Links I Have Loved

Another blogger pointed me toward 30 Lessons My Parents Didn't Teach Me, and it deserves much more praise and reflection than I can give it right now. But it resonated deeply with me. I have been spending A LOT of time with my parents lately, and I am grateful for all of their help post baby, but with parents and kids there is always baggage. But now I'm the parent, so how do and can I prevent that baggage from being overwhelming to the Zs?

My favorites from his list (read: lessons I understand in theory, but don't actually practice):

Nothing will make you happy for very long except growing. You can set goals and go get them, but once you do, there's a void, and you're back to square one. Embrace the fact that the fun is in the quest, not the achievement itself. Or just kill goals entirely.

When you do buy things, buy things that are going to give you more time or money, not things that will become liabilities to suck them up.

Don't hold on to things that you "might use someday." A lack of clutter in your life is worth so much more, in terms of mental clarity, focus, and calm than the cost of buying that thing again, should the need actually arise for it (which it probably won't).

Being shy (which I am, and will probably always be at the core) is not a valid excuse for choosing not to help someone who needs it.

This is your life. It's not a rehearsal. Having kids helps you to see this, when you realize that they're seeing you the way you saw your parents, and seeing their house and life the way you saw yours when you were little. That time is gone for you, and one day it will be for them, and they'll be thinking this about their own kids.

Being talented isn't very important, nor is it fulfilling. Lack of talent is nothing but a very convenient excuse. People achieve things by working hard at them, taking lots of small risks, and learning from the results. And that's way more interesting than just being "gifted."

People fallaciously believe they will have far more time in the future than they do today. The perfect time to start isn't going to come. In fact, it was probably yesterday.

Thanks No Meat Athlete.