The Library

How old will be you be in seven years if you don’t go to medical school (or fulfill any other ambition)? – Pauline Phillips (“Dear Abby”)

Abigail Van Buren, who penned the long-running “Dear Abby” advice columns from 1956 until her death in 2013, was actually a Jewish woman named Pauline Phillips from Sioux City, Iowa. One of her most famous pieces of advice was given to “Unfulfilled in Philly”, who wrote that he would love to be a doctor, but if he were to go back to college and get his degree, then go to medical school, then do an internship, and finally practice medicine, it would take him seven years and he’d be 43 years old. Dear Abby’s advice was priceless: How old will you be in seven years if you don’t do all those things?

Let's take this priceless lesson to heart. It may be difficult to change. It may even take us years of ups and downs to finally get it right. But in seven years, you'll be seven years older either way. Will you be finally past this by then or not? It's up to you.

Start TODAY.

Click here for a newspaper clipping of a "Dear Abby Column" from April 16, 1960 that has two interesting Q&A's. To quote the first one:

"You can't help anyone unless HE wants to be helped. It takes a combination of "will" power, "won't" power and "Supreme" power." -- Abby