If there is one thing I learned in my first 25 years, it has completely escaped me. Though I've eaten some really good meals. I remember a few of them. Like the one on the street of Hanoi, mung-3 Tet 2009. I never had to fight in a war. That's good. I don't think I would like fighting. I've never killed anyone, as far as I know. 25 years, no killing. Pretty good, I think. I might be alive for as many as 75 more years. That's a long time. Of course, I might get deflated by a falling helicopter tomorrow on the road. One never knows. Well, I guess one knows in that last seconds, unless one doesn't see it coming. Some people are afraid of getting older. The way I see it, death is the only alternative. My thing, for the next 25 years, is going to be wisdom. Do you want some wisdom? I got some I'm ready to share.
First, I recommend that you go buy this book and….not read it. Burn it. It will feel great. It's symbolic.
For a while already, I have a belief that the name of the game of being an adult is to avoid to having to make a decision. If I have to ask myself to choose between a) or b), then I fear that I'm in trouble as an adult. Small and inconsequential decisions are fine. And it makes you look like you know what you are doing.
The trick is to turn the big decisions into small ones where nobody really cares. The difference between a big decision and a small one is if you have the option to reverse your course afterwards. Lucky for us, decisions can be made small by making sure that when you were wrong (oh. Fact: you will be wrong), you can always undo the damage later. The added benefit is that you get to be the one who realize he made a mistake and fix it.
Thus, the issue is reduced to just avoiding decisions that can't be undone, to avoid a corner from which you can't escape. The good news is that there are only very few ones that can not be undone. Most involves money. Since most of us (at least at this age) won't have the opportunities to waste a huge amount of coins on something we might not be able to repay, it's fairly easy to rewind in most cases. Just tell everyone that you are incompetent, say you are sorry and undo the worthless deed.
Some people have problem with this approach because of two reasons. One, admitting that you are an idiot is harder than it sounds. Appearance is important. Coming out in public to say that you are stupid is sometimes very hard indeed. Two, we might irrevocably lost the trust of our allies/friends. Again, "irrevocable" is what we are avoiding in the first place. However, both of these problems can be mitigated by just admitting before making any decisions that you have no clue,and you might be doing the wrong thing. We should reserve the right to change our mind, and make sure people very aware of our right. Understand that it's much easier to say that you are stupid when you haven't yet done the stupid thing. Thus, when your decisions really turn out to be stupid, people will be prepared.
That was one. Now another.
People. Most people are idiots, and being adult means you will have to deal with it, and perhaps more importantly, they have to deal with you. While it's easy to undo mistakes, personality disorders are another different department. They are not easy to undone. In most cases, you will have to live with theirs…. and yours.
Don't burn any bridges, bomb innocent civilians or alienate too many people. Alienating people is easy, un-alienating hard. The later immediately falls under the "irrevocable" section, hence a big NO-NO according the first maxim.
The rules are a) don't call people stupid. b) apologize when you forgot the first rule. The problem is that it's easy to violate the first rule because you can tell "you are an idiot" in million ways, occasionally not even realizing it, and usually with a confidence that you are right. And the more confidence that you are right (in fact, you can just anyone stupid, and you often will be right), the harder it is to apologize. To deal with this, one option is get really good at apologies.
(to be continued… I still have a few more.)
A friend of mine is in town. He is one of those *very few* that I would cancel my plans with my wife (hypothetically) to spend time with. It explains the infrequency of last week, and the coming one.
Hello friends, how are you?
-k
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