I finally started one of these things.  I have always felt they were a bit self important.  I mean do I really have anything important enough to say that anyone should read it.  I don’t suppose so.  A friend finally convinced me to start it though so I feel the first post should really be something important.  Quite frankly though it is 3:18 AM and the red bull is wearing off.

I turned 30 last month and I guess it got me a bit philosophical.  Since that makes me a bit older than most people on Xanga, I will share a few things I have learned in the past 10 years.

-Very little of what happens in High School really matters.  Don’t get arrested, become a parent, develope a drug habit, or drop out.  Other than that not much else you do can really prevent you from accheiving your gioals.  What is more important is to focus on what type of person you are.  No one remembers who was popular, but they do remember how you treated them.  When peer pressure, cliques, and popularity fade you still run into people.  You don’t want to be ashamed of how you treated them.

-A best friend is an important thing to have.  I have made many friends, lots of whom I spent more time with than my best friend.  Most of them have faded, but after 15 years I can go months without talking to my best friend without him giving me a hard time.  A friendship isn’t measured by idle chat, but by the quality of support, caring, and concern they provide.

-I never fail to amaze myself with the mistakes I make.  I have learned that making mistakes is part of who I am.  Everyone makes them, but you don’t see all of thiers.  Don’t beat yourself over your mistakes. Learn from your successes and your failures, you become a better person every time you learn from them.

-Your parents really did try the best they knew how.  They aren’t perfect but you won’t be either.  Until you become a parent you can’t understand how difficult it is.  Be grateful for what they give and patient with thier shortcomings, they were with your.

-The real reason not to have casual sex is not pregnancy or disease, although those are good reasons.  It is because someday you will meet someone you want to spend the rest of your life with.  They will ask about your past and you want them to be pleased with your answers.  If not the shame is unbearable.

-Wear your seatbelt, drive the speed limit, and don’t drive drunk.  The world is a dangerous place.  Death can come knocking at your door at anytime.  You can choose to send it an invite or lock the deadbolt.  There are things worth dying for, driving like a jackass is not one of them.

That’s it.  I am sure the person I was 10 years ago would think this is pretty lame, but if experience has taught me anything it is that I am far cooler than I was them by not caring so much about whether I am cool or not.