Four Secrets to Staying Young

I want to tell you a story – and the originator of this story is unknown to me.  I’ve had this in my files for a long time, and today it jumped at me.  So here it is. 

There once was an 87-year-old lady who decided to go back to school and get her college degree.  On her first day in class she was asked “why are you here?” 

Her response – “I’m here to find a rich husband, get married, and have three kids.” 

Seriously, she was there to fulfill a life-long dream.  And she did.  Four years later she graduated, and along the way she developed a following of most of the student body on campus.  Everyone knew Rose and wanted to be her friend.

So, at the end of the season, Rose was invited to speak at the football banquet.

She approached the podium, fumbled with her notes and promptly dropped them. 

She apologized and leaned into the microphone and said, “I’m sorry I’m so jittery.  I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me.  I’ll never get my speech back in order So let me just tell you what I know. 

There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. 

1.  Laugh and find humor every day.    

2.  You have to have a dream.  

When you lose your dreams, you die.  We have so many people walking around who are dead and don't even know it.

3.  There is a huge difference between growing old and growing up.  

If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don't do even one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old.  If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything, I'll turn eighty-eight. 

Anybody can grow older.  That doesn't take any talent or ability.  The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change. 

4.  Have no regrets. 

We elderly people don't usually have regrets for what we did, rather, for things we did not do.  The only people who fear death are those with regrets. 

No more comment needed. 

Class dismissed!

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Go Make Mistakes

Mistakes happen.  We get up.  We fall down.  We break things.  We say the wrong thing.  We attempt to do good and fail. 

Mistakes happen.

Good for you if you make mistakes.  Yes –

GOOD FOR YOU!

Mistakes mean that you are trying something new, you are learning and growing.  You are attempting the yet-to-be-mastered. 

You are DOING SOMETHING!

Even better – make mistakes that nobody has ever made before.  In the beginning, nobody’s work is ever good enough.  I made a piece of furniture two weeks ago.  It’s not perfect, but it works for where we want it to work. 

I’ve made enormous blunders as a public speaker/musician.  Oh my - the horror of it all.  And yet, I’m still alive, and apparently still garner a measure of esteem from my friends, for none of them have disavowed any knowledge of having known me – yet.

I’ve put stuff in print with typos in it.  My book – The Letters – has a typo on the Table of Contents page.  I spelled table – "Talbe".  Right there in the front of the book is this HUGE typo. 

I’ve reached the point of getting over making mistakes.  Now, I fear not making mistakes because I fear making mistakes.  That’s probably why I write five blogs each week.  It’s not all Pulitzer Prize stuff, and I still, on occasion, use the wrong tense and possessive subjective ‘whatever’ in my writing.  But I write. 

So, here I come – mistakes and all. 

I’ll show you mine (mistakes) if your show me yours.

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To Touch a Life

Have you discovered the power for good that you possess?  You do possess that power, and I hope you keep reading.

In my job as a banker I have the unique opportunity to help improve an individual’s financial picture.  It can be through a loan or a savings or checking account. 

My friend Chuck runs a Christian bookstore in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  He and his staff touch lives every single day by offering products that change lives. 

My engineer friend Bob, in Nashville, Tennessee, touches lives through his craft.  He brings an immense amount of joy to people who go out and buy or down-load the recordings he has engineered. He is a master craftsman and he touches millions of lives.  Yes MILLIONS!

My wife touches lives through her piano teaching.  Oh, she teaches notes and rhythms, lines and spaces, and she offers way more than that.  She has become guardian/counselor for many of her students when they come and share their troubles and angst.  And more than a few parents step over the parent/teacher threshold and their relationships go deeper than one might imagine.  She touches lives and I’m proud of her.

I don’t know how to do life any other way than to try and befriend some of the people who cross my path.  You see, they are more than a stranger on the street, or a reader of my posts.

They are FRIENDS.  And with a few of them, we do the lunch thing, we laugh, we joke, we meet and eat on occasion. 

I want to touch a few lives as I travel along on this sphere.  I want to encourage a few with weary steps.  I want to touch gobs of people.

I want to touch a life.

Will you join me? 

Who is around you that you can touch?  Who needs your smile, your encouraging word, your gift of friendship?

You are in your sphere – your world of influence for more reasons than you may realize.  Perhaps today or this week is your time to go beyond the “Hi, how are you” and touch a life in a significant way.

Perhaps!

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