Some Things I've Learned In My 74 Years

Here are some things I have learned about life in my 74 years. 

LEARN TO KNOW YOURSELF

For me, one of my overall philosophies of life is my blood type - B-positive! Don’t be a downer! Look on the bright side! Find some good in almost everything – except evil. 

Get to know yourself. Don’t be afraid of it. God made you who you are, and there is no one else exactly like you. Learn to appreciate how God made you.

Learn from others - always. You can save yourself much time, energy, and money by learning from others mistakes as well as their successes. 

Learn about nature of freedom. Freedom can be exhilarating, and true freedom can also be dangerous. Look at “free speech.”

Be observant at all times. You can always learn from everything. Watch to see what works and what doesn’t work! 

Learn to enjoy work and working. You will likely do a lot of it in your life. Make your work enjoyable. That’s where good music comes in. Don’t be lazy. You can relax, and you need to sometimes. But don’t be lazy.

Learn to appreciate good food! Remember, never trust a skinny cook! Learn to cook. Don’t be afraid of trying anything – you might like it, or you might not, but if you don’t try it you won’t know. Use the finest ingredients, but keep things simple. Cook from scratch and use ingredients as close to how God made them as possible.

Clean up after yourself. While you’re at it clean up a little extra as well. People can leave such a mess behind them. Wherever you go, wherever you are, make it just a little better all the time.

Read good books. Read the great books. Develop your curiosity about anything and everything. Get a good Bible, and read and study it. Especially the New Testament. 

Enjoy good movies. Keep a list of your favorites and revisit them periodically. 

Be careful what you give your time to. Learn to give or allow for downtime. You need times of doing “nothing.” Beware of over scheduling your time. Don’t try to cram too much in or you may not do anything well. Allow yourself time to think.

Keep your life as simple as possible, because it will get more complicated all the time on its own. 

Learn to enjoy things that you are passionate about. Don’t be afraid of passion. Keep your eyes open for what you really enjoy. It could become a lifetime job or hobby.

Work at understanding life, but have fun doing it. You Only Live Once. Make it fun, but take it seriously. 

Learn to appreciate good music. It can add such beauty to your life. Create playlists that you can use for various times in your experience. 

Beware of harmful addictions.

Learn to think for yourself. Sometimes you might be right when the crowd is wrong.

Learn to be content wherever you are and whatever you have. Contentment is a wealth that no one can take away from you and no one can tax!

LIFE WITH OTHERS

Love and appreciate the people around you. Give some healthy time to develop friendships. You can benefit them, and benefit from them. Don’t use people. It is better to give than to receive. 

Your mate is almost always right (wink, wink). Almost is the working word here. True discernment is needed to know when they are right, and whether or not to let them know if they are wrong, and how to let them know. Be very careful whom you “choose” for a mate, and let God make it real to you in the process. 

Loving others will get you hurt. No one is perfect, and even if they are, they can still fail and hurt you. But don’t let that stop you from loving. If you love deeply, you can be hurt deeply. Love can heal the hurt. 

Consider and treat sex as judiciously and carefully as a nuclear bomb, the deadliest poison, and the most overpowering addiction you will ever encounter. It is perhaps the most powerful force in the universe. Kept in the proper perspective, it can be a key to life. At its worst, it can destroy you. 

Don’t believe everything you see or hear, but don’t mistrust everything either. I have heard it said “doubt your doubts and have faith in your faith.” That is oversimplified. You will learn in life what to trust and what not to trust. You cannot always go by your gut feeling, but you can develop your sense of discernment and intuition.

Learn to forgive others – quickly, thoroughly, and long-term. Don't hang onto grudges, resentment, or ill feelings. Let them go. 

Appreciate gifts that others give you. They gave you something for a reason – find out why.

Share your thoughts of thankfulness and appreciation with others as soon as you can. Your friends may be gone before you know it. Reach out and call or text or write a letter to people you love. Try to assume the best of your friends. The golden rule applies so often – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

STUFF, THINGS

Don't be so preoccupied with "stuff." Acquire what you need to live and make life beautiful, but don’t overdo it. Many times, “less is more.” Too much stuff is a burden. Learn to appreciate dents and scratches and fading paint. Stuff is only new once. As you use it, it will get used, and it will look like it. Take care of the stuff you have, but don’t be afraid of using it, or of using it up. Learn to appreciate when something lasts a really long time. Then you didn’t have to buy another one. 

Don't be too preoccupied with money, especially with how much you have. My mom taught me that money is a tool in life. You can do things with it, and you can learn from it. But learn quickly to use it and not to love it. The "love of money" is dangerous for life. My mom used to say she didn't want to be rich, but only to have enough to make being poor fun. When she died she had an estate worth $600,000! Not bad for a woman who never graduated high school. 

Be kind to animals, but don’t make them your gods. People are more important than animals, but animals can be very important in your life as well. There is nothing like the loyalty and friendship that a dog can be in your life.

GENERAL ADVICE

Learn pragmatism. Beware of systems of thinking – life usually isn’t so neat and clean and precise. Theories are great to consider, but usefulness, practicality, and simply whether something works or not are excellent guidelines for life and how you live it. 

Don’t let being practical keep you from the enjoyment of beauty and the arts, or artistic endeavors. 

Do not fear change. Everything changes. Be proactive in what changes in your life, when you can. 

Do not be too focused on the past or the future. Consider the past and how it can benefit the present. Consider the future and plan for it within reason. The present is a gift from God. Don't make plans or have expectations that will devastate you if they are not fulfilled. You can't change the past. And much of what you see or fear or hope for in the future will not come to pass. 

A spaghetti serving tool with multiple fingers makes a great back scratcher! If you duct tape it to a yardstick you can even scratch your feet. Wash it before you put it back in the drawer. 

Indulge in some good ice cream, or a sweet roll, or whatever it is that you really enjoy. 

Be careful of alcohol. If you enjoy it, use extreme moderation, because it is a poison. Good wine or beer can be beneficial. 

ABOVE ALL

Above all, learn to love God. Learn to have faith in the God who created you and everything. Trust God with your life.

God is love, and He loves you more than you can probably ever know. He knows what is best for you. 

If you love something or someone more than you love God, then you can never love Him enough or with your whole heart. But if you love God enough, with your whole heart, then you can never love anyone or anything else too much!

God bless us all!