Someone Told Me Once

Words of wisdom? Profound truths? Simple advice? Whatever we call them, they stay with us. And here are a few that have stuck with me over the years.

Dog’s Best Friend

Your dog is your best friend for a few years of your life, but you're his best friend for all of his.

I think I heard this one on Tik-Tok, which makes it seem silly. But I have to admit that ever since I heard it I look at my dog differently.

The Worst Thing That Ever Happens

If that's the worst thing that ever happens to you then you’re doing okay.

My mother told me this when I was very young, after coming to her with something that must have seemed terrible to me at the time. On one hand it trivializes the thing, but on the other hand it puts it in perspective. I’ve reminded myself of this frequently over the years.

Everyone Loves Something

I’m not sure where I heard this one, but it goes like this:

Everyone loves something, fears something, and has lost something.

It is a reminder that everyone you meet has a lot going on that you may not understand or know about. Treat them with compassion.

Everyone, again

A related maxim:

There’s something you can learn from everyone.

People have tremendous capacity for knowledge, and people’s unique journeys sometimes mean that knowledge comes from surprising places. Knowledge isn’t limited to facts and skills, but can also be about behavior, or demeanor, or outlook. Sometimes the lessons we can learn take the form of contrasts—things we should not do or say, or ways we should not approach the world. (These, in my experience, are the exception.) My takeaway is that we should generally treat people with respect and try to find that thing that they have which we can learn from.

On Humility

My father told me something many years ago. It was a warning but I dismissed it at the time, as children are wont to do. He told me that I’d spend my whole life believing (wrongly):

How smart I am! How stupid I used to be!

The lesson was that there would always be a next day, and a day after, and a day after that when the same would be true. It was a lesson in humility that I didn’t understand until much later.

Deal with it

After the 2024 presidential election, Annie {linktopic:name=annie.jpg&text=reminded me} about this piece of wisdom. I heard it first during season 2 of Queer As Folk (S2E7). Debbie, contemplating a hypothetical scenario in which her son contracts HIV/AIDS, asks her brother, Vic, “What if Michael comes to us and he says ‘I’ve got it’? What do we do?” Vic replies,

First we die, and then we deal with it.

Bad things happen and sometimes it’s unavoidable. When they do, feel the feels, then do whatever it is you have to do to carry on with living for as long as you can.

The Third Drink

A colleague told me this once at happy hour, probably right after the second drink and right before conspiring with him to smuggle a set of shot glasses out of the bar:

The third drink is always a mistake.

He is a wise man who taught me a lot of valuable lessons. I haven’t always followed his advice on this but I have, through extensive personal experience, found it almost always to be true.