Time once again for some swell, granular advice to the callow (def.: devoid of feathers) youngsters emerging in robes and funny hats from our high schools.
Offered up free from a Certifiably Old Guy (you could look it up), with the wrinkles, scars, and accumulated dumb mistakes to prove it.
(Some fresh youngsters on Facebook call me a man “of a certain age,” long past my sell-by date, or, most hurtful, an “old man yelling at clouds.” But we all get older every day. And handing out free advice is the only physical activity anymore that doesn't make my joints hurt.)
So, let's get started:
The best graduation gift you could get would be a Crock Pot. Because you're probably not going to be making much money on your first job – I made barely above minimum wage, because newspaper owners didn't get rich over-paying the help. (We actually ate free cow hearts from the UW Agriculture Department a couple times. Edible, but tough. Not recommended.)
You'd be surprised how good a cheap hunk of meat (not heart) tastes after simmering all day in a Crock Pot, maybe with a can of mushroom soup poured over it. Meanwhile, your co-workers will be eating in restaurants, complaining that they never have any money, and whining about oligarchs.
Learn to cook – if you can read, you can cook – and you might land a nice spouse someday.
Speaking of spouses, take your time finding the right person, and don't marry anyone you can't trust with your credit card. If you're frugal (you should be), don't marry a spendthrift. As they used to warn on the margins of ancient sailing maps, “Here be dragons.”
And don't expect marriage to be like the first few months you fall in love with someone. That kind of breathless infatuation would kill a guy over the long haul. And make no mistake, successful marriage is one very long haul, with plenty of challenges along the way.
I've said this before: Marry someone you can trust to be there when the anesthesia wears off after surgery (there will be surgeries), and you need someone to drive you home.
Do society a favor and don't be an English major like I was in college. Be a plumber. When you're toilet backs up, the last thing you need is an English major.
Most of the stuff I spent time and stomach lining worrying about when I was young never happened. So worrying is pretty useless.
If you're one of these people who think government is going to make your life happy and successful, think again. For the most part, government makes life happy and successful for people in government, not the rest of us. And “bipartisanship” is vastly overrated, leaving us with a $37 trillion debt, which you'll have to deal with someday, after oldsters like me are lucky enough to be dead.
Save some money and depend on yourself, not the government, which can always be trusted to do what's right for getting politicians re-elected. They'd rather see Social Security go bankrupt in eight years than risk their precious political careers actually fixing it. Both parties hate each other, and if they agree on something, hold onto your wallet.
This is tougher than when I was young, but find a way to buy a fixer-upper house and, well, fix it up. Building equity is key, and you don't want to be paying rent or making house payments in retirement. Learn which end of a hammer to hold, and fix up one room at a time until the place doesn't look like a crime scene anymore. These days, there's a video on your irritating little cell phone to show you how to do pretty much anything.
Better yet, go to the library - always the best place in any town - and take out a “how to” book for free. We have a great library in Cheyenne, and I'm there a couple times a week. But I wish they'd let oldsters like me park closer to the building. Close-in parking is reserved for employees and “car-pool” people, who somehow all finish books at the same time, and go to the library together. Not sure how that works.
Don't buy a new car. Car payments will be more oppressive than anything your parents ever came up with. Think of car payments as a 10:30 curfew. Get a used car you can afford. (I drove a flamboyant beige mini-van for years. Not a chick-magnet, but those days were long gone anyway.)
It's not easy, but save a little bit from each paycheck. It's the best insurance against having a bad boss. (I was lucky and had good bosses.) Money in the bank, or better yet invested, gives you the ability to walk away if you have to. That's freedom.
At your age, take advantage of the miracle of compounding interest. Invest. I had good results with low-cost index funds.
And lastly, look up from your cell phone every now and then, especially in traffic.
There's a whole world out here that's not on your little screen.
It's called reality.
And it's swell.
Usually.
Dave Simpson can be reached at: DaveSimpson145@hotmail.com
