Lessons from The School of Knocking Hard…

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February 27, 2017

Lessons from The School of Knocking Hard…

WHAT THE HELL!

I’m old – 76 years and counting. This comes as a shock to me sometimes, because I tend to forget. Then I will catch my reflection in a store window as I walk by and it comes as a total surprise – every single time. What the hell, I think to myself. How in hell did this happen?

And the answer, of course, is one day at a time – so slow you tend not to notice. You’re too busy living life to worry about the creeping little aches and pains that get a bit bigger with each passing year. Then one day, walking past the store window, it all catches up with you.

What the hell!

You look back at your life and you think – wow, that went quicker than I thought. And then you look forward to that day when it’s time to shuffle off the mortal coil, hand-in-hand with your contemporaries, and it seems like just a short little jog. It’s not that I’m afraid. I’m not. I’m just a little disappointed. It all went by a lot faster than I thought.

And that brings me to my first piece of advice for all my young friends. An entire lifetime may seem like a long time now, but it goes by so fast it will take your breath away. You only have a few years on the planet, so make them count.

My second piece of advice is don’t let them put you in a box. Who are “them?” Your parents, your teachers, your young naive friends, preachers, politicians, singers, actors, or other entertainers. This is as much a warning as a piece of advice. I hit all the potholes in life, I’ve done most of the things I’m warning you not to do. Love your parents, your grandparents, your uncles and aunts, but use their experiences as lessons not only in what to do with your life but also in what not to do.

My third piece of advice is don’t waste too much time in school. If you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or a researcher, you will obviously need formal training, but those disciplines are trades – skills you acquire to make a living. Math and the physical sciences are aimed at understanding the world, they’re not the same things as arguing legalities or designing a better airplane. Don’t get me wrong. I’m very much for education. We can’t make proper decisions unless we understand history and the world around us, but education is a personal choice and it doesn’t happen just in college. Be curious about life. If you want to understand how the world works, you will do so. The only question is whether you go into years of debt to learn it at college from professors – most of whom have spent most of their lives in school, either learning stuff or teaching it to others.

My fourth piece of advice is don’t take experts too seriously. Experts are mostly just people trained to spout the common wisdom, which sometimes is right, but often is not. Use common sense. Think for yourself. As you get older, you will look back and see how seriously flawed expert advice has been.

My fifth piece of advice is have fun. Enjoy yourself. You are not guaranteed 70 plus years. People around me have died, stretching as far back as elementary school. Some of the young people I currently know may well die before me. That really sucks, but let’s face it, life’s not fair. Don’t be planning so much for the future that you forget to enjoy the present.

And my very last piece of advice is to take everything I just advised with a grain of salt. You’re not me and I’m not you. Consider what I have to say if you like, but in the end make up your own mind and make your own mistakes. Be your own person – not who anybody else, including me, thinks you should be. It’s your life, live it, which is exactly what I am doing with mine.

Meanwhile, I’m still learning from my old mistakes and moving on – hopefully a little smarter. I will make brand new mistakes, I’m sure, but not the old ones. My plan is to be around as long as possible, having fun and enjoying life.

Wish me well in that endeavor, and I will do the same for you.

— Your pal, George Lee Cunningham

Do you have a dissenting opinion or any opinion at all on the subject? Contact me at george@georgeleecunningham.com and let me know. Meanwhile, you can always subscribe and get an email reminder of blog postings. Your name will not be shared and you may cancel at any time.

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April 17, 2024

Minor Character

Sometimes I feel like a minor character in one of those really long James Michener historic novels. I’m one of the guys they check in on a couple of times during the course of the book and one more time when he finally kicks the bucket. In truth, that suits me just fine. I don’t want to be one of the major players – those guys who lie, cheat, sleep around, make a lot of money, kill a lot of people, and then then suffer a tragic death on Christmas Eve. I just want to be me – plugging along, having some fun, loving the same woman for years, and then quietly passing away.

March 25, 2024

Cereal Killer

I have almost given up on cereal. As a younger man, I loved a sugary treat. As an old man, who has to watch his diet, I find myself checking labels on everything. Sugar is the enemy. For instance, Cap’n Crunch – a former favorite of my wife – contains: Corn Flour, Sugar, Oat Flour, Brown Sugar, Palm and/or Coconut Oil, Salt, Reduced Iron, Yellow 5, Niacinamide, Yellow 6, BHT, Thiamin, Mononitrate, Pridoxined Hydrochloride, Rioflavin, and Folic Acid. My choice: plain old Shredded Wheat. Ingredients: wheat and BHT (a harmless preservative). Not a taste treat, but at least I’ll live to tell about it

Highway Memorials

Driving across country nowadays, we notice a growing number of roadside displays – flowers, crosses, and ribbons – marking the sites where people apparently died in traffic accidents. I do understand mourning the passing of somebody you love, but I’m not sure I see the point of putting a display at the place along the road where they died. Even sadder is the fact that flowers wilt and highway trash piles up around the displays, making them just another sad reminder of life cut short.

December 5, 2023

Love Motives

I often tell my wife I love and adore her, mainly because I do and also because women like to hear the man in their life actually say the words. But during one conversation I had to confess that some times when I say it – especially when she is irked and giving me the deadly silent treatment – I am also reminding myself of that fact so I don’t start yelling and slamming doors. Is that so wrong?

Being Mortal

I am officially an old man. Sometimes I forget, then I look in the mirror and there it is. The truth is that life has its limits, and that is how it should be. There are new generations coming up, ready to step up and take our place. They are welcome to it. If you have reached old age, you have made some blunders in you life. If you think otherwise, then you are indeed a fool. You can warn the new generations about the mistakes you made, but they are oblivious. This too is as it should be. It’s their world, and it’s on them to screw it up for the generations to follow, just as we did for them.

Good Deeds

There is a saying that no good deed goes unpunished. It’s mostly – but not always – true. The problem with good deeds is that most people who do them expect to be appreciated. In actuality, good-deed recipients are more often resentful about it, rather than grateful. Nobody likes being the person who has to rely on the good will of others. So do good deeds for your own sake – because it makes you feel better, not because you want to be feel appreciated.

Recreational Bitching

Did you ever notice that some people – maybe more people than not – like to complain about everything? In the summertime, it’s too hot. In the wintertime it’s too cold. Health care is too expensive. Young people are too rude. Old people move too slowly. There ought to be a law against anything and everything that might make one unhappy. It’s recreational bitching, and we all do it to greater or lesser extent. Maybe once in a while, it might make sense to listen to how we talk and how we think. Most of us are just doing the best that we can.