Bryan’s Ramblings

I think most people would agree that parents are a good place to go to find answers to life’s problems. They’ve usually had anywhere from two to ten times as much life experience as you, and even though they can sometimes be out of touch with present society, some things just never change. Although I have received quite a bit of help in life from my mom, most of the best advice I’ve received was often imparted to me by my dad.

I can point to many conversations that he and I have had where I have come out of it having some better understanding of myself, other people, and/or the way the world works in general. In fact, there are many times when he will give me his thoughts on something and I will flashback to previous talks we’ve had where he’s pretty much said the same thing in a different way, proving that I constantly need to be reminded. At any rate, we are both very consistent.

The two things that I’ve learned from my dad that have come into play of late are “don’t make a decision until you have all of the information” and “be a nice prick”. The first piece of advice there is pretty self-explanatory, but nonetheless, I have to continue to tell myself to wait for all the bits of information before deciding anything since I always have a tendency to jump the gun and make uninformed decisions. That second piece of advice, though, “be a nice prick”, could easily be taken out of context and misinterpreted, but is really just a succinct way of essentially saying “take care of yourself above all, particularly when dealing with people who don’t really care about you all that much, but still maintain integrity, kindness and human decency.” I hope I’m not butchering this, but I guess it’s kind of a hard concept to describe. However, when my dad said it to me a couple of years ago, it just made sense.

There are a number of people in life who we deal with all the time, day in and day out, who we perceive as “friends”. Very often, however, these people are merely acquaintances whose sole purpose in being nice and giving things to us is driven by their desire to get something from us. I think in general we forget this all the time. We need to make sure that we are looking out for number one – ourselves – and not determining our actions based on anything that these people do or say. In general, only a handful of close friends or family should have that effect.

Anyway, this wisdom imparted to me by my father is something of a motto for me these days. More and more I realize that I just need to “be a nice prick” when I’m dealing with the vast majority of people that I deal with on a daily basis. You should try it too.