Life Lessons

      Hold onto your butts for this lightning newsflash: I don’t know everything. Sorry folks, but it’s true. As much as I’d love to lay claim to the title of “Supreme Know-it-all” it’s just not in the cards for me. Life has me almost as confused today as it did when I was in my mid-twenties. I’d say my teens, but we were all “know-it-alls” between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. I did, however, wake up to some very simple facts a long time ago. I haven’t always lived by them, but these are some principles that I have found to be true in my life. They ain’t nothing awe-inspiring but maybe y’all will agree they’re true in your life too. 

     God’s in control. Even when you think it should be you, it ain’t. When you find yourself thinking “I’ve got this” you’ve missed it. We can pound a square peg into a round hole, splinters and all, and call it “God’s Will” but that don’t make it so. Follow God’s simple words.He wrote a pretty good book about dealing with life’s problems. Love your neighbor (as yourself, even!), be kind, don’t be judgmental and hateful, and be good stewards of each other and the earth in general. Forgive one another. After all, we’re just human. 

     Everybody deserves to be treated with respect, love and kindness. Nobody is better than anybody else. If I disagree with you, it doesn’t mean that I think less of you. I still love you. I just don’t agree with you. This Old World makes such a big deal out of all the differences in nationalities, races, religions and the color of our skin. The Big Guy in the Sky made all of us and He just sees a soul with a body wrapped around it. As a famous author once said (and I paraphrase here) “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” It also doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor. We all are born naked and afraid into this world, and we’ll all leave it pretty much the same way. Let’s be nice to one another in between all that, okay? 

     Everything is politics, but politics ain’t everything. I have to remind myself of this quite often, lately. Humans like to divide themselves into little cliques that claim rightness and truth. We’re all a little wrong. Some more than others, but nobody’s perfect. In the end, we’re usually just trying to avoid being the wrongest. I know that ain’t a word, but ain’t ain’t proper English either and you didn’t care about me using that one. Recognizing how wrong I can be is one of my best character traits. It happens so often. 

     In quick succession, some self-explanatory truths. Don’t worry, be happy. Self-delusion is the key to happiness. You’ll be okay. Rub some dirt on it. But did you die? Where there’s life, there’s hope. Never give up. Don’t sweat the petty stuff and don’t pet the sweaty stuff. Seriously though, most of it really is the petty stuff. So don’t sweat it.  

     So there you are. Some things I’ve learned in my nearly six decades. At least the things that I try to live by. Maybe I’m not a “know-it-all” but I think I just might be a “know-some-of-it”. Doesn’t roll off the tongue like butter, but I’m okay with it.  At least I ain’t one of those “know-nothins”.

God bless Y’all.