From a debate over paper towel placement (you know what I am talking about… we’ve all had those with our roommates or spouses!), a short Shakespeare poem, a bible verse, a conversation with a neighbor, our seniors’ stories remind me that life has a way of handing us extraordinary lessons through ordinary moments. If a senior in your life has shared an extraordinary life lesson with you, tell us about it here!
https://bestdaysofar.wufoo.com/forms/my-best-day-story/
Frances Bryce
1.22.2015
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
During the Christmas Holidays I usually visit our home in California where my son, daughter and her husband live. I have shortened my time which was usually from the months of November to March; now it is when the school is out for the holiday because I am a Reading Buddy for students in one of the third grades at Greenfield which I enjoy.
A conversation arose one day during the holiday about the placement of a roll of paper towels. My daughter noticed that the roll was placed from front to back after her husband had put the roll on. She thought it was on the wrong way. He asked me about the paper placement. I replied that the direction of the roll was an option. When they left, I replaced it the way she usually has it, so as not to make an issue of such an unimportant thing. Her husband had stated that he didn’t know there was a right or wrong way. I reversed the towels later as we talked she said that she had replaced the order of the towel as her husband had placed it. We had a good laugh about pleasing the other person and not getting bogged down in insignificant things.
Norman Cain
4.23.2015
Be True to Yourself
To thine own self be true,
and this must [follow], as the day the night
thence thou cannot be false to any man
It took me a while to adhere to the message in the preceding poem by William Shakespeare. I was victimized by peer pressure; therefore I was not being true to myself. I was allowing others to dictate my lifestyle. I constantly worried about what they would say about me – in and outside of their presence. After many hard-learned lessons I abandoned denial about how many members of my clique were self-centered and manipulative. At that point I began to follow the path I laid out for myself, which made me feel at ease. While I did not abandon my peers, I certainly did not allow their opinions to dictate my life. To thine own self be true.
Brenda Scantlebury
5.21.2015
Live Each Day to the Fullest
The Bible describes one’s life here on earth as a vapor! A Vapor can be a substance made of moisture, of steam, or smoke. None of these substances last very long. So with this in mind…
There’s a scripture that declares: “Work while it’s a day, for when night cometh, no man can work!”
So . . . live each day to the fullest! Make the very best of it! If life gives you lemons – make lemonade. If it brings honey – do like the bees who make it. Thank the Lord God and keep on living, keep on working. Amen.
Joan Bunting
3.12.2015
Think Before You Act
As a young girl, I’ve always enjoyed listening to older people. Even when I was in my thirties and forties I had neighbors that I would visit and they would tell me stories about their lives. Listening to older people has taught me a lot.
I used to hear some of them say how salt can cause your blood pressure to rise, even to the point where you might have to be on medication for the rest of your life. When I got older I stopped using so much salt and am now trying to use hardly any at all.
There was one lady probably in her eighties about how she came home from work one day. One of her sons had welts on his body. He had gotten a whipping from his father. She said, she was so angry, she went to her husband’s job to kill him.
When she arrived she asked to see her husband. She said it took so long for him to come that by that time her anger had ceased. She just looked at him and walked away. He never knew that she had come to kill him. The son nor the father never mentioned why the son was whipped.
She ended her story by saying, “When you’re angry take the time to cool off before you react.”
To me that’s a great lesson to learn. There are lots of people, I believe, are in jail
