Things I've Learned

I made this list about five years ago, in the middle of rebuilding the house after the fire, so I was about fifteen. It was just some random things I was thinking about/noticing at the time.

• Little things aren't the most important things in life, but you should treat them like they are.

Sort of my life motto, a paraphrasing of that verse in Luke that says "He who has been faithful in little will be faithful with much, and he who is faithless with little will also be faithless with much."

• It's easy to survive. The hard part is figuring out how to thrive.

Over and over, I'm reminded of this...not very good at the second half. I have lots of experience in the first part.

• If you go looking for a girl, you'll never get one.

Just based on watching they way a lot of peers' lives have unfolded so far.

• Everyone needs a dog and a girl. If you have one, you're lucky. If it's ever possible to have both, then you're blessed.

Dogs are a lot less complicated, it's easier.

• You can survive without friends. It's not fun, but it is possible. You canNOT survive without animals or music. 

Yep...and thank goodness for Facebook, so you can stay in touch with geographically-distant pals.

• If you mess up in something, replay that moment, and study it so the next time you'll get it right.

I've actually had arguments over this view...but doesn't it make sense? Haven't football teams improved for decades by following this practice?

• When you find something great, (storyteller, movie, singer, etc.) find out what makes it the way it is, and try to develop those elements in your own work.

 Yes. Because that's the other side of the coin; you learn by observing your own mistakes, others' mistakes, or what others do better than you.

• Horses teach you respect, guinea pigs teach you how to listen, cats teach you servanthood, dogs teach you how to love, and they all teach you how to let go.

Part of why we love them so much...but why is still such a hard lesson to learn?

• Sportswriting is an odd mixture of truth and fiction.

Or, as Mark Twain would say, it's one of the areas where we routinely advance society by lying, and it's looked upon as a good thing. If you haven't read his essay "On the Decay of the Art of Lying", you should really read it someday.

• Mistakes are lessons in disguise.

And generally we only recognize them as if they were the Lone Ranger...as they're riding away into the sunset.