Would you even listen to yourself? If sixty year old you came back in time to tell you the most important things, would you even listen to yourself? If old you only had a few minutes to tell young you the most important things in life, would young you even listen? Would you even listen to yourself? Let me point out something here. We're all assuming that by the time you're that old that you, at least, figured out the top most important things. I don't think that anyone is assuming that they'd ever have everything figured out, but we all assume that by the time we're sixty or so that we'd have the most important things dialed in. Well, here's the thing, the most important things are the most important things no matter who figures them out. So what's it matter who comes back in time to tell you about them? We've all figured out pretty much the same things any way. The truth is, no one is going to come back in time to tell you anything. The truth is that this is as close as you're ever going to get to having someone go back in time to give you some information that you're going to wish that you knew sooner. That said, if you are the sort of person who is curious enough, and humble enough, to listen to their old self come back in time to hook them up, then you may be wise enough to listen to me for the next half an hour. That's not a long time, so I'm going to get started. For the rest of you, like I said, we're going to be about a half hour.
I would hope that young me would tell old me to screw himself. Young me had a great life - old me is a little too conservative and worried about things that really aren’t worth worrying about.
I'd tell me that the guy saying I should get into selling books online has a good idea, Shipping can be worked out. To expand on the OP. I've not picked up any real wisdom as I've gotten older and I don't think anyone does. We don't just get too soon old, we don't get too late smart either.
I wouldn't have a whole lot to tell myself, really. Sometimes I think my life would be more interesting if I had more regrets... not that that makes much sense. Without getting too deep into paradoxes, if I told my young self to do differently, I wouldn't become me. Oiow, we are the culmination of our experiences. Changing those makes us different people. I don't think I could turn out any better than I am. (But I certainly hope to become better than I am.)
Life is strange because I had an old person tell me while I was growing up how life would be at sixty yet life does not travel the same streams with every human. I could have lowered my values and neglected my freedom by having a job with corporate America. I could have sold my soul with a suit and tie but I didn’t want that path. I always wanted to be my own boss and run my own company and I did. I regret nothing. Now that I am old and declining in physical abilities corporate America will have nothing to do with me, but I will still make money the way I have for years by providing a service few people can do. Until I can walk no more which in my prognostications is about ten years when I am sixteen eight....you still have dreams at old age it’s just that you have no ability to do it.
Wish that I knew then what I know now. There are things in life that no one 'figures out'; they must be taught. They can be taught person to person, or they can be taught by experience. The thing with learning from experience is that you don't get it until after you need it.
yes about the only meaningful advice the old can give the young is to floss regularly and put every cent you can into the stock market.
You don't think so?? Even at my young 28 years of age, I feel like I've gained A LOT of wisdom that I didn't have even a few years ago, and I feel like there's always a lot more wisdom to be gained. I've learned a lot about relationships and expressing feelings in a proper manner, I've learned about past mental blocks that I have had and the causes of them, and much more.
And as I got older I found that was wrong too. The only real difference between youth and old age is how much energy you put into things. Albert Einstein figured out most of Relativity in the summer of his 16th year, and spent the remainder of his life trying unsuccessfully to fit one mistake he'd made into it. Schopenhauer said that the first 30 years of our lives are the text and the next 40 are the commentary. I would take 10 years off the 30
Interesting concept. In some ways, I've already lectured my younger self about what to do. I remember all the older folks telling me to do well in school and stop spending my money on foolish things that are worthless in the long run. Now I hear myself giving the same advice to young people. I am a sort of time traveler in the sense that I've become the old person giving advice to the young people I once was part of. Makes my head spin... But to address the topic, If I could go back, I hope that I would be wise enough to not say anything that would change who I am because I would disappear right in front of my younger eyes. Holy butterflies, Batperson! I like this idea--
And have you noticed that most of these responses come from the NOT younger audience? Sorry about that.
Most self-destructive behavior extends from a feeling of guilt. Most feelings of guilt extend from failures to figure some things out by the time their needed. The things is that some things cannot be figured out; they must be taught. They can either be taught by people, or they can be taught by experience. The thing about learning a lesson from experience is that you don't get it until after it's needed. Consider two toddlers. Both are told not to touch the candle flame. "It's hot!", they're told. One toddler accepts this lesson and refrains from touching the flame. The other toddler touches the flame. Which toddler better understands "hot" ? Experience can be the very best teacher, but it can also kill you. Sometimes those who learn the important lessons too well and too late to be of benefit to anyone the first time around, spend the rest of their lives trying to convey those same lessons to others before they need them. The way I see it, it's common courtesy. If I step in crap, I turn to those coming up behind me and tell them not to step in the crap that I stepped in and perhaps get them to start watching out for some of the crap that's around them.
My buddy likes to tell this story: His dad always taught him that smart men learn from their mistakes, while fools do not. Geniuses learn from the mistakes of others. After years of hammering this message into my buddy, his dad one day told him, 'son, you will be a very smart man.' On a similar note, I like the adage of my old fire Chief (he was one of those marines always volunteering for door-gunner duty on hueys in nam, just so you can picture the grizzle): "If you're not ****ing up, you're not learning anything." The inference was that ****ing up is fine, as long as you don't make the same mistake twice.
"Geniuses" go where no one has been, where no mistakes have yet been made. Geniuses are exactly geniuses because they can learn from their own mistakes. Let's not confuse a true genius with a really good student.
Not at all. I tend to go off on tangents when stimulated by observations that are often irrelevant to the point being made. Your point stands. In fact, you made it so well that I just kind of moved on. Looking back, I'd have rather been a good student than a genius. True geniuses learn almost exclusively from experience, and although experience can be the very best teacher; it's always a brutal teacher.
The ability to make due use of knowledge/understanding. There's plenty of ways one could acceptably define the term though. As a Christian, I'd even define wisdom as "fear of God".
Wisdom is the synthesis of multiple perspectives. Understanding is knowing what to do with what is known. Knowledge is what we are left to believe.