Advice

As a follow up to my posting yesterday, I've decided to summarize some of my favorite and most used advice. Giving advice makes me feel good. I feel like my life experiences are transferable. I feel like my traumas have made me strong.

Friends: By calling your acquaintances "friends", you destroy the important value of your friendships. A friend is defined on dictionary.com as:

- a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.
- a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter.
- a person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile.
- a member of the same nation, party, etc.
- (initial capital letter ) a member of the Religious Society of Friends; a Quaker.

Since most of my friends don't know many Quakers (I totally dated one once, but that's a whole other story), it is clear that a friend should be someone you can trust. You should not be jealous of your friend, well most of the time. They should support you, have similar interests as you, and genuinely care about you. A friend should make you realize why you have enemies, and not the other way around.

Delete the seven million numbers from your cell phone. Save your money and your time for good friends. Learn to like yourself, learn to befriend yourself, and you won't need to surround yourself with so many unnecessary acquaintances.

Finding Love: You deserve love. We all deserve to give and receive love. You shouldn't have to chase after love. It should not be hard or dramatic or feel unreciprocated. Until you believe that you are capable of loving and being loved, you'll never conclude your search and appreciate your prize.

For my girlfriends, wouldn't you rather be single than miserable? Who wants a life filled with heartache? When you really find love, you won't have to "take a leap of faith," as the saying goes. It will make sense. It will fit. Stop trying so hard to find someone to love and learn, instead, to love yourself.

For my guy friends, get a gun license and demonstrate your right to bear arms. Please hunt birds and deer and anything other than girls. Girls you fall in love with shouldn't have to be hunted. If you do hunt, you should want to display them rather than destroy them. After you catch the one, you shouldn't feel like you must keep hunting. Love should exist without a constant struggle. That being said, if you're only trying to get sex, shoot away.

And how silly, to both sexes, that we don’t say "I love you" more. Why are we able to have sex with someone, but we won't say I love you when it is something we feel? How silly to live your life without speaking and receiving those three words?

Jobs and Career: People who teach and operate, I've never wanted to be a Teacher or a Doctor in my entire life. I don't think you always realize that having the urge to do something is a calling. If you have been blessed with the ability to remain calm around blood or children learning long division, you should totally pursue that career path.

As far as jobs go, in general, I don't think you should base your career on how much money you will make. I know, everyone says this, but I believe that you should still plan on making lots of money. Get really good at whatever you are doing. In every field, an expert will find money. As a teacher, you could write a text book or sleep with your student and have Lifetime make a movie out of your story. I once hear Jean Chatzky speak in New York. From a study she had worked on which had different wage earners rate their happiness level, the happiest people in America were the Middle Middle Class. They had what they needed without having a full knowledge of what they wanted. The least happy were the Upper Class.

"You can't always get what you want. But, if you try sometimes, you might just find, you'll get what you need." -the Rolling Stones, circa 1969.

Fashion: logoed Louis Vuitton bag, where will you bring it? Premium designer clothing fits differently. Ferragamo shoes slide on my feet like little baby clouds, and I'm totally not exaggerating. A Pucci scarf pattern stays vibrant forever. Hudson jeans make my roommate look like she's just stepped off America's Next Top Model. A John Varvatos shirt slims APK's frame and makes him look inches taller and years more mature. You don't need to plaster a logo all over your body. What's the point? Truly classy, fashionable people don't need to prove anything to anyone. They buy for quality and fit.

I'll leave you with APK's favorite line, though I don't know the origin, "Why is it that when I wear Gucci, Prada, and Chanel no one says a thing, but whenever I wear H&M, everyone compliments me?"

And that'd be all folks. Hope you enjoyed.