What Advice Would You Give to Your 18-Year-Old Self? – IOTW Report

What Advice Would You Give to Your 18-Year-Old Self?

Friday, 25 August 2023, 23:45 MJA Uncategorized 89

Here’s What Folks Had to Say.

89 Comments on What Advice Would You Give to Your 18-Year-Old Self?

  1. don’t worry, the right man is just around the corner…and now, you are celebrating your fiftyest anniversary….:)

    not that i needed this advise at the time…once he showed up, there was no doubt…:)

    10

  8. Don’t spend a dime on women – only spend money on a good woman you want to marry.

    Don’t ever believe a word you read in a newspaper or hear on tv, until you verify it – twice.

    Polticians are all criminals, unless they are watched on CCTV 24/7.
    All “news” people are propagandists, except a few. Find them.

    Own the land or building you build a business on.

    If you must live in big city, invest in property far away so you can make your escape while you’re young enough.

    Remember that any freedom in the world is because of the United States and millions of American men who died fighting for it.

    Immigrants should only be allowed into the nation if they can afford to be here or have skills to make their own way.

    Give someone a fish, and you have a perpetual welfare case. Teach someone to fish and you have a citizen.

    The death penalty has great value.

    Some people are truly hopeless, and they you have to cast them aside before they destroy you.

    2+2 still equals 4, despite any corrupt lunatic in California government telling you otherwise.

    26

  11. Put some money in an IRA. Those were high interest rate days. I remember reading about a young lady that made a $2,000.00 contribution, she was early twenties, and with the outrageous interest rates at the time had locked in $1,000,000 when she turned 65. I was just a couple years older than her at the time and thought about doing something similar. But because I wasn’t able to lock in a million dollars I wasn’t interested. Hard to imagine I was such a dummy! OK, maybe not so hard to imagine, but what a dummy!

    12

  14. When I was 18 we were being told that the Earth was running out of oil and that gasoline shrtages and long lines were here to stay.
    My advice: Don’t worry about it… in fact, get ready for manufactured shortages!

    11

  23. Pay closer attention to local elections, research every candidate. When the queers start to come out of the closet, shun them and push them back into the closet, when they start saying they just want civil unions, tell them to jump off the nearest cliff. Find candidates who will undo all the commie crap that had been done before you could vote.
    Enjoy your children more and overlook the dishes that need to be done, the laundry that needs to be done, you’ll have the rest of your life to clean your house and will one day miss the messes they made.
    Do all the things you want to do when you’re young because when you get old you won’t want to do them.
    Spend more time with your closer siblings because they will be taken from you way too soon.
    Never send your kids to public school.
    Cut the toxic people from your life.

    22

  26. for all of the advanced knowledge at your fingertips, you have even less wisdom than the previous generation.

    understand that the previous generation has more wisdom than your generation, & the previous generation has less wisdom than their previous generation.
    because of the accelerated power of government action each succeeding generation is less wise than the previous generation … it is a built-in feature.

    listen to your elders … the older they are, the more wisdom they have … listen, & learn. if you are lucky, you will achieve the wisdom that they bestowed upon you.
    it’s a lesson that most of us learn much, much too late … if at all.

    we are fallible human beings. our mission is to gain wisdom to strive for the unobtainable perfection … this life is temporary … prepare.

    God bless us all.

    8

  30. That guy was a drunken fucking asshole that wouldn’t listen to God Himself, so there’s NO chance he’d listen to ME.

    …plus, he was a blackout drunk so for all I know I DO try to talk sense into my past self in future and just don’t remember it, so no risk of disrupting any timelines there…

    14

  31. …but if I could go back to my 1998 self, I would say “That time in October when you and your new wife are leaving your parental home and Mom and Dad are waving from the porch and you get this impulse to stop the car and go back to hug your dad, but don’t?

    DO IT.

    Because you’ll never see him alive again.

    Stuff don’t matter, people do. If I’ve learned nothing else in life I’ve learned that the line between life and death can be brutal and quick, and rarely offers time for goodbyes. No one is guaranteed the next minute, regardless of age or apparent health.

    Never assume you’ll see anyone ever again. Because they may not be at your next meeting.

    Or YOU may not be.

    17

  33. Bring God into your life NOW! Let Him guide you through all of your next 60 plus years. Let HIM be your focus…not money, not politics, not sex and especially not revenge and getting even. Let go – let God.

    18

  37. Buy that $ 200 plot of land in Nags Head you looked at in 1973.

    Stop looking past today and enjoy it now rather than just wishing your life away until you are obsolete.

    4

  40. Save 15% of your income per year and invest it into indexed mutual funds. Leave it there for 50 years when you’re nearing retirement. Yes, you’re going to live long enough to reach retirement age, live accordingly.

    5

  41. Don’t eat Quaaludes and drink beer (18 may be too late for this admonition – can’t remember).
    Come to think of it, don’t use drugs or alcohol.
    Let Jesus be your guide – in ALL things.

    mortem tyrannis
    izlamo delenda est …

    13

  45. Don’t let the bastards get to you. Only associate with nice people.Leave the rest as far behind as soon as you can.

    Stand up for yourself. Give a damn about something.

    Blood isn’t always thicker than water

    8

  51. Tell my 18-year-old self you ain’t seen nothing yet kid and the best is yet to come. And a year later when I was in the Navy and was told by a shipmate on my first port call in the Philippines to stay the hell out of Olongapo City. I should’ve listened but even then, God was with me and knew that his grace and mercy were greater than my stupidity. And let me tell you boy howdy I have been surprised beyond my wildest dreams when I was younger of how good that my life has been with God on my side. Thank you, Lord that you saved a stupid dumbass who had no clue about life when I was younger like me. And don’t go to college and get a BA in Social Work, I would’ve been a better history teacher.

    8

  58. Buy more ammo. Buy land. Call Randy Weaver and warn him. Don’t trust Bill Brach or Bush. Warn Reagan. Buy Apple stock—for the investment value, not the company’s ‘values’. Keep that Barracuda and don’t sell it until Nash Bridges is a thing.

    5

  60. …If I COULD get that 18 yo anus to sober up for five minutes and listen at gunpoint, I’d tell that worthless bastard to go find Jesus NOW, and NOT wait until he had a son that didn’t have God in HIS life for his first 8 years bevause his arrogant daddy couldn’t come to the altar until he was ass deep in sin and about to lose his wife, family, house, job, EVERY because he needed a HUMBLING to find the Lord, and prettyuch was worthless to his son through his firmative years

    6

  61. 1. Leave VN after your 1 year deployment, don’t keep extending your tour. No one stateside really gave a shit where I was or what I did.
    2. At the age of 18, Be more mentally, physically, spiritually and morally prepared to spend 22 months in Vietnam after Marine Corps Boot Camp. Hopefully, I would have been better prepared to avoid the mental anguish of the realization that I and those around me were expendable, be better able to shoulder being betrayed and filled with bitterness.
    3. Marry a patient, Christian woman that would love me when I didn’t love myself.

    I was blessed with #3, we just experienced our 50th anniversary of marriage.

    All in all, I am fortunate and blessed to survive the experiences of my younger years and better able to shoulder the loss of most of my friends and military buddies.
    Thank You Lord, for staying with me during the good, bad and ugly years. I am eternally grateful.

    18

  72. At 18 it was too late. I would need to have the conversation 18 months earlier.

    At 16 and a half it would be 1978. 1) Do not have a steady girlfriend as a senior in high school. 2) Park the 70 Cuda in the barn after high school graduation on jackstands, with a battery tender, service the car yearly and run a half gallon of gas through the engine yearly. 3) Do not jump out of perfectly good airplanes.

    4

  75. Do not marry young. Especially, don’t marry that high school ‘sweetheart’ whose life is a total wreck. She will pull you down with her. You can’t rescue her from her demons. Have the confidence to ask out the one you want to. That’s what she is waiting for.

    3

  76. The advice I would give my eighteen year old self is to know Christ as Lord and Savior. There is nothing good in life that can be obtained or of any value except through His grace and mercy. All the suffering, pain and loss from the past and the future can be overcome through Him.

    Trust God in all things. Know He loves you and has what’s best for you. Seek God’s wisdom, love Him and obey His Word. Forgive. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, even when persecuted unless God says fight in righteousness to oppose evil. Having a relationship with God through Christ is truly the only way to live the most abundantly in the present and for eternity.

    7

  78. Don’t try to destroy your intelligence with drugs – those that make your life miserable are just jealous – ignore them, as people in general are assholes and you cannot change that.

    Oh, and ask your middle school crush out – she does like you.

    2

  82. I would tell myself to have bought that copy of Batman #3 from 1940 at Powell’s bookstore in Portland for $50 and not turn it down because I I missed out on buying Superman #2 for $75. Batman #3 with the first appearance of the Joker is worth at least 200 k or more now. And when I joined the Navy in 1972 to have parked my 61 VW camper microbus and not have sold it to my brother who sold it to a friend of mine and wrecked it while I was in bootcamp. My youngest brother tells me that the old VW factory camper microbuses are worth at least 50 k now to other aging baby boomers. I only paid $750 for that microbus in 1972. And to have invested in Microsoft after my wife and I were first married in 1977 when their stock was cheap in the late 70’s.

    1

  83. If I had known God’s wisdom at 18, I would have bought a house and land ASAP, sought His chose for a Godly man to marry, saved more and made financial investments that reap “yuge” returns. Don’t live to just survive, but to thrive.

    1

  89. Find a good doctor BEFORE shitbamakare; do what he says even after shitbamakare!!! Finish your Ph.D. Keep your paperwork with hq updated – explore going back to NC around 2010.

    1

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