The Best Advice I Ever Received
Years ago, the grandfather of a long-forgotten boyfriend gave me the single best piece of advice I’ve ever received:
Keep one leg to each side and your mind in the middle.
At the time, he was one of a long string of elderly gentlemen who’d been trying to teach me how to play golf. At the time, I was avidly practicing law and knew that golf could only have helped my career. At the time, neither he nor I knew just how many ways his advice would come back to haunt — as well as instruct — me.
Flash forward a bit to the first day I ever held a gun in my hands. That was a dozen or so years ago, before I’d met VH1, and as my shooting instructor bent down to move my feet into the appropriate position that bit of advice floated through my brain. Turns out, it’s apt advice when it comes to shooting, too, and to this day I can’t pick up a gun without remembering it.
But it’s not only applicable in sporting events. Whether I’m vacuuming — one leg on each side, mind in the middle — or cooking, styling my hair or trying to make a strike on the bowling lanes, it’s a damned fine piece of advice. Luckily, it’s also good instruction for maintaining a marriage, drinking with friends or strangers, and driving a tank.
Good advice for writing, too.
Don’t believe me? Check how you’re sitting next time you try to write a piece into which you’re sinking your heart, soul and mind. Chances are you’ll find, as I have, that one foot is planted to each side as you lean forward toward your computer screen. It’s there where I’ve floundered lately: the part about putting my mind in the middle. I haven’t been here, nor anywhere else on my other blogs.
Oh, I know the reason… and I’m about to take care of that. I’m going back to following the best piece of advice I ever received and chances are you’ll appreciate it.
So, what’s the best piece of advice you ever received?
“You know where you are with beer.”
Best advice I ever received from GZExpat.
FlyRices last blog post..I thought about the world, drank gin, and watched the news.
“Never let someone tell you that you don’t deserve what it is that you want.”
Yes, yes. I know. From the movie 10 Things I Hate About You, but it’s really solid advice.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
Apparently a piece of advice that no politician’s parents ever give.
Donna B.s last blog post..I Am Joe’s Wife, Aunt, Sister, Mother, Daughter
“You can lead a yak to water, but you can’t make an old dog make a silk purse out of a pig in a poke.”
Okay, so I like mixing my metaphors. What? Stop looking at me like that.
wgs last blog post..Of Trolls
You have a knack for making me want to bang my head against a brick whore.
I can’t totally take credit for that one. Berkely Breathed is the author of that monstrosity.
Still….to this day it’s excellent advice.
I think.
Come to think of it, I’m actually not quite sure what it means, but it did sound cool.
wgs last blog post..Of Trolls
It’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich girl as a poor girl
-Not that I listen to advice
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got seems painfully obvious now, but it wasn’t obvious to a twelve-year-old. It came from an older uncle, who told me, “You know, some times you just have to make up your own mind about something, and stick to it.”
“Bloom where you’re planted.”
This mantra helped me to navigate the last fourteen years of a military marriage – through the greatly amplified extremes of better and worse, when sickness overtook health far too quickly.
Against that backdrop, and perhaps because of it, we have crafted a beautiful life.
Roses last blog post..Awww, thanks baby!
For some reason, the harsh reality of being told “Nobody wants to hear about your victories, but everyone wants to talk about your defeats” replays in my skull on a regular basis…
Jeffs last blog post..Promoting Infidelity