You know,” said Arthur, “it’s at times like this…that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.”
“Why, what did she tell you?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t listen.”
From the ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ by Douglas Adams*
So what was the best advice your mum ever gave you and did you listen?
Just about everything .
I can’t remember her giving me much, so I can’t have listened!
“Always have your taxi fare home when you go on a date”
When I didn’t want to go to parties etc………
“Just relax and enjoy yourself”
“You should think more of yourself”
“Cross your bridges when you get to them.”
Problem was that my father had the opposite advice.
“Always plan ahead.”
My parents often had conflicting advice. There’s a cliche for everything, just not an instruction manual for when to use which.
Mama always told me, “Save yourself
Take a little time and find the right girl
Then again, don’t end up on the shelf”
Logical advice gets you in a whirl
I’ll make any exception in your case but she told me never to talk to strange women.
Never accept sweeties from strangers.
Sound advice…!
Our mother advised us a) never to touch munition b) not to play in the ruins around our house and c) expected us to be home at 6 for dinner. We always obeyed the first, often ignored the second, but seldom ignored the last for fear of “repercussions”. My mother did not have any calender quotes for us but being a widow and struggling hard to make ends meet, she made sure my twin brother and I could live our lives for which she gave us crucial advice nudging us in the right direction that got us off the street.
I’m still grateful to my mother for inspiring me to become a reader when I was still a young boy. No doubt, I’d be a different person today if I hadn’t followed her advice. She also encouraged us to go in for sport starting with competitive swimming and then she suggested joining the local tennis club which was one of the best decisions in my life. Living in a dictatorship, it was paramount to carve out a niche for myself where I met independently-minded people with good judgement and a goal in life. That enabled me to make myself immune against unwanted influences which, in turn, helped me tremendously to adjust to a new system that didn’t prove to be so new.
