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PaperclipPerfector  15d ago (text post)   3498 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 21, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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What advise would you give your 16 year old self?

I'm interested in reactions here since one of my own sons will be 16 in less than a year. The world was very different in many ways when I was that age, and now certain advice I'd give ("Spend more time with your dad asking him questions. Help him more working on the car.") I couldn't give my own son without sounding like an idiot.

Life is a competition. You don't have to win, but you have to recognize that you are in it. The hardest thing to accept is that just because other people win simply by existing is not proof you can do the same.

Invest in yourself and in experiences, not things. Travel widely. Listen more than you speak.

People are terrible and great simultaneously. Don't let either one stop you from seeing the other half.

Tell them there is a life to be lived outside their smartphones.

I'm interested in reactions here since one of my own sons will be 16 in less than a year. The world was very different in many ways when I was that age, and now certain advice I'd give ("Spend more time with your dad asking him questions. Help him more working on the car.") I couldn't give my own son without sounding like an idiot.

Unfortunately, giving advice means nudging someone towards some Aristotelian golden mean. Be more social or more introspective, more self-disciplined or more self-forgiving, more cautious or more adventurous. They're mutually exclusive. Advice is not generalizable because people are different. We humans, being narcissists, spread the seeds of wisdom that worked in our alkaline soil to the acidic of others.

Perhaps the one universal good advice might be reverse any advice you hear.

I think I was directionless as a teenager. My parents were very loving, but are relaxed people and were largely happy to watch their kids make (not extremely serious) mistakes and figure out things on their own.

I followed my father into his profession because I wanted to prove, on some level, that I was smart and that I could provide for myself at a good standard of living. I think if my parents had more openly discussed possibilities for me (rather than just shrugging and saying ‘as long as you’re happy, we’re happy’ essentially) I might have picked a different path in life.

I don’t actually know if I’d be happier in that case. But I do wonder sometimes. I think with my own children I’ll be more serious about helping them figure out their strengths and interests.

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