The Three Pillows of Wisdom

If experience is the best teacher, I must be sitting in the corner of the classroom of life wearing the dunce cap.Learning and knowing are two different skills. While I learn something new several times a day, opportunities to define something as knowledge are few and far between. Still, there are few things I know are certain and when I think about them, I find I can forgive the world and relax a little more deeply.

This is the knowledge that helps me sleep at night and have christened these certainties the three pillows of wisdom. I think these truths make everyone a little more comfortable, so I would like to pass them along to everyone, especially my children.

The three things I want my kids to know are these:

1. Just because things don’t turn out the way you plan, doesn’t mean things can’t be OK.

Be ambitious, work hard and do your best, but leave a little room for life to intrude, for your mind to change and fate to make a little magic. Even in the darkest periods, there is room for the light of hope and to make it shine more brightly, all you have to do is keep breathing.

2. Humor really is the best medicine.

It is impossible to overdose.

3. Love might not conquer all, but if you do it properly, it is the strongest force known to us.

Use love wisely. Use it indiscriminantly. It does not matter which. The more you do it, the more there is. Make it big, leave it out in the universe. Beware of making it too singular, too direct. Love is not a target to be reached, but an energy to be generated.

This entry was inspired by the always inspirational Mama Blogga who is hosting another group writing project this week. Be sure to enter so I can find out what three things you’d like your kids to…