Dear Ricky,
Just wanted to give you some tested advices as you move on to San Diego and re-start a new chapter in your life. I know this prospect is exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time; but, I have no doubt that you and Jenn, given your talents, attitudes, and love for each other, will do just fine. Please take these advices as a golf professional player would take it from his coach: the coach is no better at the game but he has knowledge, experience, vantage point, or just plain nosy. Anyway, I digress, so on to the advices:
1. The key to a happy home is a happy wife, or a happy girlfriend. Remember the story of the eight-cow bride and its powerful lesson, or the line from the Ben Stiller movie, "Happy wife, happy life!"
2. Face your problems, projects, chores, and challenges asap. Procrastination only prolongs your agony. It also makes you cram and when that happens, you're prone to mistakes and shoddy work. I know, I've been there many times. Tackling those tasks early on creates room for adjustments and fine-polishing that make you hot-shit. It also avoids ripple effects, escalations, and FUBARs. My story on the crooked coconut trees would fit nicely here. I know you and your siblings love that story.
3. You are not the chef of your house. That distinction belongs to the woman of the house. Don't ever claim to be it or act like it or you are forever doomed. You are the sous chef and the buss boy. Embrace those roles and perform them diligently and very well. A clean kitchen is a reflection of a good sous chef and it makes the chef happy, which is what you want. Refer to advice #1.
4. Answer and return phone calls, text messages, and emails. When you don't, people think they're insignificant and they start feeling bad, sad, angry, vindictive, suicidal. You don't want others to do that to you so don't do it to them. Isn't it ironic that people demand unlimited service from their cell phone providers but hardly use them?
5. Play golf as much as you can. It's the best way to decompress and there's no other sport that imitates life and provides as many life lessons as much as golf. "Play it as it lies" is one. "Wash your balls often" is another. Besides, you, who got him interested in the game, haven't beaten your old man in a long time. You need all the practice you can get, sonny boy.
6. Always strive to be a good listener. To be a good listener, one must open his mind, prepare to listen, and put away or tune out the distractions like gadgets, noises, internal thoughts, or a hairy mole on the speaker's philtrum. Don't stray away from what the speaker is saying, like what you're doing right now being fixated on the hairy mole and asking yourself "What the F is a philtrum?" Avoid butting in and oneupmanship. To be a good listener requires practice. We all need to be good listeners, they're becoming scarce.
g. And last but not least - know what love is and live by it. Saint Paul - you know, the guy who toured the countries around the Med, attracted large groupies, got incarcerated, and wrote letters to his peeps - has the best definition of love:
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. It is not proud, it is not rude. It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs; love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres."
