A Commitment to Ignore Good Advice in 2015

Life in the Boomer Lane has reached an age that allows her to look back at all the great advice she has gotten over the decades and respond with flagrant disregard, or at least with a bit of tweaking. These include:

Act your age. LBL has been struggling with this one for decades, especially during sales meetings,  speeches of any kind, and cocktail parties.  Instead of acting her age, LBL commits to defining her age. It’s way easier that way and can include things like trying on ugly clothes in stores with friends and laughing until we pee in our pants.

Love conquers all.  Love conquers nothing, although it’s a pleasant feeling, and everyone should have it in their lives.   LBL commits to continuing to fiercely love those around her who have become part of her heart.  But she will not believe that love, itself, will solve anything.  For that, she commits to stay committed to the relationships and to be willing to give up being right, in order to create the healthiest relationship that can be.

If you don’t have anything good to say about someone, don’t say anything at all. LBL would have to seriously limit her blog topics, if she followed this rule. There are simply too many scary and/or stupid people out there, wielding too much power and influence, for her to remain silent. She commits, instead, to saying exactly what she thinks about any behavior that offends her. This is her blog, and she has no super PAC to answer to.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.  This is great advice if one is starving or contemplating an offer on a piece of real estate. Not-so-great if one is living from one’s vision and the bird in the hand isn’t what one really wants.  LBL commits to releasing the bird in the hand, when the two in the bush are more in alignment with her vision. If she falls into the bush and comes up empty-handed, she will check another bush.

If, at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again. LBL has learned that this won’t work, without modifying the attempt. She commits to taking a hard look at the actions that resulted in the failure and to being honest enough with herself to see that maybe the attempt needs some work.

With age comes wisdom. Age, itself, provides little more than a host of ailments to complain about.  It does, however, provide perspective, if we get past ourselves enough to allow the perspective to appear.  LBL commits to enhancing her perspective, rather than honing her wisdom.  She will leave wisdom to the people who sit on mountains and don’t care about access to good coffee or Seven-11s.

Do the right thing. This would be swell, if everything in the world were neatly tagged as right or wrong. As the world becomes more complex, right and wrong becomes an unlimited range of grey.  LBL commits to listening to the small voice within, that very often tells her exactly what she doesn’t want to hear. Then, instead of slapping it upside the head, she commits to doing what the voice says, and to keep her internal qvetching to a minimum.

Always wear clean underwear.  LBL subscribes to this, in theory, although age has modified this desire a bit.   As she ages, it is getting tougher and tougher to make it through the day with said clean underwear, especially when she is with friends, doing doofus things, or when she is coughing or running across the street or when she waits too long to hit the bathroom. For that reason, as time goes on, LBL places less and less value on clean underwear.

Here’s to 2015.  May the pleasant surprises outnumber the expectations.