The Best Advice Our Elders Ever Gave Us

My uncle reminded me of how badly I’d wanted to be a writer and to be adventurous. He called the storm an “opportunity of a lifetime” for a reporter. And he told me to focus. “Go find your safety,” he said. “Then suck it up and start composing.”

Think of the best advice you’ve received. Chances are it came from someone older and wiser, who knows a thing or two about getting through tough times. You’ve probably channeled it during the pandemic—just as I’ve done with Uncle Sidney’s guidance.

As we close out this toughest of years, I asked readers to share the best hard-times advice they ever got from an older family member or friend. Here it is.

Think positive.

Claudia Rosen, a licensed clinical social worker in Evanston, Ill., says her mother taught her that she has control over her mood. Her mom was an English teacher who often quoted Shakespeare: “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” “I was raised to believe that even when I don’t have control over external events, such as the pandemic, my attitude can significantly affect my experience,” says Ms. Rosen.

Anne Smith, a music teacher in Jupiter, Fla., recalled her mother’s advice on how to cope with uncertainty. Years ago while her mom was frosting a cake, Ms. Smith worried she would run out of icing. Her mother—who raised nine children on her husband’s teacher’s salary—replied: “Always proceed as if there will be enough.” “It’s a brave and positive way to face ‘what-if’ situations,” says Ms. Smith.

Focus on what matters.

Tamara Wilson’s grandmother taught her to simplify. After Ms. Wilson’s Seattle marketing firm lost business this year, her mother passed along her grandmother’s Depression-era recommendations: “Buy only things you need. Treat yourself once in a while with an ice cream cone or beer. (They’re affordable.) Use the library. Give gifts of food for the holidays. Appreciate the day, no matter how difficult.”

Manage your emotions.

Orville Bach, a Yellowstone National Park ranger and retired professor, says his mother taught him how to ease tension in a relationship: “Go out and water the garden.” Rather than take her frustrations out on her husband when she was upset—say, when he tracked mud in the house—she tended to her plants. It’s been helpful advice for the quarantine, when “we’re cooped up more with just our spouse, frustrated over restrictions, and it’s easy to be ‘chippy’ or nag at the very people we love most,” says Mr. Bach, who lives in Bozeman, Mont.

Look to the future.

Charise Olson, an executive director for a nonprofit in Cleburne, Texas, says her grandfather taught her to think long-term. When she was 20, he gave her advice as she decided between staying in her stable job or moving several states away for a fun temporary one. He asked her to consider what she would most value when she looked back years later: having a fun new experience or sticking with stability. “As I faced incredible challenges around work due to the pandemic, I thought of him and the idea of pursuing the option that would leave me with the fewest regrets,” says Ms. Olson.

Kelly Miller, a retired teacher in Platte City, Mo., says her grandmothers taught her to imagine that “tomorrow will be better.” They both “lost everything” in the Depression, yet remained positive. She’s followed their example during difficult times, such as job searches or parenting challenges. “The cornerstone of their advice is hope,” Ms. Miller says. “If you can manifest hope, then you can have the strength and the fortitude to carry on.”

The family friend whom Davia Temin considers her “second mother” has often advised her that “nothing lasts forever.” The friend told her stories of the polio epidemic, when she had to avoid swimming pools and large gatherings and stay indoors more than she liked. “Her message was that the world returned to normal,” says Ms. Temin, who owns a crisis management consultancy in New York. “And the best thing is to stay relentlessly focused on the upside of the future, and what you can accomplish in it.”

Find joy.

Marcy Clark’s grandmother showed her how memories can lift you up. This summer, while packing up her New York apartment to move home to California, Ms. Clark found a transcript of a lecture her grandmother gave to her church. She talked about her travels and career as a nurse, but also about losing her mother at age 11, her little brother, most of her possessions during the Depression, and a son to AIDS. There was love as well as sadness in the story, and Ms. Clark read it crying in bed. “It helped me see that you can experience the worst loss imaginable and still there can be joy, adventure, success and happiness in your life,” says Ms. Clark, who owns a public relations company.

Ken Page’s father, a Holocaust survivor, taught him to find happiness even in the darkest times. Throughout his life, his dad told a story of when he was a child in Lithuania in the late 1930s. One day an old friend came to visit the family, and told them: “Now comes a time of great joy.” Someone asked what he meant and he said: “Every day that we are safe there will be joy. Every time we can eat and our children can eat there will be joy. Every day that we survive, moving us one step closer to freedom, there will be joy.”

“My dad survived a concentration camp, and that message was part of what helped him,” says Mr. Page, a licensed clinical social worker in New York.

Write to Elizabeth Bernstein at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at EBernsteinWSJ