good enough job, they will probably offer you a real job with pay. Furthermore, if you volunteer at a company, you get to know people; remember, often it is who you know, not what you know, that gets you the job. Finally, if you volunteer at the company, you are often privy to inside information about jobs that are not posted to the public. Or while at the company, you might see someone doing a job that you like but hadn’t ever heard of before. “What exactly is your job title?” you might ask her. “And what do you do? It seems interesting.” Conversations like this often lead to fun and interesting jobs that others might never even think of applying for.
16) You can have anything you want if you give enough other people what they want. This is a key to wealth.
17) Get your money out of the bank and into a solid investment program as soon as you possibly can. This is a key to wealth.
18) Before you pay your bills, pay yourself. Set aside a little money for fun. Have fun with your money. This is a key to happiness.
19) Purchase a house as soon as you possibly can. Renting makes no sense. If you rent, your money goes down the drain. A house is a money tree. In the future, after your equity has grown, your house will be worth much more than you owe on it. This equity will be the beginning of wealth for you. You will probably, and you should, purchase several more houses—not to live in, but to rent to others. Renting houses you own is not as hard as you think. It is quite easy, in fact. The fruit will continue to grow on your money tree. This is a key to wealth.
20) Beware of credit cards. Why do you need seven, ten, or even twenty credit cards? You need only three—a major credit card (Visa or Mastercard), an American Express, and one gas card. Credit cards are not money. Credit cards allow you to purchase mostly worthless trinkets today for all of the precious money you will make tomorrow. Credit cards can get you into a lot of trouble if you do not handle them responsibly. When you see yourself sinking into credit card debt, talk to your parents immediately and beg them to bale you out—I don’t care how deep in the hole you are. Ask them for help. It is better for them to bale you out before you ruin your credit. Turn to them. They will understand. Parents know more than you think they do. They have experienced more than you think they have. I am willing to bet that your parents have a bad credit story buried somewhere deep in their closet. They were young once too.
21) Do not ruin your credit rating. But be grateful that if you ruin your credit rating in our country that all is not lost. A bad credit rating does not last forever. If there are no more problems and you pay off your old debt, or make settlements with your lenders, you will be credit worthy again in 5 to 7 years. You are young. Five to seven years without credit will not kill you. Use those 5 to 7 years to ponder what you did wrong and to practice good credit habits so that when you are again able to borrow, you will borrow responsibly.
22) Purchase your first car with the help of a parent or older relative or friend. If it is a used car, have a trusted mechanic check it out first. If it is a new car, negotiate the best deal you can and then ask to see the rebate check. These days ninety percent of all new cars have some sort of rebate from the manufacturer. Don’t let the salesman (or saleswoman) fool you. Demand your rebate check.
23) Do not speed when you drive. There is no need to speed, ever. A car going a safe forty or fifty or fifty-five miles per is faster than any horse the minutemen ever rode, and they were always on time. You do not want ever to crash a car. You do not want to deal with insurance, police officers, courts, the other driver if there be another car involved, and you do not want to deal with death. Death is permanent. So is paralysis. The car is a great gift. Use it wisely.
24) Learn a sport, and practice it to the point where you become good at it. This is now your sport, should anyone ask you.
25) Learn to play golf, or racquetball, or tennis, or ping pong, or to shoot pool. You need not be good at it (unless it is your sport). You need only be competent. If it is your sport, then strive to be good at it.
26) Do not discuss sex, politics, or religion in public.
27) “But is there a God, Preston? The preacher says yes. The scientist says no.” Well, does He live in your heart? Yes? No? You have your answer. That’s all you need to know, young people. What is there to discuss? Why do we have to argue over this? And in public?
28) Do not use profanity in public, unless you absolutely have to, especially in front of the opposite sex. Use profanity only with your close friends and kin—though never with your parents, no matter your age or theirs. Profanity may be a part of your private face, if you like, but never with your parents.
29) To be an adult means that you must occasionally tell a lie. Find one person that you can always tell the truth to, and tell him/her the truth after you have told others the necessary lie.
30) Do not argue with fools. Do not do it—especially in public. The Bible says that He that argues with a fool is a fool himself. That makes sense to me.
31) Pay attention in your English classes. Read great books. Read more than you watch TV. When you do watch TV, in between the silliness, listen to and model people who speak well. Learn to be comfortable speaking in public. Join a school or college club and become an officer, preferably the club’s president. Enjoy your role as leader. Learn to give orders. Learn to fight for causes. Learn to motivate others. This is a key to wealth.
32) Pay attention in math classes. Math is not difficult. Math is philosophy. Math is a game. Learn the rules and learn to play the game. The great professions—medicine, law, business, engineering—do not require that you know math. The great professions require that you did well in math. So do well in it. Don’t depend on your teachers to teach it to you, either. Go out and do some study on your own. Math is really not hard at all. It just has a lot of rules.
33) Learn a trade while you are young. If your career does not kick in right away, you should be able to sustain yourself by cutting hair, doing hair, playing piano at churches, giving instrument and voice lessons to children, working as an electrician’s assistant, fixing leaky roofs, hanging closet doors, and so on. Such skills and trades can also help you to pay for your education when scholarships, loans, and fellowships fall short.
34) Learn a foreign language. Master a foreign language.
35) Smell nice. Spend money on cologne and perfume. The nose will get you in good with people. It is better for a young man to wear too much cologne than too little. Your scent will linger long after you have left. This is not a bad thing, unless you are wearing an obnoxious scent. A young woman should always smell nice. Make sure your breath smells nice, too. The better you smell, the closer people will get to you, the more they will like you. You will also become more attractive in their eyes because of your nice smell, believe it or not.
36) Be beautiful by your own standard. Don’t try to be beautiful by someone else’s standard. Be the most beautiful you that you can be, and never let that standard lag.
37) Have a public face and a private face. Be careful who you show your public face to. Do not insult your mother and father and siblings by showing them your public face unless you are in public.
38) Learn to say thank you. Learn to say you’re welcome. Spend some money on a nice set of thank you cards. People are so happy when you thank them. This is a key to wealth.
39) Give compliments. Give compliments for a job well done, or for a noble effort. Recognize those who do exceptional deeds with a compliment and they will continue to bless us with these deeds. People are so happy when they receive genuine compliments. This is a key to wealth.
40) Remember birthdays and anniversaries. Write them down in a book. People are so happy when you remember their special days. This is a key to wealth.
41) Smile. People like people who smile. This is a key to wealth.
42) Be friendly and conversational in public. People like a good conversationalist. Learn to bend a good conversation, but do not gossip. Avoid those who gossip.
43) Admire beauty, but put your faith in intelligence, experience, a good work ethic, and integrity. Beauty without intelligence, experience, a good work ethic, or integrity is one paycheck away from prostitution. This is a key to wealth. Likewise, admire talent, but put your faith in intelligence, experience, a good work ethic, and integrity. Talent without intelligence, experience, a good work ethic, or integrity is one paycheck away from bankruptcy. This is a key to weath.
44) Do not make a baby too soon, unless you come from an independently wealthy family. A baby you make too soon can’t help but hinder your progress in life, unless you are independently wealthy. A baby is a joy. A baby is supposed to be a source of much love and a recipient of much love. But a baby made too soon often impoverishes the mother and the mother’s parents. A baby made too soon often turns the father, who is much too young for a father’s responsibilities, into a shirker and a deadbeat. Resentments abound on both sides. In the best of situations, a baby made too soon is a harsh lesson about the burden of responsibility for the young parents, who struggle against amazing odds to make it work. More often than not, their ideal vision of love cannot fix the problems they create by making a baby too soon. This is a key to wealth.
45) But take heart, a baby you make too soon does not remain a baby forever. The young father who turns his back on a baby he made too soon will soon grow to regret it. The young mother who bore a baby too soon quickly learns that the hardest parts come at the beginning when the baby first arrives, then they get easier as the baby develops into a young child, and they become mostly bearable and mostly routine when the baby starts going to school. Finally, when the baby grows into adulthood, the mother has lost all of the disadvantages of making a baby too soon and is now seeing the advantages. In fact, she may look all around her and see the interesting ironies: women her age (mid to late 30s) trying with the help of medical professionals to get pregnant, for sometimes it is difficult at that age to get pregnant; and women her age changing the diapers of children they recently bore. The woman who bore a baby too soon is still a relatively young woman and with her child out of the way, she can devote all of her energies to her education, her career, and her social life without “toddling” interference. Thus, if she is ambitious and is willing to work hard and has the help and support of her own parents (if not the support of her baby’s father), the mother who made a baby too soon eventually finds herself on a par with her peers who did not make a baby too soon, and then sometimes she finds herself having the advantage over them because she made a baby too soon. Life is funny in that way. The lesson is this: a baby born to us is a blessing, no matter how or when it comes to us; never give up on that blessing, especially if you got it too soon.
46) A baby made too soon is an act of ill advised passion, a common but forgivable error of the passionate young heart. A second baby made too soon is evidence of slackness, or perhaps a flaw in your capacity to reason, unless you are independently wealthy. Seek professional help.
47) Learn to listen. Listen to your heart. Do not lie to yourself about what you hear. He may not be the right man for you, but you do love him. Everyone says that you two are perfect for each other, but you know in your heart that you do not love her. Listen to your heart. But remember this: marry with the heart; divorce with the head. Listen to your parents. Listen to them even when they are wrong. Listen. Listen. What are they really saying? Listen to the wise. When you are around someone with genuine wisdom or intelligence, listen more than you speak. Shut your mouth. Learn as much as you can from the experience. Wisdom is a rare and precious commodity. Do not waste your time in the presence of a wise one by discussing your opinions on who will win this year’s World Series. Learn to listen. Learn to ask good questions, then listen to the answer, as it comes from the wise. More than anything, listen to the voice of experience. You do not have to put your hand in the fire to know that it burns. Too many have already burned their hand for you. Learn from their pain. Be wise, not redundant. There is no need to burn your hand. I have done it. I have burned my hand. And let me tell you, young people, it was not worth it. Learn from my pain.
48) Study first. Play later.
49) Work first. Play later.
50) Don’t over work.
51) Don’t over play, but don’t forget to play. Life is fun. Life is good. Life is about play. Life is not about work or study. We work so that we can play. We study so that we can play. Work and study hard so that you can play hard. Do all things in moderation. You will have a good life. Enjoy it.
