On the Bright Side

Good Afternoon,

It was a peaceful day, that is after the 170 gallon hot water tank that ruptured was temporarily replaced with one loaned from a sister property. It was also Valentines Day, although my wife, Betty, informs me that now it is known as "Friendship Day" because as she so patiently explains, not everyone is Catholic. Well, I thought, I am not Catholic, but I am still going to call it Valentines day. Pretty soon we will have to find a new way of opening any correspondence, because it may not be afternoon everywhere, or someone might not like the word good, because it may imply that with it's absence, then it would be Bad, also meaning evil. At any rate, I got off my subject before I even got on it this time.

We were driving back to the house to enjoy a lazy afternoon before going to a neighbors and having dinner, champagne, and chocolates to celebrate whatever you call it. We were cruising along at a nice clip, when I noticed that other cars were passing me up in a steady stream. At first I began wondering why they were in so much of a hurry. I was going the speed limit after all, and that should be fast enough for them, it was Saturday afternoon, they shouldn't be hurrying anywhere.

My next thought was that I was probably irritating them, I could almost hear them cursing me as they had to maneuver around me to get to where they were going. I pictured them complaining to their passengers, and imagined them shaking their fist in irritation and anger. How dare I get in their way!

Wait a minute. I am the old guy I used to complain about when I was in a hurry. Old fart, nothing better to do than to go out on the roads and meander casually while I had things to do, places to be, people to meet.

I recalled how I used to refer to them. Blue Hairs, old fogies, and sometimes in my irritation, worse. I have become one with them.

On the bright side

I now understand that life is short, and that the best way to get the most out of it is to slow down and enjoy the ride, not to speed up to squeeze time together so you get to do more. That usually only leads to stress anyhow. The older I get the more I realize that the rat race is great for rats, but not so great for man.

There are notes pinned up in cynical office workers cubes all over the world that state "The Hurrier I go, the Behinder I get". That is just one of the many clues to the hidden wisdom of taking it a bit slower. Sometimes, we getso busy making progress we forget what we were building, or even why we wanted to build it in the first place.

I found this quote by Eddie Cantor that helps me tell the story of the hair and tortoise in a new way. Even back then, Aesop knew and tried to teach people with his moral of the story being "Slow and Steady wins the race"

Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.
Eddie Cantor (1892 - 1964)

I finally realize that the race that Aesop was speaking about wasn't a race at all, it was life. It might have been best if the fables moral was "A life worth living, is worth living well", but that is another story for another time. Until I get around and figure out whether my life was worth living, and if I am living it well, I hope that you all slow down just a bit.

Don't worry about irritating the other drivers of life. If they wanted to be ahead of you that bad, they should have gotten up earlier and been on the road sooner. Take it easy, and take it in along the way, and remember to.......Always look on the bright side of life.