Ask away

A young friend was asking me (for a quiz on Reddit):
Well, let's be quite honest. I am 40+++++++ and I am happy with my life, and to you young 'uns in your 20s, this is what I say...

a) don't worry so much
b) you're as good as anyone!
c) ain't no use a-worrying.

The great sage Mickey Rivers taught us many things in his day, one of which was, "It was so cold today that I saw a dog chasing a cat, and the dog was walking."

And the other one was, “Ain't no sense worryin' about the things you got control over, 'cause if you got control over 'em, ain't no sense worryin'. And ain't no sense worryin' about the things you don't got control over, 'cause if you don't got control over 'em, ain't no sense worryin'.”

Of such wisdom, great religions have been constructed and have flourished.

Real talk, when you're in your twenties, you have all the time in the world to sit around fretting about your job and your love life and that funny noise the car was making, because you aren't in your sixties and worried about that funny noise your left ear is making.  But you know what you're going to find out?

Things work out according to plan.  A few years ago a friend of mine, who thought he was set with a dream job for years to come, was startled to find the job eliminated in one of those corporate wipeouts, and there he stood in the lobby with his discharge in his hand. I called him with words of consolation, but he said, "No problem, Mark. This is life, playing out as nature intends.  And all I have to do is show up every day and play my part."

It's really much easier when you leave the worry out. And, as I have said a million times, never exaggerate!  No, as I say, you can't name a time when worrying about things did a bit of good. So let it go and let it flow.

Something else you learn when you get a few more summers is that while you think everyone else around you really has it all figured out, they don't. You think that people aged 40 or 50 have learned all the lessons and apply that knowledge in their daily activities, and then you find out that one of your friends just invested his life savings in some stupid pyramid scheme and it looks like he'll be in the hole until he's literally in a hole.

Dr Ben Carson, formerly the pride of Baltimore, may have been the greatest neurosurgeon around, but that didn't stop from pronouncing "Hamas" like "hummus" in public, and saying out loud that Muslims cannot be president of the US and being gay is a choice and people go to prison to make that choice.

Sometimes, the smartest guy is the one who shuts his piehole in time.

SO yeah, I'm here to tell you that most people are not quite as smart or pretty or funny or tall or naturally blonde as they appear to me. There's nothing wrong with you! Always remember that.

And one more quote from an oft-quoted New Yank Yorkee:

If you ask me anything I don't know, I'm not going to answer. 
 - -Yogi Berra