November is my Birthday Month!

…so, big deal. Everybody has them, and when they quit having them, everyone gets upset. Well, maybe not everyone. Anyway, since I’m having one, I thought it might be time to pass along a sort of “lessons learned” edition to inform all of those with smaller numbers what to look forward to.

Life is a Paradox

First of all, everything you learn is probably wrong and true at the same time.

You are the SAME person approaching 70 that you were at 18

When you are 18, you look at everyone over 30 as old. They dress differently than you do. Hairstyles are different, cars are different, goals are different. They watch the news!
When you get older, there will come a time that you look back at yourself at 18 and think, “You know, I’m the same person I was then!”

Of course, you won’t be as fast, or you’ll have pains that crop up from time to time, but you’ll be thinking, “I’m still me!”
So, outside, you’re different, but inside…you never changed. You won’t just one day wake up as an old person, that’s “fallen and can’t get up.” It just doesn’t happen. You’ll always be you. Young or old.

As you age, you live a multitude of different lives

I was looking at old pictures the other day and there’s my wife at 19. And I’m standing next to her about to get married and we both look about 15! She is beautiful and innocent and naïve. Never been out on her own, but getting ready to go away with me, for goodness sake. I guess that’s what the naïve part got her.
The next picture, she is totally different, climbing out of a 1970 VW convertible. Pigtails, blue jeans, cowboy hat! We moved to Houston. She is awesome!
Then, there’s the picture of her and our 2-year-old daughter by the ‘73 Road Runner, dressed in a flowered pant suit. She is very professional.

I didn’t change, but every 3 or 4 years, I can tell by looking at her, we lead completely different lives! Now, she’s been president of two very large choirs; she organized things like nobody’s business; she works out every morning; runs the house; goes to work; plays organ; directs a choir; sings in more choirs…
She’s nothing like she was when I married her!
So, how did she change so much and I stayed the same?
Paradox.

Everyone is an idiot!

As you go through life, you eventually discover that everyone is an idiot.
“I told her sixteen times and she’s still asking the same question!”
“Are you kidding me? That is the easiest thing in the world to do! Why can’t he get it right?”
“Good grief!”
“It’s a timesheet! How hard can it be!”
People frustrate you. Something you can do so easily is daunting to them. Working. Driving. Computers. Having a conversation. It’s mind-blowing how stupid people are.

Most of the people I know are smarter than me

I know a lot of people, and they all seem to know what they’re doing. They throw out figures and acronyms like executives. Their houses are bigger and cleaner. They drive Corvettes or QX60s. They have home theaters in their basements. They write code better. They are all masters at public speaking, for goodness sake. They understand what people are talking about in all those meetings! I feel inferior just thinking about it…

Hmmmmm

I guess the bottom line is, we are all the sam e person as we started out, but we live and grow as we go. If we were plucked out of one decade and dropped into another one, we would find that we are the same, but we are someone else at the same time.
We are smarter than everyone and totally inferior. We have some things in which we excel and some things we just can’t grasp.
I had to look at my wife to see the changes I went through, and I have to look at YOU to see how smart, and stupid, I am.

Bottom Line

This week’s TGET News was a total waste of time. You didn’t learn anything you won’t eventually find out on your own, and it wasn’t funny.
As the author, Kurt Vonnegut
would say:
“So it goes.”

When ideas run out, words become very useful.