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Becoming Older

Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio

To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I’ve ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once again.

Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
When in doubt, just take the next small step.
Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.
Pay off your credit cards every month.
You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.
Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
Be eccentric now.
Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
Over prepare, then go with the flow.
No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
Frame every so-called disaster with these words ”In five years, will this matter?”.
Always choose life.
Forgive everyone everything.
What other people think of you is none of your business.
Time heals almost everything. Give time, time.
However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
Believe in miracles.
God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
Your children get only one childhood.
All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.
Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
The best is yet to come.
No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
Yield.
Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

It’s estimated 93% won’t forward this. If you are one of the 7% who will, forward this with the title ‘7%’. I’m in the 7%. Remember that I will always share my spoon with you! Friends are the family that we choose for ourselves.

The Certainty that I am Loved

Hi Leroy,

Your blog continues to be such a great source of inspiration and information to me, that I thought I would share with you an inspirational moment from my life here, on the other side of the world.

Yesterday I was in no mood for church. It had been a stressful week and a trip to church felt more like an obligation than an opportunity for some much-needed quiet reflection. But two things happened that clearly demonstrated my need for that connection with the Divine. As I was waiting for the service to begin I began to read the “thought for the week” in the parish newsletter. It’s subject was St Therese of Lisieux, (a Catholic nun whose prayers and meditations inspire many people around the world) and her abiding faith in the certainty of being loved. The certainty of being loved! How radically different our lives would be if we could all keep that certainty in our hearts.

The priest began his sermon with a funny though poignant tale; a climber was hanging dangerously off a tall cliffside with only the rocks for support. Unsure of his faith in God, he called out, “Is there anybody up there, anybody at all? Please help me God.” And God replied, “I will save you. All you have to do is pray and let go.” The man thought about this for a moment and then shouted, “Is there anybody else up there?”

Pray and let go — easier said than done. But something that I am planning on putting into action. You know how I have maintained that one day my book would land on the right table at the right time? Well, after a great deal of reflection I have come to the conclusion that the desk the book was meant to land on all along was my own.

So I’m planning to put my money and energy into delivering to the world the book that I was inspired to write. I will publish the book myself — it feels like the right thing to do. It will take some time, but at least this way I will no longer be waiting for permission from some publisher to deliver what I believe to be an important message.

What do you think?

Hope you are happy and well.

Adrienne

p.s. that Bruce Lipton lecture was wonderful – I have ordered his books.

[Adrienne is an author, and the book is a Near Death Experience Novel, perhaps the first of its kind ever. I have read the manuscript and it is accurate about near death experiences, I can hardly wait for it to come out. I will announce it on this blog when it is ready.]

Remembering the Joy

4 Tips on Remembering the Joy of Life

It is all too easy to forget the wonder and gift that is life on our planet. We tend to get too caught up in material things and we are too fast to lament over alleged hardships. The advice that we should “stop and smell the roses” every so often is commonly offered but rarely taken, and as a result we miss half of what the world gives. Life is an indescribable blessing, and we need to remind ourselves of all the reasons why it is a joy to be alive.

1. Observe nature. Walk into the shade of a grove of trees and look around. Listen to the scratch of leaves and branches in the wind and the trilling chirps of unseen birds. If you pay attention to nature, you will notice the amazing transformation it goes through week by week, powered only by the sun, soil, and water. Leaves turn golden and pile underneath increasingly bare branches in the autumn, only to burst back into lush, green life in the spring. Scented fruits weigh down what used to be dead, weedy branches, and everywhere new life erupts from winter’s bones. And we are a part of it all, growing with each passing season and year.

2. Observe your senses. Pay attention to the texture of leather, wood, or cotton on your fingertips. Notice the varied notes in the mist of perfume. Listen to the slight squeak of a guitarist’s fingers on the fret board as he changes chords. Watch the slow appearance of stars in the once-blank sky. Taste the salt in the air when you are standing by the sea. All of our senses allow us to relish in the bounty of the world, and it is our senses that immerses us in living and connects us with nature.

3. Look inward. No one in the world is exactly the same, which is difficult to fathom knowing that there are more than 6 billion people on the planet. Out of the entire population, we are all one of a kind, as even identical twins are different in personality, behavior, and tastes. Think about what makes you uniquely you, and what you have in common with others.

4. Look outward. Think of all the people you have come in contact with throughout your life and how they have changed you. Realize that you too have had the same changing effect on others as your lives drifted together and apart. Cherish the family and friends you hold dear and rejoice in the experiences you have been through together and how many more are sure to come.

This post was contributed by Donna Scott.

Words of Wisdom

Words of Wisdom
by Michael

Michael is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say.

When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

He was a natural motivator.

If an employee was having a bad day, Michael was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Michael and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”

Michael replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today.

“You can choose to be in a good mood or … you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood.

“Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or…I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.

“Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or… I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.”

“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested.

“Yes, it is,” Michael said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations.

“You choose how people affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood.

“The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live your life.”

I reflected on what Michael said. Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Michael was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Michael was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.

I saw Michael about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied. “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Wanna see my scars?”

I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place. “The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon to be born daughter,” Michael replied. “Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or …I could choose to die. I chose to live.”

“Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked. Michael continued, “…the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read “he’s a dead man. I knew I needed to take action.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said Michael. “She asked if I was allergic to anything.

“Yes, I replied.” The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, “Gravity.”

Over their laughter, I told them, “I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”

Michael lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

After all, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

You have two choices now:

1. Forget this.
2. Pass it on to people you care about.

You know the choice I made.

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Becoming Older

The Certainty that I am Loved

Remembering the Joy

Words of Wisdom