50 Nuggets of Wisdom for my 50th Birthday
In celebration of my 50th birthday, which was yesterday, here are 50 nuggets of wisdom I’ve picked up along the way. These are more than just my favorite quotes. They represent practical wisdom I’ve integrated or am in the process of integrating into my life. A few are WAY more aspirational than descriptive.
I’ll cite the original source for some of these, and for others I’ll cite the person I learned them from as a way of honoring their influence in my life. No one is quoted more than once, even though there are several sages, like John Wooden or Edwin Friedman, who could dominate this list. Those without a citation are my own attempts at wisdom or my paraphrase of something I’ve heard somewhere else, but tweaked to make more meaningful to me.
Enneagram aficionados can likely guess my number after reading through these.
I’d love to hear which one of these jumps out and speaks to you.
If you’re curious about what any of these mean or why they’re important to me, drop a comment or send me a note and perhaps I’ll unpack it in a future full-length post.
Without further ado, here they are in mostly random order:
1. Wear sunscreen.—Mary Schmich, popularized by Baz Luhrmann
2. Never mistake activity for achievement.—John Wooden
3. Be so good they can’t ignore you.—Cal Newport
4. When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.—African Proverb
5. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to far, go together.—African Proverb
6. Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be just like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.—Proverbs 26:4-5
7. There is an immense difference between training to do something and trying to do something.—Dallas Willard
8. Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise— why destroy yourself? Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool— why die before your time? It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes.—The Preacher, Ecclesiastes 7:16–18, NIV
9. Everybody leaves.
10. Study long, study wrong.—Coach Flanagan, Varsity Basketball Coach
11. I get some of my best ideas when I’m not thinking.
12. Slay your dragons before breakfast.—Michael Hyatt
13. Sometimes the best edit to an unwieldy sentence is to delete it.—Donald Miller
14. There are certain rules about a war. Rule Number One is: Young men die. And Rule Number Two is: Doctors can't change Rule Number One.—Lt. Col. Henry Blake, MASH
15. I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.—Mark Twain
16. At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.—Maya Angelou
17. There will come a time when you believe everything is finished; that will be the beginning.—Louis L’Amour
18. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.—Captain Woodrow Call, Lonesome Dove
19. If you want any one thing too badly, it's likely to turn out to be a disappointment. The only healthy way to live life is to learn to like all the little everyday things, like a sip of good whiskey in the evening, a soft bed, a glass of buttermilk, or a feisty gentleman like myself.—Captain Augustus McRae, Lonesome Dove
20. There’s no disgrace in being ignorant, the disgrace is staying that way.—Loyd Hodges, who heard it from his high school shop teacher.
21. Who cares if you're sorry? We're still screwed! Be sorry about this stuff BEFORE you do it! Then don't do it! It's called growing up!—Jeff Winger, Community
22. Preparation for a great day begins the night before.
23. Other people are not thinking about you nearly as much as you’re thinking about yourself.
24. You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.―Anne Lamott
25. Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.―Howard Thurman
26. Expectations are pre-meditated resentments.—Unknown
27. The last experience of God is frequently the greatest obstacle to the next experience of God. We make an absolute out of it. … All great spirituality is about letting go.—Richard Rohr
28. You can’t out exercise bad nutrition.
29. The unmotivated are notoriously invulnerable to insight.—Edwin Friedman
30. People don’t change because they see the light, but because they feel the heat.—Charles Siburt
31. Sometimes the best you can do is not make it worse.
32. You can waste your life getting ready to live.
33. If you don’t buy it, you won’t eat it.
34. The only thing holding some churches together is lack of communication.—Randy Harris
35. I never have to wait in line to take the stairs.
36. All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.—Blaise Pascal
37. Each time a door closes, the rest of the world opens up. All we need to do is stop pounding on the door that just closed, turn around- and welcome the largeness of life that now lies open to our soul.―Parker Palmer
38. It is slothful not to compress your thoughts.—Winston Churchill
39. Much hard work is lost for lack of a little more—Willard Tate
40. Learn to ask of all actions, “Why are they doing that?” Starting with your own.—Marcus Aurelius
41. It’s easy to be a non-anxious absence.
42. The greats weren’t great because at birth they could paint. The greats were great because they paint a lot.—Macklemore
43. We’re all just one step away from stepping in it.—Ken Hager
44. Autograph your performance with skill, because skill is the divider.—George Lehmann
45. No good film is too long. No bad movie is too short.—Roger Ebert
46. Pay attention to what you pay attention to.
47. The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart.—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
48. Preachers, please remember that some of the women in your congregation have never played football.—Fred Craddock
49. There is always an easy solution to every problem--neat, plausible, and wrong.—H. L. Mencken
50. Wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”—Jesus, (Matthew 11:19)
And one to grow on: Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.—Unknown
Happy Birthday. This list is on point. Most I have heard of and enjoy being reminded. 14 is one I worked with. Being an OR nurse for many years, many DRs. commented, when a young person on the table, was getting a sad diagnosis, that the sad part of our career was not being able to change it. Most of the time, the comment would be, the cure is in God’s hands. 15 is glaring to me. I try to not worry but occasionally life causes concerns. This is a good reminder that most of the time I do worry needlessly. I have started to study Ecclesiastes since reading your last writing. Looking at it in a different light. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
For me, this encapsulates the last few years of my professional, personal, and internal life very well:
“Pay attention to what you pay attention to”.
I immediately made a mental list that went like this...
Pay attention to WHEN I pay attention.
Pay attention to WHOM I choose to pay attention to.
Pay attention to WHY I want to pay attention.
... and then I smirked at the thought that you had already said all those things in the original quote.