How the meaning behind all of those ‘Words of Wisdom’ becomes clear once we are too old for it to truly matter. And stuff.

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. ~ Sir Winston Churchill

There are expressions that I have heard my whole life. Many of them you have probably heard as well. For the most part, I never gave them much thought and just accepted them as either not applying to me or as applying only for ‘old’ people (younger me was a much bigger asshole than older me is, believe it or not), or I would figure that I was already doing the right thing, so the expression was a nice pat on the back to me for possessing  awesomeness by nature. I was wrong. So very, very, wrong.

Do unto others as you would have done unto you, is TRUE. Assholio behaviour to others begets assholio behaviour back at you. And it sucks any way you slice it. So, a cure for this would be this new expression: Be nice or leave.

Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone (thanks, Grandma!) is TRUE! People gravitate towards happy people. People who smile. People who are friendly. Nobody goes out of their way to hang out with someone who is gloomy, negative or upset all the time. But, on the other hand, nobody goes out of their way to hang out with fake, artificially happy people, so find a way to be genuinely happy more often than not and good things will be sure to follow.

Misery loves company is also TRUE. So while is would appear to be a bit of a contradiction, misery really does love company. Miserable people love, need, and strive, to bring as many people down with them as possible. They feed off the misery of others to keep their own misery thriving. To ensure that they never have to make a change for the better or take a chance, they need more misery. Don’t be one of them.

You’re only young once is also, disappointingly TRUE as well. Best of all, young people are too young and stupid to full appreciate what this means which leads us to:

Youth is wasted on the young. Too. Fucking. True. Being young, I thought I knew everything. I was the coolest the know-it-all, I was infallible and living life with no regrets (while also making sure that I didn’t actually make any, you know, HUGE strides in life or taking any real chances, because, young and LOSER). You know what I say to that now? Idiot. Stupid, naive, twit. Youth was most definitely wasted on the young in my case. I’d do a much better job with it now, believe you me.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression is, TRUE. And that is also why I just keep blogging away. I blew any chance to gain respect or admiration for my writing with the first post I published, so, I have nothing to lose if I just keep on pounding away at this keyboard and hitting publish a little too often, do I?

Onward and upward we go, my friends.

~A.B.