Life Lessons

An important part of being a parent is helping your children become well rounded individuals. By the time you are a parent you have gone through a lot of things and you want to give your children some of that hard earned wisdom. I know children have to learn from their own mistakes but if you can prevent even an ounce of pain your children will have to experience you will do anything to do it.

Here are some important life lessons I would like Ryan to hear from me (Since this blog is for his benefit I thought this would be a good forum for it).

1. When you go to college get a degree you can do something with when you graduate… they all cost the same and you can go to most graduate schools regardless of the undergraduate degree.

2. Make the choice to be happy not to be right. I know you really want to be right, but understand the consequences before you fight too hard.

3. This one might seem a little too much information but… don’t have sex with someone you don’t know will be a good parent. You never know and you are not the only one that will have to deal with the consequences if you choose incorrectly.

4. Look at how the people in your life treat other people in their lives. If you notice they treat other people poorly your turn is likely coming up. Make sure you are okay with that before investing too much of yourself. (This is especially true with how they treat their parents).

5. If you are spending your time doing something (like school) put your all into it. You are spending the time being there, you might as well get something out of it. Also, you don’t want to close doors of opportunity because you were being lazy.

6. Be kind, be gentle and love even if you get hurt sometimes.

7. Don’t let stupid people make your decisions for you (this one comes from my mom). What it means is watch how you react to people who are irrational, mean or crazy. Let’s say someone like that tells you to do something so you do the exact opposite to rebel against them…. While you didn’t do what they wanted they still influenced your decision and who wants a crazy person making your decisions for you?

8. You can't change other people, the only thing you have any control over is how you react to them.

9. If you won't remember it/ it won't be important in 5 years it probably isn't that important no matter what it feels like at the moment.