If I can only get one thing across to a twenty year looking for love it is this:
DO NOT LOOK FOR SOMEONE WHO SHARES YOUR INTERESTS !! LOOK FOR SOMEONE WHO SHARES YOUR VALUES !! Your interests will change over time and so will theirs. Your looks will change over time and so will theirs. Your initial excitement and electricity will diminish (this is chemical, not your fault) A person’s character and values are more permanent. And by the way, you will develop shared interests over time even if you didn’t at first. The four most important values that you must share before getting married are as follows: Money If you don’t agree on how this is to be handled, you are walking into a disastrous marriage. Don’t just talk about money, but observe how your partner handles theirs. If you don’t believe in debt, you better make sure your future spouse doesn’t. If you believe in sharing funds, make sure your partner does. If you are careful with your spending, make sure your partner is. If you don’t share values on this, don’t even think of getting married. Religion Most of our values come from our faith. If you have a different faith from your significant other, than you will probably have very different values. The only way for a relationship to work well across religious lines is if one of you doesn’t care about their faith. Of course, then we have a different problem. There is a reason the Holy Bible advises against being “unequally yoked”. (Yes, a Baptist can marry a MethodistJ) Children God made fathers and mothers for a reason. Both are necessary in raising a child despite what any pinko-communist-liberal-psycho analyst may have to say about the matter. Ladies be aware that fathers will be harder on your baby boy than you will be. He is helping him become a man. Men, you need to spend time with your children, not just earn the pay check and do the yard work. If your dream fiancé doesn’t get these two basic concepts, then run from them! In-laws Okay, you have found the right person for you. You share all the right values and get along great. But then enters your mother-in-law who thinks their baby deserves much better than you. If you don’t think a difficult in-law can break up a marriage then you need to think again. If you hate your spouse’s parents (no matter how much they may deserve it) than you will be hurting your spouse very deeply. This is one of those moments that you need to learn to suck it up and deal! Sorry, but the other answer is dividing your spouse from their family. Lastly, remember that the person you marry will be your life partner. That means they are to be the most important person in your life. More than your family, more than your friends, and even more than your children. (Children will grow up and leave, your spouse will share your life with you) I was asked the other day what life advice I could give a twenty (20) year old.
…..Boy, where do you start ??..... Obviously this is not a short simple answer, so I have decided to create a four (4) part blog regarding the four (4) areas of health in our life that every young adult needs to know. It is primarily the decisions one makes in their twenties that dictates the life they will have in their middle aged and senior years. Tune in each week for the next part. 1. Physical Health 2. Financial Health 3. Relational Health 4. Spiritual Health Part II: Financial Health The decisions you make regarding handling money in your twenties will determine whether or not you are wealthy in your 30’s and 40’s. This is not advice, it is cold hard fact. You will not get rich by getting an education, you will not get rich betting on the stock market, and you will not get rich by landing that great job. You get rich by managing the income you have and that starts in your twenties. If you wait until later in life to start proper handling of your money, it may be too late, and in addition, you will have to pay off the debts of your earlier years before you could even attempt to make positive gains. The way to financial health and riches is to avoid debt and control spending. This unfortunately is contrary to the way most young adults think. It is also contrary to their inability to delay their wants. For instance, you get your first real paying job and the next thing you do is go and buy a car. So, you no sooner do you get an income and you are already in debt. Furthermore, the debt is not for anything that you really needed, it was for something you wanted! It was also for something that will devalue over time, so you can’t even claim you were investing! Try this instead, buy a cheap used clunker that you can pay cash for. Then take the $300 or so a month that you would have used for a new car payment and put it into a savings account. Then in a few years, you will have the money to purchase the new car you want in cash and still be debt free. (PS: you also get a much, much, much, better deal on the car when you pay cash and don’t lose money in interest). Q: I need something that is reliable, I can’t afford to keep fixing a car? A: You are making an excuse. I have owned many a clunker and none cost me as much as a regular car payment to keep running. Plus the insurance and taxes were lower. Q: Don’t I deserve a new car? A: No you don’t!! Quit being a spoiled brat. You deserve what you can afford. Q: I am only in my twenties once, shouldn’t I enjoy these years instead of living so frugal? A: …Oh, you want to have fun and blow your money… …I didn’t realize that… …! By all means, spend your money, have fun, buy cool things, and prove to the world what scientists have known for years. …That the human brain doesn’t fully develop until age 28. In a nutshell, if you ever want to be as financially strong as you possibly can, then learn to only purchase things that do not require you to go into debt. If you haven’t earned enough for it, then do without. Rule #1: Do not go into debt for anything, anyone, or any reason. Rule #2: Buy a car you can pay cash for and start saving for the next. Rule #3: Do not put anything on a credit card that you can’t pay off that month. Rule #4: Forget student loans. Work part time and go to a community college. Then try to earn scholarships for the remaining 2 years of college. Go to an in-state school you can afford. Trust me, I know many people that paid for their own school without student loans. Rule #5: When it comes time to buy a house. You may take out a loan for this, as long as it is no more than twenty (20) years. Let me finish up with a story of a young couple I know of. Jan and David married young and decided during college that they wanted to be debt free when they got out. So they both worked throughout their college years and drove piece of crap clunkers that did little more than get them from A to B. They found a little old lady who rented them a room above her garage for next to nothing. They also spent no money at all except to eat. Well, at around 22 they both graduated college and got good paying jobs. But unlike all their friends, they chose to continue lining in the garage and driving their clunkers. Furthermore, they continued to not spend money on anything except the basics of life and put the rest into savings. This went on until they were about 26 years old. Now came the time to do something with all that money they were “hoarding”. The two of them went out and bought 2 cars and a house in cash!! That’s right, at age 26, they owned both of their cars and their home outright!! So now, they were not saddled with debt and had a great deal of disposable income to spend having fun and playing while their friends struggle with their mounting debt. To paraphrase Financial Expert Dave Ramsey, “live frugal now like no one else, so later you can live financially free like no one else.” (FitMart is a licensed Engineer. He has also been a financial counselor, tax preparer, held a series 6 and 63 securities license, certified procurement officer, and business owner.) I was asked the other day what life advice I could give a twenty (20) year old.
…..Boy, where do you start ??..... Obviously this is not a short simple answer, so I have decided to create a four (4) part blog regarding the four (4) areas of health in our life that every young adult needs to know. It is primarily the decisions one makes in their twenties that dictates the life they will have in their middle aged and senior years. Tune in each week for the next part.
This is primarily a health and fitness site, so it stands to reason that I should begin our life lesson with, “physical health”. I ask the young reader to look around at the people they see in Walmart the next time they go shopping. Notice how most middle aged people are overweight, walking with canes, or suffering from an overall unhealthy life. This was not the case in the 1980’s and before, but is a recent phenomenon. What has changed?? Answer: Our eating habits and our activity level. The results of this change are a life filled with disease, depression, obesity, ailments, and fatigue. So my question to you is: Do you wish to share in that life, or do you wish to live life abundantly throughout your years. Believe it or not, the choices you make now will dictate the future you have. Arthritis, obesity, blood pressure, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, diabetes, and a host of other chronic ailments can often be directly linked to the health choices you began as a young adult. Many years ago when I was a young man, I got very excited when I bought my first respectable vehicle. It was beautiful full sized Ford Bronco. I was so proud of it. I could take this thing anywhere and through anything and it just kept chugging along. I had a “man’s” vehicle that was tough and I dogged it out. In addition, I hardly ever changed the oil!! It didn’t matter though, because it still drove just fine. When confronted by others about getting it serviced more often, I would simply reply, “I hardly ever service this truck and it still runs just great.” As you can well guess, this attitude did not have a happy ending. My pride and joy Bronco died at a very early age. This really caught me by surprise since I had always been able to slack off on service and drive it any old way with no consequences before. What I didn’t understand was that when a vehicle is new you can get away with that kind of treatment, but as the vehicle aged, the bad treatment it received when it was new began to show. By the time it was older, it was too late to correct the bad habits because the damage has already been done. By now you should be able to see the metaphor I am alluding too. Most of the chronic diseases of old age and even middle age are the result of slow damage done to the body beginning when you were young. Just like not changing the oil in a new car, every time you fail to do this, small micro damages are done to the engine that don’t affect its performance when it is still new. I am sure you have heard someone in your life say, “I can eat whatever I want and never gain weight”. Perhaps you have said that yourself. That mentality is a recipe to end up like one of our Walmart examples. Trust me when I say that the time is coming when you will give account for every bad health decision you ever made. So, what should a young man or woman be doing different.
Starting healthy habits now make life a lot more fun and bearable than trying to start them later in life. It is just like quitting smoking. It is a lot easier to quit when you are 25 than when you are 50 and the health results are far greater! So, take control of health now and be a blessing to both yourself and your future family. -Fit Mart The above question was recently asked of me in a quora forum. At first glance all I could think about was to say, “just do the program”, because insanity is just a follow the leader cardio workout. What else could you possibly say? Then, the more I thought, the more I realized there was a lot to say on the matter.
The insanity series suffers from two major downfalls. The first problem is that it is absolutely not for beginners. If you are just starting out, do not buy this program, because it is not for you. Shaun T has an easier program called the T25 for you to start with. (“easier” is a relative term). The second problem is that there is no good way to track your progress. When I say,”progress”, I do not mean weight loss or waist size, I mean charting if you worked as hard this week as you did last week. If I am a runner, I know I worked harder this week, because I ran my route faster than last week. If I am doing the P90X, I know I worked harder, because I did more reps or used heavier weight. So, how do track insanity, since it is just a follow the leader. Believe it or not, there is a way! It will take a little time to write up a chart though. First of all, you need to set a goal to work towards. I believe the ultimate goal of Insanity, is to complete the workout and keep up with Shaun T. (If you think you are going to put in this workout and be able keep up with Shaun, you are deluded!!) You are going to have to modify moves, take breaks, and go much slower. That is a fact!! The problem here is that if you do that, it becomes real easy or tempting to actually work less hard each week. That is why charting your progress is so important. So How Do We Chart It?
That is how you get the most out of the “insanity” workout series. The end result is that you can do everything in the workout just like Shaun T! (Just a heads up though… …you probably won’t accomplish that in the first 60 days) |