What have I learned at 65

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get, what you've always got."

reply to post by grayeagle


Thanks for your wisdom Greyeagle, I enjoyed reading your words of wisdom.

reply to post by grayeagle


I would add,
There are those that talk about it,and those that do it.Those that talk are too busy talking to get it done.Those that do are too busy doing to talk about it.Be a doer.

reply to post by dimithae


Wouldnt a fair mix of the two be better? Talking leads to discussion, which in turn can lead to exchanging of ideas and new perspectives.

reply to post by Bornin66

A friend of mine told me of how his grandfather once told him to learn from others mistakes because you will never live long enough to make them all yourself.

reply to post by needlenight


I agree with you. It takes a balance of talking and doing. Without discussion it is difficult to learn from others. I believe wisdom is a progression. First we have information and if we carefully consider it, it can become knowledge. If we use that knowledge to make informed decisions it can only move on to become wisdom if we realize how it applies to us and to others. I believe if we fail to share with others we demonstrate a lack of wisdom.

I want to take the time to thank all of you who have shared so much good stuff. I am committed to be a lifelong learner and I have learned from all of you! The challenge for all of us is to implement wisdom in our lives. As human beings that is a big challenge! I believe wisdom dictates that we are kind to ourselves and recognize we aren't always going to pull it off. I never had a real mentor in my life so I had to glean from books, teachers and movies. Songwriters have also been an inspiration to me. One of my favorite bits of wisdom is this line, " happiness is not getting what you want, but wanting what you have."

reply to post by needlenight


Nah, we need more people willing to stop talking and start doing.You should be able to look around you and see what needs to be done and do it.

reply to post by dimithae


But the ability to talk and convince others to help me do what needs to be done, would lead to what needs being done, being done quicker? Good communication and teamwork is not something to shy away from. You cant do everything alone.

reply to post by grayeagle


I have learned in my life that balance is the key to peace and happiness.I have learned that a healthy mind only occupies a healthy body and love is the greatest achievement in anybodies life.I have also learned to be patient,to believe in god and to not take myself and the others too seriously and to laugh at myself every once in a while...I have learned that no matter how much I make,it doesn't worth doing the job I hate ..I have learned that "right now" is the only real life experience we have and the rest is just an illusion in our minds...I have learned to eat healthy and sleep enough if I want to be up and alive for my 80'th birthday.I am still trying to love people more and to exercise more tho.

What I've learned:

Most of the time, worrying is just fear of an outcome that will only occur 0.00001% of the time....

As a younger man I was out in the midday heat in the middle of July having a conversation with an older gentleman and the conversation wound it's way around to the weather. I said, " Man I will be glad when October gets here and it cools down ". At which point he looked at me very seriously and said, "Young man do not wish the days away". He has since passed away and I am not only nearing his age at the time but I have a great understanding of just what he meant.

We grow to soon old and too late smart.

There is so much more to life than what we are taught.

The discontent that surfaced during my late teens years was the dawning of that realization. After a quite successful, healthy, and happy childhood, there suddenly arose a profound sadness and sense of aloneness that I did not know how to deal with. Family and friends did not understand, and counselors told me I should count my many blessings (in order to discount what I felt and sensed). I tried to explain to them that I knew I was lucky, talented, smart, pretty, and blessed by a comfortable life, but the sadness and aloneness ran deeper than all of that and in fact had nothing to do with it.

Without a mentor who understood what was happening within me, I discounted my feelings and intuition as imagination and idealism, and believed the doctors' diagnosis of depression and anxiety. That brought me into the world of doing what everyone else was doing - partying (and addictions) and eventually getting sucked into society's expectations and programming - a steady job, family, a house, social groups, etc. - in order to feel normal. Of course, it didn't work. The sense that there is something more to life subsided as it got crowded out by busy daily, mundane life, but it kept resurfacing now and then over the years.

Today, 40+ years later, I see and understand that there wasn't anything wrong with me back in my teens when I felt as I did. The only thing "wrong" about it was that no one explained to me that what I was experiencing was an awakening to a deeper aspect of life and self than society us (or even wants us to be aware of). Also, there was no guidance on how to live the dual life - an "in this world but not of it" sort of thing, living a normal life while also accepting this inner, quiet, deep thinker part of me.

What I've learned is that there is nothing wrong with how I see life. I also learned (the hard way) to be much quieter about it.

A woman is not property, and husbands who think otherwise are living in a dreamworld.
Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity.

When the fox gnaws -- smile!

Take care of the cojones and the frijoles will take care of themselves. Try to have getaway money -- but don't be fanatic about it.

Another ingredient for a happy marriage: budget the luxuries first!

And still another -- See to it that she has her own desk -- then keep your hands off it!

And another -- in a family argument, if it turns out you are right -- apologize at once!

Formal courtesy between husband and wife is even more important than it is between strangers.

Don't try to have the last word. You might get it.

Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well.

The shamans are forever yacking about their snake-oil "miracles." I prefer the Real McCoy -- a pregnant woman.

If the universe has any purpose more important than topping a woman you love and making a baby with her hearty help, I've never heard of it.

Dear, don't bore him with trivia or burden him with your past mistakes. The happiest way to deal with a man is never to tell him anything he does not need to know.

Rub her feet.

Always tell her she is beautiful, especially if she is not.

Money is the sincerest of all flattery. Women love to be flattered.
So do men.

A man does not insist on physical beauty in a woman who builds up his morale. After a while he realizes that she is beautiful -- he just hadn't noticed it at first.

A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.

"All's fair in love and war" -- what a contemptible lie!

It impossible for a man to love his wife wholeheartedly without loving all women somewhat. I suppose that the converse must be true of women.

The more you love, the more you can love -- and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just.

Everybody lies about sex.

Darling, a true lady takes off her dignity with her clothes and does her whorish best. At other times you can be as modest and dignified as your persona requires.

Men are more sentimental than women. It blurs their thinking.

"I CAME, I SAW, SHE CONQUERED." (The original Latin seems to have been garbled.)

A whore should be judged by the same criteria as other professionals offering services for pay -- such as dentists, lawyers, hairdressers, physicians, plumbers, etc. Is she professionally competent? Does she give good measure? Is she honest with her clients?
It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And enormously higher than that of professors.

Sex should be friendly. Otherwise stick to mechanical toys; it's more sanitary.

Copulation is spiritual in essence -- or it is merely friendly exercise. On second thought, strike out "merely." Copulation is not "merely" -- even when it is just a happy pastime for two strangers. But copulation at its spiritual best is so much more than physical coupling that it is different in kind as well as in degree.
The saddest feature of homosexuality is not that it is "wrong" or "sinful" or even that it cannot lead to progeny -- but that is more difficult to reach through it this spiritual union. Not impossible -- but the cards are stacked against it.
But -- most sorrowfully -- many people never achieve spiritual sharing even with the help of male-female advantage; they are condemned to wander through life alone.

It is better to copulate than never.

Whenever women have insisted on absolute equality with men, they have invariably wound up with the dirty end of the stick. What they are and what they can do makes them superior to men, and their proper tactic is to demand special privileges, all the traffic will bear. they should never settle merely for equality. For women, "equality" is a disaster.

Masturbation is cheap, clean, convenient, and free of any possibility of wrongdoing -- and you don't have to go home in the cold.
But it's lonely.

Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.

Touch is the most fundamental sense. A baby experiences it, all over, before he is born and long before he learns to use sight, hearing, or taste, and no human being ever ceases to need it. Keep your children short on pocket money -- but long on hugs.

Never crowd youngsters about their private affairs -- sex especially. When they are growing up, they are nerve ends all over, and resent (quite properly) any invasion of their privacy. Oh, sure, they'll make mistakes -- but that's their business, not yours. (You made your own mistakes, did you not?)


Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.

To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods.






^ I defer to Lazarus Long

Mike

My favorite, so far:

Misery is optional.

and

Be carefull of what you think, because it is the exact thing you'll get.

...in other words, be optimistic, look at the bright side, help and give. Don't give up hope. Smile inside and out.
It is a choice.

My favourite toast that I always say when I'm at a social gathering with friends:

"Here's to it and from it and to it again. If you ever get to it, do it, because you'll never get to it to do it again."



It makes for a great motto in life.

Some interesting general advice on things. I however am not that age yet, dont know if there is a limit to what age you have to be to post stuff on this thread. Some of you seem hella old, like bingo playing old. I could probably put up pages of wise old stuff to.

But I have learned long ago that saying something, and doing something are two completely different things when and if the moment actually comes, and if you actually find yourself in that place and time again by some wayward chance or miracle. And the only thing I have really learned in my 30 or so years, or however old I am. Is that! I just may have to completely unlearn everything that I learned. Though thankfully for me I learned badly and half assed, so it shouldn't be that hard.

And then I remind myself, about what I said about doing something and saying something. What I am saying is yes its going to be hard, bordering on almost dam impossible. Truly I am like hella wise and stuff.