Three Things I Learned meme

[resonant]

From sanj, with a few changes:

Three things I learned from my father.

- Fill the sink with water before you start cooking, so you can wash your dishes as you go along.
- It's better to do too much thank-you-note writing than too little.
- If you think you might need to turn your headlights on? You need to turn your headlights on.

Three things I learned from my mother.

- Sure you can cook that! You have a recipe, don't you?
- Human beings make a lot more sense once you study personality type.
- You're not going to lose your kid's respect by saying, "I learned something new about that, so I've changed my mind." Or even, "I made the wrong decision the first time."



Three things I learned from my brother.

- Don't take your foot off the clutch unless you're ready to go somewhere.
- The better music is not on top-40 radio.
- What do you mean, you don't need a flashlight? You always need a flashlight.

Three things I learned from teachers.

- Life is a matter of priorities.
- You don't have to stop reading and drag out a dictionary every time you encounter a word you don't recognize. That's what bookmarks are for: to write unfamiliar words on.
- If you don't know what to do, get out a notebook and start collecting specifics.

Three things I learned from the spouse.

- It isn't that other people believe things that make no sense. It's that they're starting from premises that you don't agree with.
- If you read a story or poem and don't see the merit in it, don't dismiss it until you've read it out loud.
- Nothing is ever so good that it can't benefit from one more rehearsal or one more draft.

Three things I learned from my best friend.
- When you start a new job, ask all the questions you can think of (no matter how obvious, no matter how simpleminded) in the first three months. That's when they expect you to be stupid.
- You're going to have to fight to keep other people from trying to raise your kids for you.
- Kids remember a lesson better if it's funny. Adults, too, for that matter.

Three things I wish everyone would learn from me.

- If you explain, you're inviting argument. So if it's not up for discussion and group decision-making, don't explain it.
- When you turn down an invitation, politeness doesn't require you to say why.
- You're not old enough to have sex until you've gotten over that desire to have everybody like you all the time. And you're certainly not old enough to raise children until then.

Comments

[laurenmitchell.livejournal.com]

When you turn down an invitation, politeness doesn't require you to say why.

I learned this!

Admittedly, it was an invitation from a complete stranger to have cybersex with him, and I felt I was being plenty polite enough by saying 'No thank you' instead of 'Get fucked you pervert'.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Bwah! I think a whole other set of manners applies to people using web-anonymity to commit nuisances.

[laurenmitchell.livejournal.com]

Yes. Rule one is, 'Be grateful that I'm not calling the cops.'

[godofwine.livejournal.com]

You're not old enough to have sex until you've gotten over that desire to have everybody like you all the time. And you're certainly not old enough to raise children until then.

Dude, so true.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I want to go back in time and give my younger self a very stern lecture.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

These are all so excellent! But the best one is:

You're not old enough to have sex until you've gotten over that desire to have everybody like you all the time.

I'd pay big money to have learned this one earlier in the game.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Oh, lord, me too.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

What a lovely meme!!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

P.S. You have a lovely family.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Thanks! You do it too! Lessons from everybody!

[crysothemis.livejournal.com]

- You're not old enough to have sex until you've gotten over that desire to have everybody like you all the time. And you're certainly not old enough to raise children until then.

Oh, hell yes.

*tattoos on brain for future parenting needs*

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I know it, but I'm afraid that the people who really need to hear it aren't going to believe it applies to them.

[lilac-way.livejournal.com]

If you explain, you're inviting argument. So if it's not up for discussion and group decision-making, don't explain it.

There are days when I wish this was tattooed on the back of my hand. As it is, there are certain people who never get explanations, ever -- for just this reason.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Exactly! Some people just shouldn't get their foot in the door of your life, or they want to run everything.

[akite.livejournal.com]

- You're not old enough to have sex until you've gotten over that desire to have everybody like you all the time. And you're certainly not old enough to raise children until then.

I wish someone would have taught that to me when I was a teenager. The sex part, not the kids, though someone should have taught my 19 year old nephew and his new wife that. (Yes, they have a baby.)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

[nods sadly] Girls in particular either need to have sex much later, or, better yet, to get uppity much sooner!

Three Things I Learned meme

[maxinemayer.livejournal.com]

Excellent! My favorite is:

"- If you think you might need to turn your headlights on? You need to turn your headlights on."

In other words, follow your instincts about right and wrong!

Thanks for sharing this!
Love, max

Re: Three Things I Learned meme

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

I agree with Maxine - this one is applicable to a lot more than just headlights. Although I wish people would apply it to headlights, you know?

Re: Three Things I Learned meme

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It's true! I use it that way, as sort of a general guideline: If it occurs to you that you ought to ... you ought to. (I often add, "damn it," because usually it's something I don't want to do.)

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

- It isn't that other people believe things that make no sense. It's that they're starting from premises that you don't agree with.

Amen. This is how it is possible for an agnostic republican to be happily married to an athiestic(sp) democrat.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I went through a lot of years believing that people who didn't agree with me must be either stupid or crazy. And there's a lot of stupid and/or crazy out there, but not that much.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

I am with you. This is why I don't try to argue much anymore with anyone. Except, you know, for those people who seem dead set on telling me how to raise my kid. Those people need to step off.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I've noticed this. Actually it seems to me that the world is divided into two groups of people, one group interfering in other people's childrearing and the other group neglecting their own childrearing.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

SRSLY.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Hey, I like the one of your dad's about the water in the sink! I'm going to do that from now on.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

You have to understand that the only things Dad ever cooked when I lived at home were huge productions that dirtied every dish in the kitchen (chili and Navy bean soup were his two specialties), so it may have been to prevent my mother from killing him as he slept.

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is a lovely meme. And those are all true and wise things.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I love this meme. Of course, I love to collect and trade advice (and, um, to interfere in other people's lives -- for their own good!), so it's tailor-made for me.

you're so groovy

[kormantic.livejournal.com]

::happy sigh::

Re: you're so groovy

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

And you too!

[tevere.livejournal.com]

- What do you mean, you don't need a flashlight? You always need a flashlight.

So true! Many times have I fumbled my way into the house by the light of my iPod, wishing I had one of those keyring torches...

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

In our house we have [counts in her head] five flashlights. Two of them use a weird battery that has to be bought at a special store (for lots of money), so they don't work; two of them are those little cheap disposable ones where you can't replace the battery, so they only work sometimes; and one of them is a solar-powered one that Dad gave the spouse for Christmas, which lies on the windowsill with the cats and absorbs solar energy, and so it ought to work ...

[springwoof.livejournal.com]

I feel like I should frame this and hang it somewhere prominent...

truer words...

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I wish everybody would do this meme. I love reading what other people have learned.

[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

You often produce gems, but these are so sparkly I'm printing them out and carrying with me for ease of reference. I certainly think that some of them should be handed out at ante-natal classes! You're not going to lose your kid's respect by saying, "I learned something new about that, so I've changed my mind." Or even, "I made the wrong decision the first time." I'm thinking of having tattooed on my body somewhere.

Thank you for always sharing your take on life with us.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It's a good one, isn't it? Because one of the pieces of advice you always get as a parent is, "Be consistent!" but it's a thin line between that and allowing one bad decision to lock you into a whole bunch more bad decisions.

Of course, kids are little lawyers, always ready to spot a precedent, so that you buy one gumball and the next time you get, "But you always get me a gumball!"

[mergatrude.livejournal.com]

I'm begining to suspect that with regard to parenting, consistancy is the wrong choice; what's really required is certainty.