Lies. It's a well-known fact that after 68, doctors issue mothballs to be consumed upon waking each morning. I think it keeps their blood from falling out, but I can't be sure. I'm not a scientist.
Everyone deserves respect. A lot of teenagers and people in their early 20's have this all wrong. They believe you have to earn it. I disagree. Nobody owes you a damn thing or needs to prove anything for your respect. Trust is earned. Respect is for everybody, automatically, until they royally fuck up beyond belief. Focus: Just because someone doesn't have the wear and tear/milage of age doesn't mean they haven't been through hell. I've seen young people who have seen things nobody should ever see with really positive attitudes. Likewise, I know older people who have never worked a day in their life and react to the smallest problem as if it's a tragedy of Elizabethan proportions. Physical age is irrelavant to age and maturity of the soul. Also, be nice to the waitress/salesperson/desk girl. I used to wait tables and the worst customers I had were middle aged women. They always hated me and treated me with zero respect. It was as if I'd walk up to greet a table and a flip would switch. The table would go from really chatty and loud to tense and rude before I even completed a sentence. The night would always end with a lot of attitude, the check split 5 ways and a terrible tip. Don't be jealous of someone just because they're younger. Once upon a time you were young and cute with a shitty job. Don't take out your insecurity and shitty feelings about yourself on someone else.
Old people, please do not try and give me life advice unless I ask for it. Just because you popped out of your mom's twat 20 years before I did does not mean you can come along and tell me the facts of life.
We are facing no Medicaid and no Social Security, high competition for low paying jobs, an over-leveraged national debt, and all our ideas are being put to the wayside because of the degree of change involved. None of you did anything to disturb the system since you were able to gain immensely by falling in line. Nobody stopped to ask if these actions should be taken, they instead looked for ways to make the actions possible. We are tasked with cleaning this up, and it will take decades to do. Make it easier by admitting you made the choices which put society in this predicament and actively work towards integrating change. Don't hold on to the way things were because that value system is based on a non-internet world, get with the fucking times and meet us in the middle.
I came across this letter in one of those "dear abby" type columns. I'm not sure if it belongs in this thread or the other thread, but suffice it to say, old people, don't become this: Hilarious.
Just because we got to watch it when it originally came out doesn't mean you have to get all nimbly-bimbly on us. Yeah, we gave the world skinny piano keys ties and we're really sorry for that. Well excuuuuuuuze me!!!
If you truly want to impart some of your wisdom on me, talk TO me, not at me. I encounter far to many of the over thirty set who tend to speak down to anyone who hasn't hit that third decade. I don't know anyone who responds well to being spoken to as a child. Remember that age is not the only way to gain wisdom. Experiences, I feel, are the best way to truly expand your world view. I lived in most of the country, and a decent portion of the world. Cement floors have been my bed for months at a time. My broken down car has served as my home. I have dug myself out of holes that I have dug, and ones that life has chosen to drop me in. Yet somehow, I have overcome. I have learned. I have fought. I have won, and far more importantly I have lost. I have seen the boy I am at rock bottom, and found that man climbed out. So don't tell me that you have all the answers because you have a decade or two on me. Good Lord do I know that most of our music/clothes/movies suck, but so did yours. Feel free to get over it. And finally I know that by the time the big three oh comes around you probably have real responsibilities. Things that force you to compromise, and settle. But still try to follow your dreams. Maybe take a cooking class on the side. Take time to work on your short game. Try to write a chapter a month. Whatever the hell it is just do something to let life know that your back is unbowed. Because I think it would be the worst moment in my existence to know that I have come to a point where I have "everything figured out" and nothing new awaits me.
Don't just assume that university is the only path to take after high school. Understand that not everyone wants to go or needs to go. It's something to be taken on a case by case basis. Education is important, but sometimes structured education doesn't provide everything.
21 for the record... Basically the most simple statement I have to say is that I'm a Senior in college and I'm scared shitless on the inside. I have no track for a job and I'm spending money like it's going out of style. I feel like I've earned the right to (because I work non-stop over the summer and have always been cautious of my financial situation) but I still feel out of control. But, I'm learning to live it with (not good?) and I would just say to myself in 20 years to have a good time and worry about minute details later. I grew up with a hard-ass dad and a mom who tried to love us desperately even though we (myself and a brother) took after our hard-ass dad. To those parents who have a shy child or one who never seems to want to talk about their "emotions;" DON'T MAKE 'EM. I hate when my fucking parents force conversations on me. I'm not shy amongst peers, I'm shy (read: more like cautiously confident) around adults because you expect so much from us. The hands-down best convo's I have with my parents are the ones when I approach them and they let me finish on my own terms. Oh, and uh, when we are texting when you're talking to us doesn't mean I don't care: it's just the person I'm texting is probably someone who needs to hear from me sooner (probably some broad). The moment I'm done I'm all yours (this doesn't work in a professional setting, I know, but it's how it is in every college lecture hall).
You may have life experience; you may think you have life experience, you may think that this gives you a right to act as though you know what it is all about and license to tell all and sundry what to do and how. If you rely on this, it could be that you are incorrect. Just let people do their own thing.
I find the apparent context interesting. It seems to me that the old fucks (like me) want to share some advice about things that we've learned from life, and a few of the young fucks are taking issue with that because it seems, to them anyway, that they're being told what or how to do things. Take this for what it's worth, but one of the best things you'll learn how to do is objectively collect advice and information from various sources, analyze that information, and then draw your own conclusions from that information as it may or may not apply to you and your situation. To dismiss any information from someone simply because of the way they seemed to present it ("telling" you what to do rather than offering up an alternative) or just because they're old, is just stupid.
Since I was one of the young lawn-trampling whipper snappers who brought it up, let me clarify. When older people actually share advice or relevant anecdotes or whatever, I usually enjoy hearing it. If it's offered honestly and without pretension and with the goal of sharing a worthwhile story and hopefully teaching me something that I'll use somewhere down the line. Not so much when my creepy uncle is telling me for the 20th time this year about how to pick up women when he's on his fifth marriage, mind you. Someone simply telling me that they have so much experience, or that they've been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt, or derisive "Yeah, you're 20 years old, you think you know everything" - now that shit is annoying. If someone has spent more time shitting with the ship going astern than I've got time in (as the saying goes), then it should be self-evident. And I have met more than a few people who do personify their experience as being self-evident; they've got my respect and deferring to their expertise is simply a matter of course. And the fewer people I've met who aren't up to that standard, despite all their efforts, don't actually tell me anything, let alone anything valuable.
Really, that's got nothing to do with life experience. People of any age can be stupid and/or full of shit.
More or less the problem I have with people giving me unsolicited life advice is based on two things. The first being they assume age=wisdom/worthwhile experience. We all know thats untrue. The second is that I am in some need of hearing their amazing experiences. Assuming that I need advice is arrogant. Unless you are my pops or someone I really respect do not come up to me and tell me about how the South got screwed in the Civil War. I know that I am relatively young (25) and I do not know everything in the world, I am fine with that. But please for the love of God do not act like a pompous asshole to me because you assume that because you have a kid and a mortgage that you somehow have some wisdom that I should really hear. If you assume this and come and talk to me I do not care who you are (unless of course we are at work) I will tell you my opinion of you. I have called people old faggots before because of situations like this. So please, spare me the young and stupid pity, and I'll spare you the old and senile insults.
I agree and this is certainly true; however let's be fair the people between 30-50 probably won't have that much advice to contribute that's relevant. They grew up during one of the most peaceful and prosperous times in human history. You might think that you have something to contribute in the form of advice because your elders did. Your elders and their elders however actually did something or lived through very harsh times; you in all likelihood didn't. I am not saying that my generation is so wonderful (23), but can you blame us? You were our rolemodels. At least your generation had someone worthwhile to look up to. Note: I am not taking a piss at anyone on this board in specific; this board in general has some very bright and interesting people walking around hence the reason why I visited and kept on visiting it. If you think this criticism applies to you personally then perhaps you haven't amounted to much. If you have then the criticism doesn't really apply to you. What have I amounted to so far? Let's say I am still in the process of actually amounting to something.
I love that part. That was the best. I guess I'll just leave it at that and go back to the Matlock marathon.
You still got 10 to 20 good years, building up contacts and job experience, moving your way out of entry-level positions and living off the fat of the 90s. Yeah, your twilight years might blow goats, but at least you got a taste of the Show. We, on the other hand, are proper fucked. A whole big group of people with no jobs, too many gadgets, and constant exposure to media that loves to remind us of how much we suck compared to the well-adjusted, tolerant, rational middle-aged people in charge. Wisdom from the young? Be advised that we know just how screwed we are. We're not oblivious, and we're not terribly pleased. I like you well enough, so when the Revolution comes, just remember that the safe-phrase is "Young Weezy", and our people will permit you safe passage to a designated Residence Zone.
Stop wearing jorts (jean shorts) for the love of god. I don't care if they were on sale at Walmart, unless your goal is to be white trash beautiful please don't wear them.