(no subject)

[aroraborealis]

What's the most wise and/or useful piece of advice you've gotten recently?

Comments

[infinitehotel.livejournal.com]

When considering whether you can trust someone, don't look at whether they feel bad about a mistake but rather how far they're willing to go to fix it.

[veek.livejournal.com]

Damn. I like that.

[lightcastle.livejournal.com]

I like that one a lot.

[dpolicar]

"Just write."

[jadia.livejournal.com]

It's okay to take breaks. Everyone needs breaks so that they can keep working.

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

Eat breakfast.
(from you!)

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

Uninstall Spider Solitaire.

not necessarily wise, but very very useful

[dbang.livejournal.com]

When your search query isn't working as you expected, turn on search logging and review the log files for anomalies.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

An article about helping children adapt to preschool pointed out that we tend to believe that social situations we dread will be actually intolerable and that if we can accept that while they may, in fact, be unpleasant, we will survive the experience, it is more possible for us to enter into them positively. Which, amusingly, is a longwinded way of saying "That which does not kill us makes us stronger," but brought down to a more concrete, everyday level.

Also, that melting the butter in the cream over low heat before adding it to mashed potatoes results in much creamier potatoes. The difference is amazing!

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

to see someone's character watch how they treat the waitstaff

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

in the absence of waitstaff, secretaries.

(related advice: never date a shit tipper.)

[chillguru.livejournal.com]

so true! and i've used this one for years

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

::nod:: me too. It speaks reams about a person and is a handy thing to notice on, say, a first date.

[lightcastle.livejournal.com]

I'll argue the tipping part (lots comes into tipping from different cultures) but the actual bit about how they treat the waitstaff is very telling.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

From my performance review, interestingly enough. My manager noticed that I have a tendency to get stuck trying to use our development tools "the right way" and commented "Tim needs to understand that sometimes he understands how to solve a problem better than the framework does," which struck me as a really interesting way to look at it.

[jacflash.livejournal.com]

Ships in harbor are safe, but that's not what ships are built for.

(You're sort of my example/inspiration in that regard, btw.)

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

(You're sort of my example/inspiration in that regard, btw.)

Wow, thanks! I'm not feeling very shippy these days, so this is both wonderful to hear and a good reminder.

[maebeth.livejournal.com]

You don't have to decide now.

[veek.livejournal.com]

Let it go. Truly, deep down, let it go.

[veek.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the second half of that is: this is a process. Letting go will be necessary multiple times.

[msdaisy.livejournal.com]

Hi, we don't actually know each other, but I've heard good things about you from Spike. I'm commenting because I recently got very similar advice (several times, in fact, because it's a process I'm not very good at!) and it really is good advice. *hug*

[ceelove.livejournal.com]

That was going to be mine, too. From a rather unlikely source. Presumably it's broadly applicable.

[youvebeenpixied.livejournal.com]

Best piece of advice I've ever gotten: If you don't like it where you are, there is a plane leaving every day.

[signsoflife.livejournal.com]

You need balance in your professional life in the same sense that you need balance in your professional/personal life; not every professional activity needs to or should be goal oriented. (not verbatim.)

Do great research and you'll have choices. (verbatim.)

[catya.livejournal.com]

Recently? *thinks*

"Keep breathing" ?

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my entry was going to be "Breathe." It's come in handy lately :)

[lazyz.livejournal.com]

Go West, young man.

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

'It's not about you'.

Seriously, this one has gotten me through years of less than pleasant interactions (and not all of them with my mother, either). If people say or do things that are hurtful or disappointing or whatever, it helps to remember that whatever it is, it's coming through their filters and has little to nothing to do with you.

[tcb.livejournal.com]

don't give money to strangers?

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Or, perhaps, only give as much money as you're willing to see someone else squander instead of you :)

(This is how I think of giving pocket change to people on the street: If I care how they spend it, I shouldn't give it to them.)

[pir.livejournal.com]

"how about asking for something you want instead of creating a fencing match where there wasn't one"

[lightcastle.livejournal.com]

Heh.

[darthsunshine.livejournal.com]

For broader values of recently (like, within the last year), the best/wisest advice I've gotten is two corollaries to "Don't believe everything you read."

Don't believe everything you think.
Don't believe everything you feel.

[jennylisa.livejournal.com]

Indoor cats make it nearly impossible to make yarn balls.

[sarahshevett.livejournal.com]

Never go with a hippie to a second location.

[agaran.livejournal.com]

"Breathe."

[mrf-arch.livejournal.com]

First rape, then pillage, THEN burn.

[pumpkin-pi.livejournal.com]

Make no major life decisions or commitments within one year of a major trauma.

[lightcastle.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I should have listened to that one.

[kjc.livejournal.com]

Recently? I'm not so sure.

But the best advice/wisdom I've ever gotten I distilled from my mother's various comments.

1. NEVER pass up a chance to pee.
2. There are FAR more stupid people in the world than you think (or can imagine) there are.
3. You are someone's "weird" friend. You are also someone else's "normal" friend. To put this into perspective, remember that your "weird" friend is someone ELSE'S "normal" friend. Life is a continuum and a matter of perspective.

More recently, I've been absorbing the lesson that "kindness is contagious" from various inputs.

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

#3 is one of my favorites :)

[lightcastle.livejournal.com]

I like #3 a lot.

[ceelove.livejournal.com]

Your mother's third piece of advice is well-heeled: it came to me third-hand many years ago.

[mangosteen]

If someone says something in a meeting and you desire to respond, keep quiet and wait a few seconds. If you still feel like you have something to say, remain quiet and wait a few seconds. If you still feel like you have something to say, wait for a quiet moment, and phrase it in the form of a question.

(credit to drwex)

[wotw]

If you never miss a plane, you're spending too much
time in airports.

[trom.livejournal.com]

That there are in fact two appropriate responses to the phrase: "There's no I in team."

But there is a me.

or

True, but there are two in idiot.

[wotw]

As stated, this is relevant only to a tiny audience, but
it's easy to extrapolate it, I think, to a much larger
truth:

When everyone else was out to prove a theorem,
Grothendieck was out to understand algebraic geometry.

(Grothendieck was THE mathematician of the twentieth
century, and a very wise man once told me that this was
the secret of his success. It changed the way I saw
the world.)

[roozle.livejournal.com]

"why don't you talk to him about it?"

[justinjs.livejournal.com]

"You can't plan your career because you have no idea what's going to happen in the future."

(which of course applies to more than just your career)