I was on the phone with my grandmother the other day while I wrote last week’s article. We chatted for a while about the New Year. It was during that chat that she decided I should spread the wisdom of my late Great-Grandma Bartron, so my readers could start off the new year with some inspiration.

I was never old enough for this wisdom to be imparted to me directly -- I was eight years old when she passed. These “Grandma Bartron-isms” are still used by my family to this day. This is advice from a woman who grew up during the Great Depression and lived in a world decidedly different than the one we live in now. Yet her advice still remains relevant, which is a testament to her wisdom.

Here are six of her more famous “Grandma Bartron-isms.”

"Smile, agree and do as you please."

This marital advice was given to the women of my family, whether it was prenuptial or thirty years into a marriage. This advice is very contradictory to the marital standards that she grew up with. She encouraged the women of my family to have a say in their marriage, in the way she was unable to. “My grandpa probably thought he was the boss in the relationship,” my mother remarked, laughing. She might not have been outspoken in her marriage, but she still had power.

"If you stay in bed, drink liquids, and watch TV your cold will last a week; if you get up and go to school it will last seven days -- so get going!"

"A walk is as good as a nap."

In the eyes of my great-grandmother, exercise and physical activity was the key to preventing and curing many ailments. She was a very active woman, who went on walks or swam every day and these quotes were her kind way of telling us to get off our butts and stay active.

"When you’re 20, you care what everyone thinks about you. When you’re 40, you don’t care what anyone thinks about you. And when you’re 60, you realize that no one was thinking about you! They were all thinking about themselves!”

Grandma Bartron was known for her brutal honesty, which is represented in the above saying. This is something I think all college kids should keep in mind. It's easy to be self-conscious of yourself when you are doing a lot on your own for the first time.

Yet according to Grandma Bartron, everyone is too worried about themselves to worry about you. I will remember that this semester when I take my oral communications class, or the next time I sleep through my alarm and have to go to class in my pajamas.

"One [child] takes all your time and all your money, and that’s all two or three or four can do!"

This phrase was actually a bit of advice she received from a friend of her husband's, and it resonated with her so much that she adopted the phrase as her own. This is what Grandma Bartron would say when someone claimed she didn’t have enough money to have another child. Grandma Bartron had four children, and she believed that no matter what you were going to be broke and tired -- no matter if you had one child or four.

She herself loved babies and encouraged everyone to have them so she could spend time with them. She worked as a volunteer nurse in the baby nursery when she was 76 so that she could be the person to take the first pictures of my cousins when they were born.

"This too shall pass."

This phrase is not specific to my great-grandmother, but she verbalized it enough to become considered part of her vocabulary. It makes sense that a woman who grew up during the Great Depression would have this mindset. This phrase was used long before her time and will continue to be said for generations to come.

As I try to navigate college, this phrase will stick in the back of my mind. I’m sure she would have said it to me, had she lived to see me off to college.