1) Don’t marry out of insecurity. That means you should not marry someone out of fear that no one else would ever have you. Marriage is a lifelong proposal and the one you marry MUST be someone you are able to be one with. An old country song advises, “If it Don’t Come Easy, Better Let it Go.”
2) Virginity until Marriage Has its advantages. Today in 2011, I see a sea of people raising families that did not come into existence by conviction, planning, preparing and praying. Almost all the families I see came into existence because unmarried, uncommitted people had sex and got pregnant. Their decision to stay together and raise a family was not the result of preparing and planning, but was a matter of making the best of a bad situation. And the state of the family in 2011 is proof that this method is frought with difficulty and failure. And failure produces hurt and unhealthy children; our citizens of our future.
3) Live Your Life. Don’t Settle for your life living YOU! If I had it to do over again, I would start at an early age and start putting real goals out in front of me and making a life plan to achieve those goals. Don’t just wander through your life aimlessly. Who are you? What are you about? What makes you tick? What are your interests? Incorporate all those things into a plan that gives you a chance to REALIZE your needs and desires.
4) Have some conviction in life. And have your convictions tethered to time tested convictions, not just the latest silly fad that has floated by. How about tethering your convictions to the Bible? There’s a good anchor! Learn not only from the One who made you, learn from 6,000 years of human history instead of some zany liberal college professor in your college classroom.
5) Learn from your elders. New and good ideas are fine, but life isn’t about trying to outthink the entire history of mankind on planet Earth or outhinking God. The latest generation is really not as brilliant as they fancy themselves. Inexperience plus zeal does not equal wisdom!
6) Get in the habit of saving money. On the balance sheet of a business, the value of the company is equal to the assets minus the liabilities. That means that if you have a $150,000 house that you owe $120,000 on, 3 credit cards each with $10,000 on it, a checking account with $1,000 in it and a line of credit balance of $1,000, well my friend, you aren’t worth a dime even if you do make $30/hour. You have lots of “stuff” but your net worth is exactly ZERO. And zero net worth isn’t going to do much for you when you get too old to work and have nothing to lean on.
7) Get out of debt. Carry only the least amount of debt necessary. Debt is a drag on your life. The Bible tells us that the debtor is slave to the lender. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a slave to anyone.
8 ) Live within your means in a deliberate and organized way. That means develop a budget that fits your abilities and needs to the best of your ability and stick to it. The alternative is continual financial pressure on your life.
9) Assess your ability to deal with reality and live according to reality. I know a person who has never had a fulltime job by choice. This person was also victimized by a close friend who spent their life savings. The result of the loss of money and the lack of income eventually led to this person losing their home from inability to maintain the mortgage. The lesson this person took from the experience (accompanied by much anger) was that the ones he/she lost the house to were crooks because it was his/her home. Of course, this is NOT the lesson of this tragic experience. But it is a good illustration of someone who does not live in reality. Don’t lie to yourself. Face reality and make decisions to deal with the reality, not the fantasy in your head because reality will always win, especially if you make decisions based on fantasy.