Fatherly advice

This one comes from someone else's father but it remains the best piece of fatherly advice I ever got:

There will be days when it feels like you have to deal with one idiot after another. When that happens, the problem is you.

Another gem, this one courtesy of Wayne Levine, is that once you have defined your core values, don't tell anyone about them. Just live them. Write them on a card and place this card in your wallet so you can pull it out when you want to remind yourself. (I've got mine in Evernote.)

Levine calls these values non-negotiable, unalterable terms (which produces the too-cute acronym NUTs). It applies to many other things as well. I'd say it applies to your personal mythology. The second you tell people what your most important values are, they can use them against you. They can mock your values directly. They can also tear you down for failing to live up to them. Finally, and most damaging, they can (and will) use this knowledge to manipulate you" "Well, if you want to live up to [insert stated value] then you should [insert thing they want to manipulate you into doing]."

Finally, and this one is from me: focus on outward behaviours and not inward attitudes. For example, we often try to tell ourselves lies like, "I don't care what she thinks." But we do care and we have no direct control over that. The only thing we can control is outward behaviour. When we next see her obviously disapproving of what we are doing or saying, we can refuse to respond. She'll still know we have noticed and perhaps she'll even enjoy knowing that we are upset. But the thing we can control, we will control.

There was a song back in the 1970s called, "Free your mind and your ass will follow". A sanitized version of the same message appeared in a 1990s song called, "Free your mind and the rest will follow." Both songs get it backwards. Change your behaviour and you'll free your mind or "Free your ass and your mind will follow".