20 Things I Wish I Had Known When Starting Out in Life | Zen Habits. “Everything has been figured out, except how to live.” - Jean-Paul Sartre I’m nearly 35 years old, and I’ve made my share of mistakes in my life. I’m not a big believer in regrets … and I have learned tremendously from every single mistake … and my life is pretty great.
However, there are a few things I wish I had known when I was graduating from high school and starting out as an adult in life. Would I change things? I might not have gotten married that first time, so that I would never have gotten divorced … but then I wouldn’t have my first two beautiful wonderful incredible children from that first marriage. I don’t think I would change any of that.
What follows isn’t an exhaustive list, but it’s one that I hope proves useful to at least a few people. “I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it.” - Jack Handey How to control impulse spending. “Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.” - Mark Twain. Failin.gs: don't worry. nobody's perfect. Hindsights. Harker School Commencement I've been blogging for a whole ten days now, and all my topics have been business stuff: venture capital, entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, evangelism, etc.
Now I want to throw you a total curve ball. About fourteen years ago my wife and I separated for a time. As part of my search for what the hell was going on in our lives, I looked for a book about people's hindsights in life--what they did right, what they did wrong, and what their advice would be. To my surprise, I could find no such book. So, like a fool, I decided to write the book. After all, how hard could it be to turn on a record their hindsights ala Studs Terkel? Let me tell you, it was hard. I also wrote a speech based on the book, and I have given it six times at commencements, graduations and baccalaureates: Palo Alto High (three times), DeAnza College, High Tech High, and Harker School. Yesterday at Macworld Expo someone came up to me and told me how much the speech meant to his family. 10 simple ways to save yourself from messing up your life.
Stop taking so much notice of how you feel. How you feel is how you feel. It’ll pass soon. What you’re thinking is what you’re thinking. It’ll go too. Adrian Savage is a writer, an Englishman, and a retired business executive, in that order. Read full content. Advice to Young Men from an Old Man.