Snippets and advicements

As I approach another decade in my life, I have started putting alot of things in perspective. Life does change over time. It gets better, it gets worse but t changes. And how I react to the changes will determine my future....alot. So now I am more patient, I listen more (I was always quiet but I can't say that I ever really listened), I am less worried abut weight fluctuations, I am more content with the changes, work or otherwise. Anyway, in my quest for good, day to day advice, I came across a facebook page that had the most interesting advice I had heard in a while. Sometimes you get into a page and 2 minutes later regret it. But on rare occassions, you land on a page that actually teaches you something. So here are a few pieces of grand wisdom. I read it for a couple of hours. Its nice to hear real life experiences. They are not out to teach you anything,just to tell their story. Eventually, it makes you feel better. Like you can survive anything.

"If you could give one piece of advice to a large group of people, what would it be?" "Try your best to deal with life without medicating yourself." "You mean drugs?" "I mean drugs, food, shopping, money, whatever. I ain't judging anybody, either. I was hooked on heroin for years. But now I've learned that every feeling will pass if you give it time. And if you learn to deal with your feelings, they'll pass by faster each time. So don't rush to cover them up, or you're never gonna learn." "Two of my friends committed suicide in a four month span. So I packed my bags and moved to the city, where I ran out of money, then got hit by a bus. Sometimes God slows you down. Sometimes he pumps the brakes." "If you could give one piece of advice to a large group of people, what would it be?" "Enjoy it while it lasts." "What's something you wish you'd enjoyed more while it lasted?" "Raising my kids. I mean, they turned out well. So I raised them well in that sense. But I was always working. Even on a lot of weekends, I was working. When I was coming up, that's what the man was expected to do." "If you had spent more time with your family, do you think you'd regret not having progressed as far in your career?" ".... no." "I moved here because there was a lot I didn't like about myself in Pennsylvania. I knew everybody. And everyone knew me. I wanted a chance to not know anybody. And I wanted a chance for nobody to know me." "I grew up in foster care. My family was given money to spend on me, but they spent it all on themselves. I first got into fashion because I had to learn to make all my own clothes." "What was the happiest moment of your life?" "Europe in the summer of 1959." "What happened there?" "I was nineteen. I'd just lost 100 pounds and had a whole new set of clothes. I toured Paris and Rome and everyone was paying me so much attention. They were even asking for my photograph! Of course inside I still felt like an awkward, overweight girl. It was all so overwhelming and wonderful!" "Why'd you go to Europe?" "To have sex, of course. And I did! I was the first in my whole group of friends. I came home and told everyone that I'd done it with a charming Frenchman. In reality it was some creepy dude from Chicago." "It was very tough at first. Moving to a new country is like being born all over again. You are just like a baby. You can't speak, you can't move around, and you don't know the culture." "What's your greatest struggle right now?" "Imposed insecurity." "What does that mean?" "I spend a lot of time worrying about changes in things that I have no control over. Medicare, Social Security, things like that. I worry about my ability to grow old with dignity. They keep talking about cutting this, and taking that away. They shouldn't be springing that stuff on my generation. We did everything we were told to do. Spring that on a generation that has time to plan for it." "If you could give one piece of advice to a large group of people, what would it be?" "Dare to be square in a round world. But don't steal that, it's copyrighted." "I lived in Poland, so we were persecuted from the first day of the war. First they took us from our home, then they put us in a ghetto, then they made us march, then they sent us to the camps. I was separated from everyone, but my brother later told me that my father froze to death. But I have children now, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren-- a great big family, all of them educated. Look at everything that came from just one person who escaped. Just goes to show that you can never kill a people with hate. There will always be someone left to carry on." "I was a special education teacher." "Do you remember a specific moment in your career when you felt like you made the biggest difference?" "Actually, I do. I was in Philadelphia, and teaching a class of children with IQ's between 50 and 80. Shortly into the school year, one of the class members dropped out, and the school replaced him with a new boy. So this little boy named David shows up at my classroom door, and I let him into the class, but I couldn't understand a word he was saying. For weeks, I couldn't make out a word. Luckily there was one girl in the class who could understand him, so she would translate everything for me. Then one day, I looked up from my desk, and noticed David reading a book on the floor. I knew that no 6 year old with an IQ below 80 was reading a book, so I walked up to him, and without saying a word, I closed the book. He looked up at me and screamed: 'Fuck you!' I was so happy that he'd said something I could understand that I picked him up and kissed him. We learned that he had a cleft palate, which we found a doctor to fix for free, and by the time I left the school, he was moving along just fine." "What's the most your life has ever been changed by an unexpected event?" "Probably when I lost my job, which led to a divorce." "How did a job loss lead to a divorce?" "A lot can be covered over by routine. So when there's a shock to the system, underlying fault lines and fissures can really open up." "You're either a good person or a bad person. It doesn't matter what color or what religion you are. You're good. Or you're bad."

And just to prove you can never please everyone: "My father was a very good man, but he had a lot of shortcomings. He was very singularly focused. He was an expert mason so he was very good at laying bricks. But he wouldn't apply his energies to anything else. I was very good with my hands too, but I was always wanting to try new things. But he'd always discourage me from attempting anything other than my field of study. I resented him for it." "How were you a different father to your children?" "I encouraged my children to try everything. So much so that they resented me for it."