WISDOM COLLECTING
44 THINGS I ' VE ( Almost ) LEARNED AS I TURN 44
BY NEIL PASRICHA
I
' ve been wisdom-collecting for years . In my 20s I took hundreds of flights and always made it my goal to ask the person I was sitting beside for a piece of life advice before getting off the plane . ( It helps that my 20s were before airplane internet and giant headphone cocoons .) I ' m sure a lot of these come from those chats . And then , after last year ' s list , I made a little file on my phone called " 44 " and have been planting , snipping , and pruning it all year - treating this list like some kind of little plant I ' m ready to finally put on my porch .
And remember : Lists like these are preachy by nature ! Take what you like and chuck the rest in the bin .
HERE WE GO : 1 . The best sunblock is the one you use .
2 . If you don ' t know if it goes in the dryer , it doesn ' t .
3 . Let your kids catch you reading books . Don ' t let them watch you scrolling social media .
4 . The three E ' s of a great speech : Entertain , Educate , Empower .
5 . Dating tip : You meet interesting people in interesting places .
6 . Add a silent mental "... yet " to any sentence you catch yourself starting with " I can ' t ," " I ' m not ," or " I don ' t ." " I can ' t speak Hindi ... yet ," " I ' m not a runner ... yet ," " I don ' t eat oysters ... yet ."
7 . Mood follows action .
8 . Time you spend with your kids when they ' re young correlates with time they spend with you when you ' re old .
9 . Stock tip : Buy the haystack , not the needle .
10 . Never buy a couch before taking a nap on it .
11 . Remember the ' End Of History Illusion ': We all know our pasts were bumpy - yet never expect our futures to be .
12 . Ideas are the easy part . Doing it is the hard part .
13 . No cell phones in the bedroom . If you need waking up , buy an alarm clock . If you get emergency calls , get a landline .
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