For My Son Slown,
For your 18th Birthday I wanted to share with you some words of wisdom, advice and general observations. Some of this I have applied in my life. Others I have not but probably would have been better off had I. You are an amazing young man who is going to go on to do great things in life. I am proud to be your dad. So here goes:
1) Success is subjective. Do not measure your own against anyone else’s.
2) Do not play with people’s feelings or emotions. Allow no one to play with yours.
3) People used to believe for a "fact" that the world was flat, remember this in context to everything people claim today as "facts".
4) People with lots of, "things" generally have very little.
5) Run backwards in public to know what it feels like to be "different".
6) Eat popcorn, just go easy on the butter.
7) Always have a dog in your life. They will always love you.
8) If your job is a "job" find something else to do.
9) Shivery only dies if we let it. Make sure if you have sons you pass that along.
10) Someone is always claiming the food you love causes some disease or another. Ignore it because no one gets out of life alive.
11) There are allot of real dangers in life. There are equally as many false ones. The key is in understanding which are which.
12) If everyone is running from something, sometimes you have to be the one running towards it.
13) Always defend the meek, the bullied, the repressed, the poor, those who cannot defend themselves. There is nothing nobler.
14) Accept for a fact; that some people are just, "Bat Shit Crazy"
15) Listen to your elders if not only out of respect then at least for a good laugh.
16) Never judge the misfortunate and especially realize that you are always just two bad moves from perhaps being in their exact situation.
17) Stop and watch birds fly and marvel at the possibilities.
18) Stop and watch young children play to remind yourself of how easy life can be.
19) Regularly try something out of your comfort zone.
20) Take no one for granted. Do not allow yourself to be taken for granted.
21) If you’re about to do something and that, "this is really stupid" buzzer goes off in your mind; go sit down and think it over.
22) In life nothing is certain. Just when you think everything is perfect is the moment a frozen turd from a passing jet liner will crash through your roof and land on that coffee table that you built in High School woodworking shop, smashing it into a million pieces. Life is like that.
23) Never drive drunk.
24) Never drive with someone who is drunk.
25) Being a good friend does not mean always going along or agreeing with everything.
26) Never let anyone disrespect your beliefs or values. Never disrespect theirs.
27) Listen carefully. Speak the same way.
28) Love big or go home!
29) It’s not that bad things will happen to you but how you handle them that will ultimately determine their true severity.
30) The person you love should be the most important thing in your life and you should never let them doubt it.
31) Write down moments that mean something special to you. Time will fly, your memory will fail, recollections will fade but you can always go back and read to remind yourself what they meant.
32) Volunteer
33) 50% of all advice you get should immediately be deleted or ignored. Therefore you just spent 50% too much time reading this.
Love,
Dad
