“One day you will look back and see that all along you were blooming.”
— MHN
Twenty-seven years ago, when I was a freshman in high school, my English teacher gave my class a homework assignment entitled, “Advice for a Younger Generation.” The concept of the assignment was simple: Each student had to interview a person who was over the age of 25, gather enough information to write a basic biography of their life and find out what their top tips are for a younger generation. I chose to interview my dad. He was 53 at the time and he gave me 18 pieces of advice.
I had completely forgotten about all of this until recently when I was visiting my parents house. My mom had me clean out a few old boxes stored in the attic. In one of these boxes I found the original “Advice for a Younger Generation” assignment dated April 22nd, 1996.
I read through it and was admittedly blown away — there’s lots of solid wisdom within. Even though my dad’s advice is generally relevant to a person of any age, my 41-year-old self can relate to it in a way my 14-year-old self didn’t quite grasp at the time. In fact, the first thought that went through my head was, “Wow, my dad was right!”
Here are my dad’s original 18 pieces of advice for a younger generation, transcribed and copyedited with his permission, along with a couple new (and significant) additions — bringing the list to 20 in total. He basically sent me numbers 19 and 20 yesterday and told me to “update the list.” (Haha. I’m not joking.) And note that my dad was inspired to expand on his original list after a previous version of this article was published here on the blog a few months ago:
1. Your 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s won’t feel like your 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s.
Adults are just older children. When you get older you won’t feel as old as you imagine you will. For the most part, you still feel exactly the way you feel right now, just a little wiser and more confident. You’ve had time to establish your place in the world and figure out what’s important to you. Don’t fear growing up. Look forward to it. It’s awesome!
2. Bad things will happen to you and your friends.
Part of living and growing up is experiencing unexpected troubles in life. People lose jobs, get in car accidents, and sometimes die. When you are younger, and things are going pretty well, this harsh reality can be hard to visualize. The smartest and oftentimes hardest thing we can do in these kinds of situations is to be tempered in our reactions. To want to scream obscenities, but to be wiser and more disciplined than that. To remember that emotional rage only makes matters worse. And to remember that tragedies are rarely as bad as they seem, and even when they are, they give us an opportunity to grow stronger.
3. Everyone can make a significant difference.
Making one person smile can change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but their world. So start small and start now. Be patient. Be present. Be kind. Compliment people. Magnify their strengths, not their weaknesses. This is how to make a difference, in your own life above all, and in all the lives you touch.
4. First impressions aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
Everyone and everything seems normal from a distance, or at a glance. The 10th, 20th, or even the 50th impression is when you start to truly understand someone else for who they truly are. Be patient and present. Pay attention to their habits and rituals. We are what we habitually do.
5. Big results come when you narrow your focus.
Concentrate your efforts on smaller and smaller areas. Specialize. When your efforts are diffused over a wide area they won’t have much of an impact. So focus on smaller areas and your efforts will be felt more fully. It could take time for growth to happen, but keep that focus narrow and the results will come in time.
6. Love yourself. Become the best version of you.
Strive to be the “you” you want to be. Nourish your mind and body. Don’t stop learning. Educate yourself every day until you die. Study. Read. Devour new ideas. Engage with people, including those who think differently. Ask questions. Listen. And don’t just grow in knowledge. Be a person who gives back too.
7. Most of the time you just have to go for it, again and again.
Put your uncertainty and fears aside for a second and ask yourself this: “If I try and I don’t get it right the first time, what will I have lost and what will I have gained?” The answer is: You will have lost nothing but a little bit of your time while gaining an important lesson that will help you get it right the second or third time. People rarely get it right the first time. In fact, usually the only people who ever get it right are those who continue going for it even when they’ve come up short numerous times before.
8. We tend to get more when we give.
Supporting, guiding, and making contributions to other people is one of life’s greatest rewards. Almost everything you do comes back around in some way. Let your actions create positive ripples in your life.
9. Not much is worth fighting about today.
If you can avoid it, don’t fight. Step back from arguments with your spouse, family members, or neighbors. When you feel anger surging up and you want to yell that vulgar remark on the tip of your tongue, just close your mouth and take a break. Sleep on it. Give yourself space. Let calmness be your superpower, and then revisit the situation if you must. You don’t have to be right or win an argument immediately.
10. Don’t try to impress everyone.
Purposely impressing people is an act that brings nothing but a momentary ego boost. Be real with people instead. Connect with fewer people on a level that is deeper and more profound.
11. Keep having fun.
Fun is way underrated! With all of life’s responsibilities, fun will sometimes seem like an indulgence. It shouldn’t be. It should be a requirement. Make time for fun and casual play. Schedule it in until the day you die!
12. Keep it simple.
There is a world of magnificence hidden in simplicity. Identify the five most important things in your life now and focus on those things in your free time. Let the other stuff go. Stop the senseless busyness most people fill their lives with, so you can enjoy what’s truly important to you.
13. Little things stick with you.
So pay attention to them. Like watching your child sleep. Preparing a holiday meal with your family. Sharing a great laugh with an old friend. This is the real stuff life is made of. Tune in.
14. Less advice is often the best advice.
Most people don’t need lots of advice, they need to live. I’ve seen young, rocky relationships develop into wonderful marriages, and I’ve seen fleeting inspirations ignite a lifetime of passion and happiness. Our life stories, like the answers we give to long essay questions, are uniquely ours. What people want to know is already somewhere inside of them. We all just need time to think, be, and continue to explore the imperfect journeys that will eventually help us find our long-term direction.
15. Manage your time diligently.
Your situation and environment is ever changing, so be careful not to confuse things that are urgent with things that are important. Evaluate your obligations on a monthly basis and be willing to make necessary shifts. And remember that good, admirable obligations, like volunteering at church, will sometimes need to be put on hold temporarily for something else. And that’s OK. You can’t do it all.
16. Manage your money diligently.
Don’t buy stuff you don’t need. Don’t spend more than you make. Don’t spend to impress people. Don’t let your money manage you in the long run. Financial stability is peace of mind when you get older.
17. What you learn in school does matter.
While you may not use the specifics of every classroom lesson, every lesson does expand the core thought process of your mind. Over time you will develop problem-solving skills that are universally applicable. No single classroom lesson can teach this, and no single classroom lesson is more important.
18. Dreams will remain dreams forever if you don’t take action.
Don’t dream about it anymore. Start doing it a little bit every day. In 30 years from now, what is it that you will regret not having accomplished, appreciated, or attempted? Do it, appreciate it, and attempt it starting NOW!
19. If you truly want something, you also have to want its costs.
When it comes to achieving the dreams just mentioned in point #18, it’s important to realize that most people want the reward without the risk — the shine without the grind. But you can’t get to a destination in life without a journey. And a journey always has costs. At the very least you have to invest your time and energy into taking consistent steps forward.
So instead of only thinking about what you want — a dream or goal — also ask yourself: “What am I willing to invest (or give up) to get it?”
Or for those inevitably hard days: “What is worth struggling for?”
Seriously, think about it: If you want the strong and athletic body, you have to want the sore muscles, the sweaty clothes, the mornings or afternoons of exercise, and the healthy meals. If you want the successful business, you have to also want the longer days, the stressful business deals and decisions, and the likelihood of failing many times to learn what you need to know to succeed in the long run. But if you catch yourself wanting something day in and day out, month after month, yet you never take consistent action and thus you never make progress, then maybe it’s time to let that goal go, because you don’t actually want to struggle through the steps required to achieve it — the costs seem too high to you. And that’s OK — it’s OK to change your mind or dream a new dream. The key is to be honest with yourself along the way.
20. Life is incredibly limited, and there’s beauty in this truth.
Let’s end this list right by bringing it full-circle to the underlying themes we started out with in points #1 and #2 — time flies and life is short. Because the truth is, you can never read all the books you want to read. You can never train yourself in all the skill sets you want to have. You can never be all the things you want to be and live all the lives you want to live. You can never spend all the time you want with the people you love. You can never feel every possible temperature, tone, and variation of emotion in a given situation. You are incredibly limited, just like everyone else.
In the game of life, we all receive a unique set of unexpected limitations and variables in the field of play. The question is: How will you respond to the hand you’ve been dealt? You can either focus on the lack thereof or empower yourself to play the game sensibly and resourcefully, making the very best of every outcome as it arises, even when it’s heartbreaking and hard to accept.
In the end, what matters most is to focus on what matters most. By doing so you get to truly experience the various sources of beauty and opportunity in your life while each of them lasts. Let’s take a moment and revisit the notion of being limited by the reality of not being able to spend all the time you want with someone you love. When someone you love passes away too soon, that’s undoubtedly one of the most heartbreaking limitations to cope with (and the general principles for coping with this kind of tragic limitation are also applicable to less severe situations too)…
Imagine a person who gave meaning to your life is suddenly no longer in your life (at least not in the flesh), and you’re not the same person without them. You have to change who you are — you’re now a best friend who sits alone, a widow instead of a wife, a dad without a daughter, or a next-door neighbor to someone new. You want life to be the way it was before death, but it never will be.
I have personally dealt with the loss of siblings, parents, and best friends to illness and accidents over the years, so I know from experience that when you lose someone you can’t imagine living without, your heart breaks wide open. And the bad news is you never completely get over the loss — you will never forget them. However, in a backwards way this is also the good news…
You see, death is an ending, which is a necessary part of living. And endings are necessary for beauty too — otherwise it’s impossible to appreciate someone or something, because they are unlimited. Limits illuminate beauty, and death is the definitive limit — a reminder that you need to be aware of this beautiful person or situation, and appreciate this beautiful thing called life. Death is also a beginning, because while you’ve lost someone special, this ending, like every loss, is a moment of reinvention. Although deeply sad, their passing forces you to reinvent your life, and in this reinvention is an opportunity to experience beauty in new, unseen ways and places. And finally, of course, death is an opportunity to celebrate a person’s life, and to be grateful for the priceless beauty they showed you.
Bottom line: There’s always progress and beauty to be found in accepting and respecting life’s inherent limitations, and then making the very best of what’s in front of you.
Closing Thoughts & Next Steps…
My dad is 80-years-old now, and although he generally agrees with his younger self’s advice, he also admits he’s learned some new tricks over the past 27 years. “That’s why I wanted to add numbers 19 and 20 — just to flesh things out a bit,” he told me. And he intends to share some more life advice with us in the near future too, so sign up for our email updates and stand by for a new article from him. 🙂 In the mean time though, he told me to tell you to read his three favorite personal development books: “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, “The Millionaire Next Door”, and “1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently” (yes, he shamelessly plugged our book, but he actually re-reads it for daily self-reflection, so it’s legitimate).
Finally, before you go, please leave my dad (and Angel and me) a comment below to let us know what you think of this article and its advice. Your feedback is truly important to us — it inspires us to continue writing and sharing here on the blog.
Photo by: Alex Proimos
Sandy Peckinpah says
What a wise and beautiful article. I think your Dad’s assessment was spot on. I am in my 70’s and I can tell you I still feel like I’m in my 40’s. It’s all in how you have treated the decades before and followed the wisdom of exactly what your Dad said! Great article!
Rochelle Johns says
I have read many of your articles but this one I was So excited to read. Especially since it was your 80 year old dad, it enlightened me even more and made me feel a sense of purpose. This was breathtaking and tell your dad thank you.
Vicky Williams says
Your article has encouraged me along my pathway of life. I always sees to put others first, I must learn to love myself . Thanks for this article your dad sure put some great thoughts out there, a good legacy for us to treasure and take a leaf out it. Thank you I wonder if you will allow me to share few of the concepts mentioned to whoever will listen.
Linda Terry says
I will be 80 in 3 months and what your dad shared sounds just like advice my Mother and Father both gave me when I was young. Great advice and Oh how I wish I had listened to both of them years ago. Never too late to take good advice! Thank You!
Lynn says
I appreciate the thoughts in this one. My son, who has just turned 35 has recently had a few friends pass away from accidents. He has been down about his life being half over and he feels he hasn’t made time to do anything in life other than work. Sometimes we need to examine what we really want in life to be happy. I plan to send this to him. I think he will appreciate the sentiments from elderly wisdom! Thanks!
Tiny says
Outstanding and refreshing! A sweet reminder to share more moments with our children expressing our view points. Although our children act as if “parental” thoughts are old fashioned and boring, your commentary proves that one day something “we” say will strike a nerve in “them” and provide a powerful meaning. My dad died two years ago. He said a lot of crazy good stuff. Never thought he would actually die. Hmmm. I’d give anything to listen to his crazy thoughts about life. At the age of 55 I finally understand what he was talking about. Prior to his death, I was able to say “I get what mean Dad.”
Bonnie M. says
I am almost 74 & have lived my life basically just like this. So for me, this was spot on!
Thank- you for sharing, it shows me, despite what naysayers have said, my thinking was spot on.
Thank you Dad for me & thank you for sharing this awesome wisdom!!
Peter says
This is right on. I would add a few things .
Do the right thing that feels right in your heart. It’s probably the hardest choice, but will ultimately make everything work.
You have one life, this is it so do your best and you’ll have few regrets.
Enjoy life don’t waste time chasing things that will harm you like monetary wealth. Your children are a treasure. How you teach them is vital. Your grandchildren will be extraordinary.
Treat your loved ones like your friends. Don’t take them for granted. Life is tenuous and short. Appreciate them.
Treat yourself well and learn to accept the things about yourself you may not like and you’ll alter them and be happier.
Take care of yourself physically. It makes life easier.
Beyond that your Dad had great advice.
I’m 70 and have had a full life. It’s not always easy to be decent but pays off for everyone if you are.
Cynthia Dotson says
Thank you for sharing this piece. It’s so hard to explain the unexplainable in life. This list does just that. I will be printing and enclosing it with the Christmas gift I’m giving each of my adult children. As we enter the New Year, a time of reflection and hope, I think it will be perfect. I’m a 70 year old widow – these words are comforting, yet directional. I embrace the path before me.
Walter Vernon, age 88 says
21. For all science can tell us and help us accomplish – amazing things and deeds, it cannot create more time, so do not waste what you have
as you do not know when it will end.
Sonali says
What a lovely article I’m waking up to. Thanks for sharing. I’m in my 50s and I agree 100% with your dad. I grew up with similar advice from both my parents, both no more unfortunately. To this day, I feel, they were the wisest souls I’ve known in life and consider myself very lucky to have grown up with.
Ginny Saunders says
I just turned 80… and I do still feel, inside, like I did in my 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. That is a positive observation for the immortality of our souls.
I have to say, I agree with all your Dad had to say, but am not sure it would have sunk in with me when I was younger. It’s truly comforting to me now though.
Pamela says
Absolutely Wonderful!
Connie Barber says
This is such a great article/list Marc. Thank you for sharing it. It has taken me much longer to learn many of these things than it did your dad, but I’m surly getting there. It’s funny how at a mature age you still feel like your younger self (with more knowledge and life experience of course!) I don’t know that’s fully understandable until you get here! I will reread this list over and over because it really resonated with me! EVERYONE of all ages could benefit from your dad’s wisdom!
Maryann says
The comments of # 19 and 20 hit hard. There are limits in life we can not control. My 55 yo son ( only child) died last year and I miss him terribly. Yes, you are absolutely correct. His death is forcing me to reinvent myself. I’ve been imagining a next step,and procrastinating. Your advice prompts me to get busy,stop imagining and get to work! Thank you.
john M Hardy says
Spot on, yes. My dad who is 81 has given me a lot of the same advice. I can definitely say (unfortunately) that you do need to experience failure, had I not done that, I would not have moved into my own place (permanently) and have my own business going on 11 years on the 26th.
mick jensen says
You’ve explained things well. Life isn’t rocket science and needs to be kept simple and in focus.
We need to do what makes us feel happy and take the highs and lows as they happen.
We need to have fun, not take life too seriously, and step away from the rat-race at times. Life, love and enjoy life because we’re only here once (probably).
Kathy R. says
Beautiful advice. My Mother always said, to act your shoe size. That’s what keeps you young. She passed away 4 years ago this month. She would have been 100 years old now. Miss her every day. Give your Dad a hug for me. Very wise man. Thank you for letting us read his messages.
Patrick Onyait says
What a wonderful article! Thank you very much and please give your Dad a hug for me. I am in my 50s but this has now become my reference book. May God bless you and Dad.
Kelly says
Sense in abundance as always
Thanks so much for the opportunity to keep learning and growing ?
Scott Doetsch says
Excellent information! Thanks!
Khushboo says
Your thoughts always give me strength to move on in life.After losing a beautiful person in my life, i can totally relate with every single word here. Such a great perspective on life and death… in a way your words reinvented me today. So thanks a lot.
Elaine Sams says
I so much enjoyed the article of your Father’s advanced wisdom and advice that you were kind enough to share! I intend to copy it for our children who have brought us all the joy and happiness we could have ever imagined. When God promoted us to be Grandparents,”Nana and papa” we knew then we had been rewarded and blessed beyond measure with our precious Grandson. Your Father is target on with his advice -with focus and purpose in life, you see what truly matters most and you are so kind for sharing this with all of us-give Dad a big hug and thanks-I look forward to his next updates. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t quote the wisdom shared by my Parents, Grandparents and In-Laws in hopes for joy and happiness for others !!!
Leah says
As someone who never had parental support, and has been totally alone since age 13, 53 now so kind of used to it haha, this was probably the first wise, enlightened parental advice I’ve ever had. Your Dad has just parented me from afar, and I’m grateful, and so happy you had and have such an amazing Dad. Thank you from UK to you for being a conduit for your Dads wisdom here.