Damned good advice

Shane Nickerson's "11 things it took me 42 years to learn" is damned good advice:

5. Stop comparing your life to others.

Your life has nothing to do with theirs. You imagine their world to be perfect, but it never is. Find your own happiness, be happy for others successes, and fight that envy. It will tear you up and make you hard to be around. Dump your cynicicm, while you're at it. It's cheap and simple.

6. Go where life blows you.

So to speak. Let that gentle pushing and pulling you feel each day guide you towards where you belong. Say yes to new things. Be open to exciting experience. Try new foods. Travel. Don't just hate stuff because it's easier. Maybe you'd love eel. Or urchin. Or the Insane Clown Posse. You don't know.

7. Measure your failures as cautiously as you measure your successes.

So you failed. Okay. In the same way you are modest about your successes, be modest about your failures. Don't linger in them. Think of all the hard learning you did while you worked so hard on something that sucked. Valuable knowledge. That's how it goes sometimes. On to the next one.

11 things it took me 42 years to learn

(via Wil Wheaton)