Wisdom
For months, I was once the only kid in a room full of dying older people. I was a captive audience of those needing to share wisdom.
Now, I am an old fart, and here is the wisdom I remember, and I am sharing it with you.
Here are three thoughts I distinctly remember being told.
Don’t regret anything you do,
and do not do anything you would regret
Given two choices, choose the one you will regret the least.
And this important wisdom.....
After a life of work and ambition, all you were left with, all that you can have with you in a waiting room in a cancer clinic in Tijuana, are stories.
My 8 year old mind, and memory, wasn’t prepared for everything I heard in that waiting room. Some that follows I may of heard in that room, but all of the following is in that spirit, and it all rings of Truth
It isn’t what happens to you, it’s how you react to it.
Don’t just do something, stand there.
Life is a banquet, but most people are starving.
The past is fiction, the future is fantasy.
Worrying is like paying interest on a debt you don’t owe.
Real life is made up of relationships
You would be amazed at how seldom people think of you.
It is forever verse thus
If we are lucky, we live long enough to be sick.
All modesty is false.
Don’t let school get in the way of education.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over
and expecting a different result
Let assholes be assholes.
Don’t smarten up a chump
Wrestling with a pig leaves you covered in mire, and the pig likes it.
I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.
Money is like manure, it only has value if you spread it around
The early bird gets the worm
the second mouse gets the cheese.
Don’t accept secondhand opinions.
… just like real life…
Don’t feel shy about doing the right thing.
A heart is not judged by how much you love,
but by how much you are loved by others.
You can’t judge the depth of the well by the handle of the pump
Don’t judge someone because they sin differently than you.
Life is a terminal disease.
No one has power over you that you didn’t give them.
You can’t be made to feel inferior without your consent
Everyone can be heroic when they stand up to bad luck,
but to see who they are, give them power.
As long as there is one other person on earth, you won’t get your way.
Ben Rosenthal
Pile up enough tomorrows, you’ll find you collected
nothing but a lot of yesterdays.
Mistakes have more value than doing nothing.
She asked of him, make me a ring that will restrain me in prosperity,
and comfort me in poverty.
He engraved within, “ It will pass “
In the end, no one wished they had gone to work more.
From children to the elderly, we all have the same amount of time left to live, today.
Sufficient for the day if it’s on trouble
Only the boring get bored.
Yours, lovers, and glasses of wine, should never be counted.
It’s not the load that breaks you, but how you carry it
The straw that breaks the camels back.
Arrogance diminishes wisdom.
The first step to correcting a mistake is patience
Sometimes, excepting help is harder than offering it.
All you have to do is ask.
Attachment is not compassion
Easy isn’t always simple.
If you ignore the past, the present is cheapened and in the future is jeopardized
Searching for the truth is easy. Accepting the truth is hard.
Revenge is a confession of pain.
We live eternally, not by living a long life,
but by living the values that are eternal.
Evil is not born, it is taught.
Balance is found when you face your guilt.
The path of ignorance is guided by fear.
Life is not a paragraph, death is no parenthesis.
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and they all stink.
Look before you leap.
He who hesitates is lost.
Make new mistakes.
It is more important to be interested than to be interesting.
If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem
Fear is a mind killer
It’s always the right time to do the right thing.
Bad luck never comes alone
Don’t be frightened, it’s all a show
Everyone has a plan, until the moment they are struck in the jaw.
A promise is a prison, the person the promise is made to is the jailer
Ambition is merely comparison.
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to profoundly sick society.
The ability to observe without evaluating the highest form of intelligence.
A wise man goes when you can, a fool, and he must
Don’t be a schmuck, be a mensch.
The road of life is always under construction
Life is hell, and then you die. But remember the moments of happiness and joy
If someone is acting badly, don't ask what's wrong with them,
ask what happened to them
Same as it ever was
Nothing really matters, but it is more interesting to live like everything does
See the miracle in the common
50% of the population is under average intelligence
Everything in moderation, including excess, including moderation
Striving for perfection is the enemy of good
Nature doesn’t contradict wisdom
A smooth sea never made a good sailor
Don’t pass an opportunity to pee
Don’t chase a streetcar that won’t stop for you
Don’t run for a bus, there will be another
Everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it
Most of the big mistakes in life come from assuming that
your assumptions are correct
This is the way
Metaphors be with you
What? Me worry?
You would be amazed at how seldom people think of you
They don’t make yardsticks any longer
Butterflies aren’t what they used to be
Paper doesn’t grow on trees
My brain feels bruised with numb surprise