An Individual With Long Experience In Ignoring Good Advice

I have spent a good portion of my life not only ignoring good advice, but flat out rejecting it. As I've matured I have learned I am not unique in that respect - just about every person I have ever met has a "best advice I ever ignored" story, and a number of those stories were pretty awful, some even worse than my own.

Now, the ignored good advice that I'm referring to is not the ordinary, run of the mill "Don't eat fatty foods, stop drinking so much, smoking is going to kill you, stay in school," good advice. No, that's advice everybody hears, and falls into the category of "usual advice."

That is also the advice most people get from their parent(s). 

The ignored good advice I am talking about is advice you were given as an adult, and it came from a person who actually knew what they were talking about, and was not someone like a Teacher or a Doctor who was being paid to tell you things.

In my case, the best advice I have ever ignored has come from either 1) People I worked for or with, or 2) Relatives I met after I left the home of my childhood.

Here is an example of not just good, but great advice, that I ignored as an adult that came from my Uncle D. (one of my Father's brothers) whom I met after I joined the Air Force. I was eighteen, and had just graduated from basic when I met him. His advice to me as to what to do with the regular paychecks I was receiving as a member of the USAF: "Buy land."

Not just any land, BTW, but land that was available south of Denver, Colorado along the I-25 corridor. Construction was about to get underway on the community of Highlands Ranch, and there were 5 acre parcels for sale in the surrounding areas for less than the price of a used car.

My Uncle, who was the first member of my family I had ever met that had graduated from college, suggested that I form a partnership with either securely employed family members or friends who were in my age range, and purchase as much land in the area as we could. He suggested that with a few people contributing as little as $100.00 each a month, we would be able to raise a considerable down payment for the purchase of a number of parcels, and all we would have to do was keep making regular monthly payments until such a time when the land was either owned by the partnership, or we were able to sell the land at a nice profit. 

He was fairly emphatic in explaining how good an investment buying land in the area of Highlands Ranch would be long term, suggesting that I would see a considerable return on my investment in as few as "ten years."

Ten years was far from a "few years" for me at that age. I could not actually imagine where I would be or what I would be doing in ten years. Not at that age, and not in that grossly underdeveloped mental and emotional state.

So I ignored his advice and spent just about every dime I earned during my four-year AF hitch on women, alcohol, stereo equipment and record albums.

Not so great investments, those.