{"id":106,"date":"2014-01-09T19:08:08","date_gmt":"2014-01-10T03:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/thoughts\/?p=106"},"modified":"2014-02-06T21:14:53","modified_gmt":"2014-02-07T05:14:53","slug":"advice-for-young-and-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/thoughts\/advice-for-young-and-old\/","title":{"rendered":"Advice for Young and Old"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Young<\/a>In this new year, I have two liberating scraps of wisdom: \u00a0one for the young, and another for the not-so-young.<\/p>\n

To the young:<\/p>\n

It’s not hard.<\/h2>\n

Most things are not nearly as hard as we think. \u00a0Calculus? \u00a0Not hard. \u00a0Play piano? \u00a0Not hard. \u00a0Ask a girl out? \u00a0Not hard. \u00a0Jump in, make a start, it usually turns out to be easy, maybe even fun!<\/p>\n

Although I’m no longer young, this is a lesson that I need to continually remind myself of. \u00a0Clearing the dishes from the sink is not hard, but I build it up in my mind to be harder than it is. \u00a0Once I start, it’s done before I know it. \u00a0I wonder what other things my fear is preventing me from accomplishing?<\/p>\n

What breaks my heart is folks who are paralyzed because they think everything is hard. \u00a0But for the grace of God, that was almost me, at a critical moment in my life when I began to lose faith. \u00a0But that’s another story.<\/p>\n

And to the not-so-young:<\/p>\n

Why not now?<\/h2>\n

My father passed on to me that when he was middle-aged, his friends would say, “When I retire, I want to visit Australia,” or “When I have more time, I want to write stories,” and his reply was always, “Why not now?” \u00a0I think the point was, look for a reason why a dream can’t happen now, rather than assuming it can’t. \u00a0Otherwise, you may get to a point where age or health really do make those dreams impossible.<\/p>\n

When I was 30, at what should have been a critical point in my professional career, I took almost 3 months leave off work, and went on a long bike trip<\/a>. \u00a0It was a defining moment of my life. \u00a0It would be a different experience today, as I’m slower and weaker, and the world is a different place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this new year, I have two liberating scraps of wisdom: \u00a0one for the young, and another for the not-so-young. To the young: It’s not hard. Most things are not nearly as hard as we think. \u00a0Calculus? \u00a0Not hard. \u00a0Play piano? \u00a0Not hard. \u00a0Ask a girl out? \u00a0Not hard. \u00a0Jump in, make a start, it … Continue reading Advice for Young and Old<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}