Article Highlights:

  • The time it takes
  • A heart rock gift
  • Biggest life-waster

story wisdomDear Storyteller,

As life goes along, people sometimes say just the right wise and timely thing that makes a lot of impact in your life.  I like to collect those moments, I call them Everyday Wisdom.  Do you have a favorite wisdom story?  Here are three mini-stories that I learned sOoo much from.

Alaska was a state full of younger adults seeking adventure and opportunity when I was growing up in the last frontier.  It was a wonderful childhood. but in my thirties I realized that I’d known very few people in their 70s-90s.  I felt I’d probably missed out on a lot of shared wisdom and rich experience so I decided, just for fun, to start a personal project that continues to this day.

When I have the chance to spend time with people over 80, I clear the decks for teatime and listen to their stories.  I always end by asking each what advice they wish they’d known sooner.  Here are three of my favorites.

1) Gracie Kavanaugh, 88, a woman homesteader in Spenard, Alaska, said one of the best things to know was, “It ALL takes time and the sooner you come to grips with that the better.”

2) Old Bob,who sat with me in the parking lot of Kentucky Fried Chicken in a little Tennessee town along the Blue Ridge Highway, told me he couldn’t remember his last name or his age because he was kicked in the a head by a mule when he was ten.  Then he was struck by a car when he was a young man hitch-hikking to Alaska and suffered further serious head injuries, and then he got beat up bad, his head caved in.  I thought this all seemed a little exaggerated, though probably part was true.

Bob told me, “Something you need to know, honey, is that the heart can handle all the bad stuff in life if you just let it.”  He said he learned that because his head wasn’t quite right and he had to learn to let his heart take the lead.

The KFC manager came over after Bob left and thanked me for being interested in him saying, “He’s a little strange, I know, that’s cuz he got kicked in the head by a mule as a boy and then had a bad head injury in a hit and run when trying to hitchhike to Alaska… oh and he got mugged too, badly beaten… so the town watches out for him.”

When I went back out in the parking lot, Old Bob was waiting there for me.  He gave me a small stone he’d found that looked like a tiny human heart. To remind me, he said.  I still have it.

3) Ninety two year old Loretta Leland was having her Sunday breakfast with her daughter and grandson in the booth next to me in a diner in the Dales, east of Salem, Oregon.  Loretta said the thing she wished she’d known sooner was that worry would be her biggest regret.  “The time I wasted on that…,” she said, “and not one dang thing come of it!”

~ * ~

I still ask people for their stories, and I’m never disappointed.  It’s the stories shared by others that have made my life wise.  It’s the stories of others that have taught me what it means to be human and have a satisfying life.

You have stories of wisdom that people have gifted you, I’m sure.  Perhaps write one down and email it to a friend, just for fun.  Send it to me too, I’d love to receive the gift of its everyday wisdom.

With wisdom, and love,
~ X♥️MaHuLiLi

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