Life is so simply complex

Several weeks ago I wrote a letter to the editor about giving advice. A little humorous article. Since then my letter has circulated around and friends have asked about my real advice about life. They say, “Seriously Sheila, what would you say to young people as real advice in life.” You will notice that this sentence starts with an oxymoron. Words that are opposite in meaning like, jumbo shrimp, deafening silence, civil war, politically correct or seriously Sheila. I will be serious though, in case a young person is being punished and cannot play on the computer. One may pick this up and take just a little of my speech to heart. Unless, the cell phone rings and a text message comes through, POS…MBF…LOL…IDK…Y…U…2NITE… These kids have got to buy some vowels if I am to understand them.Lesson One: Do not be like a sheep led to slaughter. You can be with your sheep friends. Hang out. Swap ring tones. Say the word “Whatever” every chance you get, even though it is not a stand alone word. In my day, we thought “Groovy” was a stand alone word. My fourteen year old grandson reminded me of that when I corrected him on using “Whatever” as an answer when no one had asked a question. So I give up on this one. Whatever is Groovy! But let’s get back to the herd of sheep. When you see the other sheep going down the wrong road, be intelligent enough to say, “Well, I have to get on back to the sheep house. I am better off in deep sheep than where you sheep friends are going. Just text me when you find out which jail you are in.”Lesson Two: Picture life as a huge door with a little keyhole. I always visualized it as a big old wooden door. The kind made out of big, thick planks. Just like the one that Jack in the Beanstalk knocked on when he went to see the giant. Never make decisions while you are peeking through that little keyhole of life. If so, you will spend the majority of your life wishing that you had opened the door so you could have seen the whole big picture. It is a big, heavy and hard to open door. It is worth the time. It will keep your conscious clear and prevent many sleepless nights when you were thinking, “I wish I had not said that.” Or done that. Or thought that. Lesson Three: Value the positive things in life. They truly are free. Develop a sense of humor. Smile. Listen to old people talk. Assist someone. Send a thank you card to someone who was a good influence in you life. Steal a single flower from the freshly landscaped new business and hand it to the little old lady who is barely able to walk, along with a smile. They spent too much on the landscaping anyway. If you can assign a dollar value to an item, it is as worthless as confederate money. Don’t get me wrong. It is a necessary evil in order to live in this greed infested world. The only way you will starve to death in this United States is because you want to starve. If you want to die that bad, I think you should. We do not need more mentally challenged or as in my day, stupid people, here to make more babies. As you recall, Gary Gilmore, a worthless murderer, tried to starve to death in jail. No way, Doc. Welcome to the United States of America. He got more media attention than Oprah losing weight. We force fed that maniac. We wanted to kill him by the firing squad. The very idea of that jerk trying to cheat us out of paying more tax money to feed him. They even made Gary Gilmore T-shirts. You would have thought he was running for president or something.Lesson Four: Be strong enough to bend. Apologize, if you may be in the wrong. No one charges you for apologies. Apologizing is so much easier than trying to avoid a person that, even perhaps, you should have just given a simple apology.Lesson Five: When you come to the crossroads of life. Take it. Don’t squabble and dawdle over little things. Use good judgment and make a decision. You do not always have to take the path of least resistance. Trust me on this one. You will become a smarter person by taking a chance on the hard road once in a while. I do not mean stupid chances. If you are not any smarter than that, just starve to death.Lesson Six: Trust everybody BUT cut the cards. I think this one is pretty straight forward.Lesson Seven: Listen more….Talk less….Repeat nothing negative.In summary, my brother Jim Tolley, has never given me bad advice. I have asked him advice, all of my past years and I still do. He makes it simple for me. He says, “If it is mean…don’t do it.”————————————-Submitted By: Sheila Tolley