Assignment 19: Ethan Petraitis

Most of the advice we receive in our lives is unsolicited and quite frankly inane.  However, every once in a while we get a real gem and changes our trajectory.  What is the one piece of advice given to you that has stuck?  Explain its effect.

One piece of advice I've received from my Grandfather that really stuck with me for life was that “every man should have a good set of tools”. This advice came from a lifelong mechanic and race car driver, and was told to a kid who loved nothing more than woodworking and tinkering with things so needless to say, it stuck. Every summer, I would go back to Long Island and my grandfather would give me as many tools as my family could fit into our small hatchback on our long journey back to Lexington. There were times when I had to hold tools on my lap for the whole seven hour trip because they couldn't fit anywhere else in the car. It was all worth it though, my Grandfather had some amazing tools that I would never be able to afford by myself, and he just gave them away to me since he knew that they were good tools and they wouldn't break on me in a time of need. I was told that it’s better to spend $80 on a socket wrench that you can hand down to your grandchildren than to spend $30 on a wrench and have it break right when you need it. He taught me that there are some things in life that are worth spending on, and that really stuck with me.