This afternoon my neighbor’s 16-year-old son interviewed me for a school project entitled “Lessons Life Teaches.” He came over to our condo with a white poster board that had nine words written on it. After a few miscellaneous introductory questions, he asked me to think about the words on the poster board for a few minutes and then, in the simplest way possible, explain what life had taught me about each one. Here are the nine words and what I told him:
1. Time
Time passes quickly, and if you’re lucky enough, you’ll live long enough to marvel at the memories.
Picture yourself in twenty years walking past a park where you used to play with your friends when you were in kindergarten. While you’re passing by you notice that the park in now jam-packed with a new set of little faces. As you watch these kids swinging from the swing set and climbing trees together, you reminisce about simpler times and think about how these kids are going to grow up someday and do many of the same things that you’ve done. They will fall in love, and make mistakes, and fight adversities, and change their minds a dozen times about what they want to do with their lives.
But not yet, not now. At this moment swinging and climbing are sufficient feats for them. And although it would be nice if swinging and climbing were endlessly sufficient, you know they aren’t. You know life is infinitely more elaborate and beautiful – even in ways you have yet to experience – and that with each passing moment we all become a greater part of this elaborate beauty in every imaginable way. Read 1,000 Little Things.
2. Love
When someone loves you, you know it. When they look your way, the world looks better. When they say your name, the world sounds better. When they [Read more…]