Mine:
- Learn a second language and keep up with the language your parents speak. You will regret being a brat about not wanting to speak this language especially as your family members pass.
- The only opinions about you that really matter are from the people you respect and who respect you back
- Being a kind humble person, who leads their political convictions with curiosity and not self righteousness is important. As that one person said: “I am no hero and neither are you.”
- Don’t throw out your old media (mix cds, tapes, records, photos, zinee, etc) because you think they’re embarrassing. They either will not be embarrassing later or they will become expensive and you can tell them for mad bucks.
Do your best. Make the best choice you can and consciously decide against second-guessing yourself later. Feel free to learn about yourself from any inclination to second-guess, it could be your morals chaffing against your actions.
Be kind. To those you love and those you don’t. Give yourself some grace when imperfections monopolize your focus.
Learn about yourself. It’s going to be a lot easier to make decisions when you know yourself.
Don’t buy your wife a wide vase. Just get her a normal sized one. Otherwise you’ll have to buy twice as many flowers for the rest of your marriage.
I don’t know about number four my friend. I was going through some of my old CD cases of that long ago and there’s more than a few that I deeply regret.
Hah fair enough !
Don’t let your curiosity fade
Maintain open minded compassion for those different from you
Never be fully convinced you understand the best way to do anything
In disputes between the affected and the unaffected give added weight to the most affected
Learn to recognize a moral panic, and even if you have concerns related to it don’t join in. It’s the group dynamic equivalent of spiraling and catastrophizing.
Don’t drink your calories unless you want to gain weight
Don’t get too attached to anything.
It’s way easier getting in shape young. Don’t put it off.
but as much effort as you can into math. There is the common trope about it being useless and that is I think due to peoples misunderstanding of it. Math is mental abstraction. Math problems are like excersise. No on complains push ups have not real world value. Its understood that doing them gets your body in better shape to do physical things. Similarly math helps your mind be in better shape to do mental things. Unfortunately you don’t really do it after you are no longer in school so its not bad to try and use it whenever you can. Add your purchases up in your head and try and figure out price per quantity and compare products. do suduko. Also grab elementary logic if you can as it gives a math like framework for reason.
Does anyone have advice specific to adhd or neurodivergence in general? Things you found helped you that took time to realise?
It seems obvious now, but it took me too long to realize I don’t have issues focusing on things, I just have a hard time focusing on things I’m not interested in. I was a terrible student in grade school and took some time off after I graduated before going to university. That time away allowed me to mature and gain the discipline I needed to get through the stuff I wasn’t interested in. I then breezed through my major because I loved it.
Don’t spend as much energy on trying to improve the things that you’re bad at. Figure out your strengths and lean into them.
If you have ADHD, get medicated. While it’s no replacement for good habits, it makes starting those good habits SO much easier. I wish I had started taking it 15 years sooner.
If you also have ASD, a lot of people aren’t going to understand you. The way you view the world is different. Be kind and be true to yourself and you’ll meet lots of people who appreciate your difference.
Spending time being doing nothing actually helps your focus later, boredom is good for you and actually promotes creativity.
Don’t multitask, you’ll just end up half-assing every task.
If you have the means, see a psychologist who specializes working with people who are neurodivergent. It will greatly improve your communication skills. If you’re in a serious relationship, get couples counseling even if things are going great. This will help you break down any communication barriers before they have the opportunity to become resentment.
I could keep adding to this list, but having an exercise routine is probably one of the best things I did to improve my focus. Plus I also get the long term health benefits of strength training.
Be honest with yourself about your social battery. If a friend wants to watch a movie I try and tell them if I’m Down to hang and watch a movie so long as it’s okay that I don’t give it my undivided attention (aka are we gonna watch a slapstick comedy where I can check my phone or draw while watching or are we putting on Schindler’s list).
Being honest with my friends and partner as to where my focusing levels are at has saved a lot of conflict and has made people feel more respected (from what they’ve told me!)
My advice would be not to listen to advice people on the internet give you.
Which would include your advice you’re posting right now so then that means that they should listen to the advice people on the internet give you ?
Exactly! 😂
Learn how to micro dose acid, lift weights and eat right, don’t sell your soul to some corporation
Better yet: learn to microdose acid WHILE lifting weights.
Stretch, hydrate, learn. Continuously.
I’ll add: take care of your teeth cuz they’re expensive, and learn to cook before you move out.
Both of these can be outsourced though. You can replace your teeth, and order takeout. You can’t replace your body or your mind.
But in general I agree with you.
Or get used to eating burnt food, that worked for me
Hey, burnt offerings were made to the gods of old, right?
Educate yourself, and question everything. No one is worth following blindly. If you don’t understand the “why” of something, keep digging until you do. Critically thinking is the most valuable skill you can have, so develop it as much as you can.
This life has no meaning. Absolutely none. Do what you enjoy. You don’t need a “purpose,” grind culture is toxic and will only lead to burnout. Slow down and listen to the birds sing.
What’s your advice for younger folks? Nihilism!
If you take nihilism far enough, you loop back around to absurdism instead. And that’s where things go from “why bother? Nothing matters so what is the point” to “why not? Nothing matters so I might as well enjoy life.”
I think Absurdism
Optimistic Nihilism, is quite a good philosophical framework.
But I would recommend a mixture of optimistic nihilism and stoicism.
If nothing has any inherent meaning, the things you chose to be meaningful are as valid as any other choice.
do you think that you should do what you enjoy at the expense of another person? like (in an extreme example) to harm/assault/ hurt someone because you enjoy it?
I don’t know why you are being downvoted. This is an excellent question. Personally, no, but that’s because I feel empathy towards other people and enjoy cooperation/community.
However, imagine if you were born without empathy or even enjoyed hurting others. Does that make you a bad person? Our society would certainly see it that way. You would be ostracized/incarcerated for not being the same as others because you enjoy hurting people. But does that make your existence wrong? I don’t think so. To be honest I don’t think there is such a thing as wrong and right, just selfish and selfless behaviors.
All this to say, I would say no and certainly don’t condone it, but if you ask someone else they may say yes. Who is to say that either one of us is right?
Ah…, the conundrums of subjective morality.
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But who defines them? If there is no god to determine that then that belief is entirely subjective. What one person views as good will be bad to another. How do you determine who is right?
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Well, I’m afraid that’s where we diverge in beliefs then. With a god it is perfectly reasonable to believe that, but without one it’s not.
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Thank you for this response!
I think hedonism is important, but it comes at a cost. The candle the burns twice as bright and all that. At the same time if you never fuck around, you’ll never find out.
I think far too often young people go through life thinking they already know who they are, instead of treating life as an opportunity to find out who they are. They become calcified, ossified in their beliefs about their own identity, a constant and repeated telling themselves of who they are in an effort to believe these things.
An alternative approach is to try to break down who you are, repeatedly and continuously. To try new things, to change the situation. Leave a city without warning and move somewhere you don’t know the language. Abandon your belongings, your phone, your identity and start over. Change the situation entirely. Begin to understand what is you and what is the world. If you move from place to place, and you find yourself always confronted by the same types of people, maybe you are seeing a reflection of something you are bringing with you from place to place.
There is a very western identity of “knowing” who you are while simultaneously having done no exploration of who that person might be. I find it very curious.
Super interesting perspective. Thank you!
KILL YOUR MASTERS
If you fear dying you’re already dead. Always for love, never from fear. A better world is possible. Coconut oil is a 1:1 butter substitute that’s both cheaper and better for you
Other plant oils are even better yet, if you don’t insist on the consistency. Except peanut, maybe? I forget.
So vegetable oil?
There’s many kinds, but yes.
I know canola has the lowest saturated fat of them all, which is also why it doesn’t smoke easily.
Keep learning new things.
Learn cursive and develop your own handwriting.
Writing down things physically makes learning way easier. And keeps your brain young - because, there is a reason why dementia is hitting some people in their 40s.Edit: brush your teeth and floss every day. If you don’t like to floss every day get a water flosser for those days.
Cursive as a primary concern and dental hygiene as an afterthought? Hot take…
Keeping your mind young is primary concern.
Dental hygiene you should already have.If you learn cursive poorly enough, then you can pose as your own doctor, and get all the medicine you need. It just makes sense.
