© club-noticeboard.co.uk 2005Every week, AOL's Journals' apologist cheerleader, John M. Scalzi, poses a question. Like lemmings over the precipice, we answer. Equilibrium is maintained. Go fish...
Weekend Assignment #71: Untaken Advice
Weekend Assignment #71: Recount the best piece of advice you were ever given... that you didn't take at the time.
Extra Credit: Here in Scotland (where I am) they have a dish called haggis, " normally made with the following ingredients: sheep's heart, liver, and lungs (or "lights"), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for several hours." Want some?
Well John I'm glad to see you made it. Hope you've found a suitable beverage and have ensconced yourself in a corner of the pub with cronies and cronettes to observe the festivities.
Life proceeds apace. Our dear President has once again displayed his total lack of understanding of the U.S. Constitution by suggesting that Creationism should be taught in biology classes in public schools. Bob Novak got a hair crosswise and stormed off live TV – it cost him a time out and 2¢ worth of credibility. And they hadn't even asked him about his role in Plamegate yet! Over there, PM Tony Blair seems like he's pitching a fit. Methinks a case of too little, too late. But what the hell do I know?
Anywho, enough chatter. Back to the matter at hand. The best advice I've ever received that I haven't taken?
“Keep your mouth shut.”
That's right. I'll bet even you have failed to heed those immortal words and have regretted that failure subsequently.
In my case, while I'm sure my mother said it most often, it was my father's emphasis on the “shut” that sticks to my gray matter like gum tomy shoe. A close cousin was “Never volunteer for anything.” Both homilies a direct result of his experiences during World War II in the Navy and in the business world. They were right up there in the pantheon of virtues with “keep your nose clean,” “keep your pants on,” “nose to the grindstone,” and, “always get out before her husband comes home.”
Nobody told me a personal philosophy should be logically consistent until college. By then, it was too late, if you know what I mean.
Sad to say, I have been a failure in the 'keep your mouth shut' department. I was a mere youth when I started opening my mouth in earnest, first battling my father's antebellum attitude towards Negroes, then later, assisting with voter registration drives, protesting the hamstringing of the military in Vietnam and later the war as a whole. None of them activities designed to earn bonus points with the old man.
While I mellowed some in my my late twenties, early thirties, I was back to inserting foot in mouth even before America lost it's collective mind and elected a freaking actor to the White House. Then we have the spectre of George Bush, Slick Willy Clinton and Dubya – I haven't been silent since.
So far, all this verbal mastication has cost me most of my “friends,” many opportunities, several jobs and clients, as well as peace of mind and pieces of
And so it goes...
Who says old dogs can learn new tricks? Just don't ask them to hold their tongue.
By the way, I'm rather fond of haggis. But one clarification. You forgot oats. One doesn't use rolled oats – they'd produce a mushy, gelatinous blob when cooked. No, one uses steel-cut oats which retain their oat texture and goodness without becoming starchy in the pudding, assuming you toast them well in an iron skillet. Really.
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