Words to Live By

“If you don’t take care of your shit, you ain’t gonna have it.”

Noah Nelson
2 min readMar 5, 2021

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Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash

When my dad was in grade school, he left his jacket behind at a local pizza parlor. Realizing this, his father turned the car around, went back inside the restaurant, and retrieved the jacket.

He gave the jacket back to my dad and said:

“If you don’t take care of your shit, you ain’t gonna have it.”

Over the years when I’ve forgetting items behind, my own dad has always told me what his dad told him.

It had made me remember my belongings more, but the words spoke to me in a different way. The words are much more than leaving your belongings behind.

Take Control of Your Life

“If you don’t take care of your shit, you ain’t gonna have it,” my grandpa said.

In other words, if you don’t take care of your career and life, you ain’t gonna have it. The best part? You can interpret this quote in many ways.

You need to take care of your life.

Where do you want to see yourself in five, ten years? What do you want to have accomplished? Who is in your inner circle?

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Noah Nelson

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alum | Author of “Life: A Collection of Short Stories” and “Dana and Me” | Featured Writer on ILLUMINATION (23x).