rules of life Archives
March 05, 2007
Bank Account
This was forwarded to me by Iris, Fern's mom.
A 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud man, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o'clock, with his hair fashionably coifed and shaved perfectly, even though he is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today. His wife of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, he smiled sweetly when told his room was ready.As he maneuvered his walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of his tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on his window.
"I love it," he stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.
"Mr. Jones, you haven't seen the room; just wait."
"That doesn't have anything to do with it," he replied. "Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged, it's how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it.
"It's a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do.
Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I'll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I've stored away. Just for this time in my life.
Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw from what you've put in.
So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories! Thank you for your part in filling my Memory bank. I am still depositing."
Remember the five simple rules to be happy:
1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.
Posted at 10:07 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Children , Good Advice , Notes to Self , rules of life
September 30, 2006
Rules of Life - 1
"25 things you'll need to know after high school", by Emery Styron, Publisher, Mount Pleasant (Iowa) News (date unknown)
1. Don't sweat the small stuff, and remember, most stuff is small.2. The most boring word in any language is "I."
3. Nobody is indispensable, especially you.
4. Life is full of surprises. Just say "never" and you'll see.
5. People are more important than things.
6. Persistence will get you almost anything eventually.
7. Nobody can make you happy. Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
8. There's so much bad in the best of us and so much good in the worst of us that it doesn't behoove any of us to talk about the rest of us.
9. Live by what you trust, not by what you fear.
10. Character counts. Family matters.
11. Eating out with small children isn't worth it, even if someone else is buying.
12. If you wait to have kids until you can afford them, you probably never will.
13. Baby kittens don't begin to open their eyes for six weeks after birth. Men generally take about 26 years. (Ed. note: Some take 35 years.)
14. The world would run a lot smoother if more men knew how to dance.
15. Television ruins more minds than drugs.
16. Sometimes there is more to gain in being wrong than right.
17. Life is so much simpler when you tell the truth.
18. People who do the world's real work don't usually wear neckties.
19. A good joke beats a pill for a lot of ailments.
20. There are no substitutes for fresh air, sunshine and exercise.
21. A smile is the cheapest way to improve your looks, even if your teeth are crooked.
22. May you live life so there is standing room only at your funeral.
23. Mothers always know best, but sometimes fathers know, too.
24. Forgive yourself, your friends and your enemies. You're all only human.
25. If you don't do anything else in life, love someone and let someone love you.
Posted at 07:17 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: rules of life
November 05, 2005
Rules of Life - 3
"High School grads: One last reading assignment: 25 things you should know that you probably didn't learn in school," by Dayle Shockley, Jewish World Review, June 5, 2002
As you make plans for your future, here are 25 things you should know that you probably didn't learn in school:1. You have the power to keep a positive attitude, no matter what your circumstances are.
2. It never is right to do the wrong thing.
3. Telling lies is exhausting. Telling the truth will set you free, and even an ugly truth is better than a pretty lie.
4. Self-discipline is the key to success.
5. The Creator wants to be part of your daily life, but you have to open the door.
6. No day is more important than today, for tomorrow isn't here nor promised.
7. No matter what your vocation may be, you will have to answer to someone.
8. Marriage is a sacred covenant between a man and a woman and shouldn't be entered into lightly.
9. Don't use a handicap as an excuse to fail but as a driving force for succeeding.
10. Really listen to the old folks. They are wellsprings of wisdom.
11. People you thought you could depend on will let you down.
12. Living dangerously will catch up with you. And when it does, don't blame the Creator for your troubles.
13. No amount of book knowledge can make you a person of integrity.
14. Don't run from suffering. There are valuable lessons in life that can't be learned by any other means.
15. The most glorious things in life are free.
16. Never step on other people in order to get to the top.
17. Trying to be someone other than yourself is a strenuous exercise.
18. Don't put all of your energies into building palaces and empires; it only takes a moment for them to be ashes at your feet. Instead, build memories with the people you love, for memories always are with you.
19. The more things you acquire, the more problems you will have.
20. Have an opinion. The middle of the road will get you run over.
21. As you grow older, make sure you grow up as well. Nothing is more pathetic than an immature middle-aged human being.
22. Every choice you make will bring with it a reward or a consequence. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not even next year. But it will come just the same.
23. Make time in your world for silence - time in which to think, to dream and to listen to that still small voice.
24. At the close of the day, capture some of your feelings and activities on paper, even if the words sound ridiculous. Consider it the writing of your story for future generations.
25. Live each day as if it were your last, because one day it will be.
Posted at 09:22 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: rules of life
October 03, 2005
Rules of Life - 2
Rules of Life, (author unknown)
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it.
Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from your parents' generation try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades, and they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Posted at 02:49 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: rules of life
August 17, 2005
What teenagers think and feel
"I think that overall, we allow - hell, encourage - a very disproportionate and inappropriate level of importance to be attached to what teenagers think and feel.Contrary to the accepted wisdom out there, I have thought for a long time now that kids today probably should get a lot less attention, not more. Of course, this doesn't apply to poor pathetic ghetto kids whose parents barely even acknowledge their existence at all. But these school mass-murders aren't being done by those kids anyway. It's the kids who come from comfortable homes, whose parents are at least somewhat high achievers, and who have at least some potential for success in life themselves who are doing the killing out there, or at least the non-gang-related media-spectacular killing anyway.
I don't buy the argument that it's all because Mom and Dad are too career-obsessed and don't make enough time to throw the old baseball around in the backyard with little Johnny, or to "just talk." Nor do I think it has anything to do with Johnny's lowered expectations for his own life brought on by (insert one): a) the threat of nuclear war (an oldie but goodie); b) the perpetually-struggling economy; c) the destruction of our natural environment; d) general cultural malaise and lack of purpose or direction.
I think it has a lot more to do with the fact that so much of our culture is geared towards making Johnny feel as though he's the "hope for the future," that as soon as he or she graduates high school the world will be depending on his wisdom and vision to correct all the wrongs that all of us muddle-headed or greedy adults have been so unable or unwilling to rectify; that we're all just waiting for little Johnny to walk across that stage, grab that diploma, and get busy showing us what we've been doing wrong all these years. That's a lot of pressure to be putting on kids who basically just want to get drunk, hang out, and cruise chicks.
The idea, promulgated by the "Rock the Vote" folks and plenty of others, that the youth of today is just bursting with bold new ideas that We All Should Be Heeding is just a load of over-indulgent crap.
After all, take a look at some of the wonderful things that have resulted from excessive pandering to the youth market: Zima. Marilyn Manson. Bill Clinton. Stupid little Japanese pickup trucks slammed to the ground with neon around the bottom of them and dopey-looking Matchbox-car wheels. Greenpeace. Limp Bizkit. Rap music in every commercial you ever hear. Dennis Rodman. Pants that don't fit. Sneakers that look like something Neil Armstrong might've worn to walk on the moon.
My advice to the youth of today: lighten up. Enjoy what you can and deal with what you can't. Life is short, but it's also quite long too. And nothing is ever as important as your high-school guidance counselor says it is - not even you."
By Mike Hendrix at ColdFury.com, April 27, 2002
Posted at 02:57 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Children , Good Advice , rules of life , students