I’ve always been the type of person that has been able to learn things vicariously. I’m not sure why this is. I guess I’m just made that way. If I see or hear about someone making a big mistake in some way or another, I’m usually pretty good about recognizing where the breakdown occurred & avoiding it myself. However, in a break from what has been the norm in my life, I’ve been having to learn things the hard way over the past year or so. I really don’t like it at all, & I certainly don’t recommend it to anyone. It’s called “the hard way” for a very good reason. So, I’m hoping that with this post I can help someone out there to avoid learning the hard way & learn these things vicariously. Here are a few lessons, in no particular order, that I have learned over the past year or so the hard way;
1. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch-
In other words, don’t move to an apartment that costs $1700 dollars a month until you have secured a job that pays high enough to support that rent. No matter how much you may believe that you are warm poop, & can find a job whenever you want it, you may not be as valuable as you think.
2. When Mamma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy-
Don’t just tell your wife how amazing she is, show her. Treat her well no matter what. Don’t let stress, or a bad day, or a difficult situation, or anything else stop you. The minute you start thinking about your own issues & problems, start feeling sorry for yourself, & neglect to nurture her, that is the minute when you have made a grave mistake. If you thought things were tough before, you just try to make it through the same things without that amazing woman’s love & admiration, & you’ll see how bad things can really get. So, first & foremost, love & serve your wife. I’ve learned that if Brooklynne is sad, I feel it with her. Not because she is mean or angry at me, she is way too amazing for that, but because my happiness & success are completely interwoven with hers. It is impossible for me to be happy if she is not.
3. He that has will be given more-
Be grateful for all the things that you have that are good. When you focus on negatives & problems, you get down, & when you get down, you don’t do as well at the things you try to do, & when you don’t do well at the things you try to do, you will run into only more negatives & problems. Both failure & success are cycles that either begin or end based on where your focus is. Yes, crap happens. Sometimes HUGE crap happens, & that HUGE crap may very well be your fault, & it may be a very big deal. I’m not saying that you should ignore problems in your life. You can either learn from it or lose from it, & that decision is entirely up to you. The people that are truly successful & happy in life are the people that focus on what they have instead of what they don’t have. No matter what your situation is, make sure you spend more time giving God thanks & praise than you do asking for stuff. If you do, I think you’ll find that there’s not that much more that you really need.
That’s all for today class. Your assignment is to comment with either a lesson that you have had to learn the hard way or something that you have taken for granted that you commit to being thankful for in the future. Ready, go!
