What do you wish you knew when you were 18?

[Rabaelthazar]

Shag as many girls as possibl;e like you could die tomorrow.

 

This seems to be a recurring theme. Take heed Btotl.

[btotl]

Hmmm... I don't see sex like this.

I think its sacred and should be shared with only the ones you love.

I am often repulsed by how other males speak about females, joking or not, I have great respect for them.

Really interesting to see your replies.

[alphaomega]

You nailed it! Every single experience, whether 'good' or 'bad' has made me exactly who I am right now and has led me to be exactly where I am in this moment, both of which I am happy with.

 

thanks mate. im glad ive come into contact with someone else who knows the code.

Edited December 1, 2010 by alphaomega

[Micromegas]

You nailed it! Every single experience, whether 'good' or 'bad' has made me exactly who I am right now and has led me to be exactly where I am in this moment, both of which I am happy with.

I agree with this, as is obvious from my signiture.

Cool thread by the way I have been independently thinking about this lately.

However, if you are not happy with yourself, it is often if not always due to your memory of the past. Peace of mind is at peace with the past. Even so, sometimes you can be happy, but elements of things continue to niggle at your self-image so you are not yet resolved; or you are aware that you have yet to fully come into yourself or you are driven by un-realised ambition. As hard as changing the past, is changing your perception of your past, which is the same thing since you can't physically change the past but only how you perceive your memory of the past and how the past is continuing to affect you and your body - because as is evident from this thread we have all learned that past events have mild to severe residual emotional and physical loading.

When I am not happy with myself, which comes and goes, i look to see what unresolved elements of my past are manifesting in my present reality, and to turn every "it was" into an "I wanted it thus". I look for the symettry in what I have done with and to others and what has befallen me; and how my inward sense of self has been manifested toward me from the outside world.

Part of the knowing of age I suppose is to understand that your past (sic: present) will affect you later. If I knew that at 18 - and I mean really knew that - I would have been frozen on the spot and very confused, probably saying to myself, I wish I had known that at 14!

I temper the experience of living with a past by knowing for myself that events are a duality of predetermination and free-will; that forces are acting upon us in conjuction with our actions. Right place at the right time, or not. Sometimes it takes years to tease apart pivotal events in the sense of why they arrived in your life. That is time travel for real.

So someday there are things I wish that I knew when I was 18 or wish greatly that I had behaved otherwise; other days I understand it was not appropriate to know such things or to do such things as it would have distorted the trajectory of events. Mostly I focus on repairing any damage that I did to myself and others but it is amazing how you can continue to not learn from the past and repeat even obvious mistakes! and how things you thought had been laid firmly to rest are resurrected. And when I say "you" I mean me, or us, and by no means am I finished resolving the unresolved!

Memory of past events and understanding the pattern of your life must bring you toward the centre of the present or the future will be misguided. But it is not that simple as the centre comes and goes and changes. You can lose it and find it again. It's really in between the lines.

Another thing i believe is that it is important to understand the meaning of place and landscape as they relate to memory and perception of self, but that is a different topic.

And ironically, if you are 18 and reading this, it probably won't make the slightest difference! Awareness comes at its own pace and it comes softy... until it clobbers you squarely in the head.

Even then, it's notoriously difficult to use correctly!

But yeah, to be sure to be sure, we were only 18. If I can't make appropriate decisions now there's no point me wishing I had known how to do so back then!!!

Of course, I should have planted some cactus, some peyote seeds and some really nice trees. I wish I had known to do that!!!

The past is a faint song on the breeze I have heard somewhere before; I start to sing but I have fogotten some of the words. There are holes in my recollection of things, or vast expanses of feelings tied up in the air above my head. I remember that once I was somebody else, who I am no longer, but who recognises himself in me. The tune I am hearing ties our fates together. I never sang beautifully, perhaps I should have learned. Now the holes in my song are sung with new notes, from a new world, that is new because of having older eyes.

Each day, things appear differently but with a thread that runs between them.

The answer, of course, is to know thyself. The irony is, is that it takes time and mistakes and is in a continual flow of desire, attainment, loss and reconciliation.

Edited December 1, 2010 by Micromegas

[Rabaelthazar]

Hmmm... I don't see sex like this.

I think its sacred and should be shared with only the ones you love.

I am often repulsed by how other males speak about females, joking or not, I have great respect for them.

Really interesting to see your replies.

 

I shoulda put a smiley in my last post, cos I was trying to be a bit flippant. Maybe this one...

When I was 18, I felt like this too.

I still think love is sacred and I have an enormous amount for respect for females. I'm happily married to a woman that I adore and have no intention straying from... and.... if I look back on the last 13 years, I recognize many occasions where I turned down the opportunity for sex because of my ideas of what love and sex mean. If I could have my time again, I'd still have turned down some of the opportunities but there are a lot that I could have very much enjoyed, that the girl could have very much enjoyed, that would have been mutually respectful and that would have been a hell of a lot of fun.

This thread is "what do you wish you knew when you were 18?" and, frankly, this is one of those things (for me at least)

I'd be interested to know how you'll see this situation when you're 30 something. You might feel exactly the same, you might not.

As someone else posted, you have to learn through your own experience so I'm not really expecting you to take the advice of "Shag anyone you can". Realistically, if I could go back in time and have a heart-to-heart with myself aged 18, I'd probably not take advice from my older self. You've gotta live your life and learn your own set of morals, your own rules of living.

Really good thread, by the way.

[FancyPants]

thanks mate. im glad ive come into contact with someone else who knows the code.

 

I thought along the same lines when making my post. But then I thought the point of this thread might not be talking about regret.

[synchromesh]

Given that a mistake is harmless and learned from, why regret it?

[random]

I fail to understand the theory that mistakes are harmless, the emotion of regret is there for a reason. Perhaps that is a buddhist ideal that mistakes are harmless, i'm not sure, but everybody has the right to own their feelings and in my opinion, regret is a useful learning tool.

[alphaomega]

I thought along the same lines when making my post. But then I thought the point of this thread might not be talking about regret.

 

wishing you knew something at a younger age isnt really regret is it? its just thinking of things you know and understand now and then thinking about how it could have improved your life at the time. IMO the word regret means you believe you should have made a certain choice or acted in a certain way that differs from your actual choices/actions at the time.

my post was simply a reflection of my feelings. i could have said i wish i knew everything i do now and had a bit of fun but i wanted to tell people how i really feel and say something that is meaningful to me. i used to think about this type of question a lot but i feel that its time and energy wasted if i dwell on the unchangable. i love my life and i love every choice i have made and will make in it. i love learning about myself and becoming closer to me.

sorry if i sound rude or egotistical FancyPants.. words dont have any emotion and im relying on how a word or a string of words, makes you feel. cheers mate

[San Rainbow]

Porn, "most" girls just aren't that way incline...

[FancyPants]

wishing you knew something at a younger age isnt really regret is it? its just thinking of things you know and understand now and then thinking about how it could have improved your life at the time. IMO the word regret means you believe you should have made a certain choice or acted in a certain way that differs from your actual choices/actions at the time.

my post was simply a reflection of my feelings. i could have said i wish i knew everything i do now and had a bit of fun but i wanted to tell people how i really feel and say something that is meaningful to me. i used to think about this type of question a lot but i feel that its time and energy wasted if i dwell on the unchangable. i love my life and i love every choice i have made and will make in it. i love learning about myself and becoming closer to me.

sorry if i sound rude or egotistical FancyPants.. words dont have any emotion and im relying on how a word or a string of words, makes you feel. cheers mate

 

Not at all in fact I was saying that while I was thinking about a response to the OP, I came to the same conclusion of what's bolded Because I don't regret truly - except maybe one unnecessary thing I did out of an insecurity issue. I wouldn't be who I am, where I am, with amazing family, friends, and online friends if things had turned out any other way.

[incognito]

shelving is not half as cool as you think it is.

[Evil Genius]

I wish my parents would have told me all the stuff that i learnt about girls the hard way during the last few years. My mother always told me to be play nice and friendly and to fulfil every wish a girl has what would result in them falling in love with me. Long story short...that is total bullshit and it takes some time for most men to figure that out. Girls dont like smooth asskissers that arent men enough to stand up for the things they like or believe in. If i would have known that earlier, i´d been the Brad Pit of german Highschool.

Edited December 4, 2010 by Evil Genius

[TheFriendlyPlanter]

I think as a youngster growing up in a rather conservative city, the best thing I could have done was learn more things in general, see more places, meet more people, have more life experiences, look at things from different perspectives. And get rid of TV much sooner.

Adventure, Adventure, Adventure!

I'd be a cross between Steve Irwin, Malcom douglass, and Bear Grylls by now lol

Chasin' them bitches all the way! Hehe, just kidding btotl

[ThunderIdeal]

yeah that's a good one: live more.

i wish i'd followed my father's advice and gotten a solid career happening in the form of an apprenticeship, but i always thought there pay was too low. i could have been an overpaid tradie for the price of a few years low pay ,instead i'll spend the rest or at least half of my life in one of the lowest paid industries.

THINK ABOUT YOUR CAREER. cuz when you're out on your own, that's basically three quarters of your life. maybe three quarters is the wrong figure, but either way you don't get much time for other shit.

[alphaomega]

Not at all in fact I was saying that while I was thinking about a response to the OP, I came to the same conclusion of what's bolded Because I don't regret truly - except maybe one unnecessary thing I did out of an insecurity issue. I wouldn't be who I am, where I am, with amazing family, friends, and online friends if things had turned out any other way.

 

cool dude, im with u now.

[Distracted]

Stay the course, you're going to be fine, everything is turning out the way things are supposed to.