…or at least listen to them, they have done a lot of stupid things, and by listening you might save yourself the hassle of repeating them.
Oh, you will do a lot of stupid things, we all do! And it’s OK, but even though it is OK it doesn’t mean that we should not try to avoid it. It just means that we should not beat ourselves up about having done them, that is just more stupidity.
Learn! Listen to your elders, and learn!
I just spent my Saturday in a hospital with one of the people who has meant the most to me, she just turned 92 and she is sharper than most, she just is not as healthy as she could have been because she did something stupid. She spent two thirds of her life smoking cigarettes, and now she has realised that it was stupid, she knew all along it was dangerous, she told me a few times that they knew that back in the thirties, no the stupid thing was, that even if she knew, she carried on.
And now you might query how I respect my elders by saying that they are stupid? Well I try to respect them by listening to them. I am not saying she is stupid, she tells me she did a stupid choice. She ignored knowledge that she had and she is telling me about it so that I don’t have to do the same mistake. I respect that! And I am repeating it to you, hoping that her words, and her suffering, will help many more to avoid doing the same mistake…
It made me think of the sunscreen song, and I think that the sunscreen song will henceforth always make me think of her.
I’ll leave you with the lyrics, read and take heed!
http://www.bondon.com/sunscreen_song.html
Enjoy!