We also get some right!

Here’s one of my favorite stories from 6 years ago:

Little Emma is 6 years old and in first grade and it’s the end of the first week. When Mom picked her up from school, Emma bounced happily into the car. “How was school today, honey?” Immediately and very happily, Emma answered: “I had my first test today!” “How’d you do?” And without hesitation, she shouted, “I got 30%!”

Oh my god…how hard can first grade be? Wouldn’t they make it really possible to succeed on your first test?

And Mom almost said, “Oh, honey, you must feel terrible” but said with divine guidance, “How did that make you feel?” “I GOT SOME RIGHT!” she shouted.

What a great way to see the world. I’m not suggested we should shoot for 30%, but as we move on our journey, we too get some right and some wrong. Let’s celebrate them both!

After all, we’re enrolled in Life 101 and it isn’t the grade we earn that’s so important, but rather that we learn what we can while we’re enrolled!

It’s okay not to know.

It’s okay to be lost and not know…because that’s what learning is, that’s what life is. Whether we’re an Emma in first grade or a bewildered adult, life is all about the learning.

Why are we here? Because we have

• lessons to learn,
• choices to make,
• skills to master,
• time to spend, and
• joy to experience!

And since no one is responsible for grading/judging us, we can take a deep breath, give thanks for being alive and just play/work/grow/live/love/give/…!

What will you do with this opportunity?

What gift do you want to give to the world? your community? your family? yourself?

Why are we comparing?

I bet you know someone(s) who is(are) brighter than you, is(are) cuter than you, or is(are) more creative than you. Then there are the folks who are on the other end of the scale who have less money, have more health issues, or have more dysfunctional family members. So what? What is the comparison for? […]

This new season…

September is such an invigorating idea! It’s back to school and time for some new projects. It’s unofficially the beginning of fall. And though fall is really only 3 months long, that’s plenty of time to look at the “clean slate” that it provides us. I invite you to join me and stop “doing” for […]

How did YOU spend your summer vacation?

Do you remember having to write about how you spent your summer vacation back in grade school? I do! Over the years my vacations had gotten shorter…from those couple of months to a week to three-day-weekends. Now from the view of retirement, I can take as much time as I want. I find that the […]

Can procrastination be good?

That last-minute panic as a motivator? Maybe…maybe not! Most of us decry it, deny it, or defy it, but still continue to see procrastination as the bane of our lives. But did you know..? Researchers now suggest that wasting a bit of time here and there can actually be good for us! When it’s used […]

Do these make any sense?

Ever wondered why some of these sayings don’t seem to really make sense? And how about…confirmed rumor, or unbiased opinion, or military intelligence? Each of these is called an oxymoron, which a dictionary defines as “a combination of contradictory or incongruous words.” Still another dictionary defines an oxymoron as a “wittily paradoxical turn of phrase […]

Are we there yet?

Vacations are a national tradition (as is this perennial childhood complaint!) I’m sharing some actual complaints received by “Thomas Cook Vacations” from dissatisfied customers. They have made quite the rounds on the internet. I think you’ll enjoy them as much as I have! “We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there […]

Not perfect?

My sister is a lot better at knitting than I am. It is painfully obvious when she tackles a complex pattern, makes changes in it, and then finishes it before I’ve figured how to get my project going. She’s a regular whiz at it! And by comparison I’m slow and my projects are much less […]

Half way through?

We’re half way through 2024! Really. We often act as if we had all the time in the world. Yet we really do know that our time here on earth is finite. And time often seems to fly by. What if we realize that we may have already lived 50%, 75% of our life span. […]

Now what?

We can pretty much count on getting sidelined from time to time. And it’s important to not allow a setback become part of the larger story we so often creative around our “life of difficulties.” So What? Now what? The “So what” puts our current life blip into perspective. And the Now what” can get […]