Advice To Seniors

Pierre Fontenot Thursday, May 16, 2019 Comments Off on Advice To Seniors
Advice To Seniors

Don’t chase money.

There have been a guesstimated 100 billion humans on Earth and 90 billion of them spent their lives chasing money.  Point is: it’s common.  They chased hunting grounds, watering holes, timber, ports, agricultural land, salt, spices, gold, silver, oil, money of a 1000 denominations, mountain passes and trade routes, mineral rights, pelts, diamonds, you-get-the-picture…

Nobody knows who the richest person in Rome was.  Nobody cares.  How silly money must look to God.  He John 3:16ed us for our souls, not our money.

Instead of chasing money, chase the best of you.  It’s hidden, and requires work.  As you figure out who you are (and who you aren’t) you want to build a custom life, that fits your talents.  If you’re lucky, work won’t be work, and home will be safe.

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As you enter the Land Of Adults you’ve got to answer, for yourself, what the point of life is.  You don’t have to know it right now, but sooner known the better.  This answer is your religion.  It’ll drive your behavior, your ambitions, your conscience and all your choices, and throughout your life, especially in your gray years, you’ll measure yourself against your religion, and feel respect or shame.

Truth is your friend.  Trust it, trust it, trust it.  If it shames you, change.  If it warns you, heed.  If it’s uncomfortable, you earned it, so earn something better.  

At this stage you’re very aware of what all-your-friends-are-doing. In ten years you won’t know the address of most of these school friends.  It’s your life.  The steering wheel is not a committee job.  

The highest maturity to aspire to is not measured by age, but by individuality.  Until you’re the You, you were made to be, you’re just a kid playing with the box the gift came in.   

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Don’t know a single engineer but thinking about being one?  Make a call.  People are flattered to be consulted.  Ask them what it’s really like.  Don’t spend four years, six years, eight years climbing a ladder without talking to people up a few rungs on the ladder.

Don’t pick a career that reminds you of buzzards.  If you only make money when things go wrong you’re on the wrong end of helping to make things go right.

Don’t pick a career that reminds you of spiders.  If your customer is your victim you’ll be selling your conscience for chump change, and worse, you’ll be crossways with our mutual Father.  

There’s One Father, many children, and He wants us to be nice to each other.  Your job should always be win-win in the day, which gives you peace upon your pillow in the night.

The more you know about what you value the easier it is to cross some careers off your list.  Want a one-time marriage and no ulcers?  There are careers out there where all the big achievers are on their third marriage by forty and on blood pressure meds by fifty.  If that ain’t for you then stay off the first rung of that ladder.    

The Old Stuff Works

Yadda yadda about degrees, what employers really want is a quality human, who is teachable.  If you’re honest, dependable, personable, considerate, loyal – all that old fashioned stuff – there’s a job for you.  And because all those traits are in short supply you have the least job competition in the history of American.

Best thing you can do is forget some of what you were taught.  Like “entitlement.”  It’s puredee poop.  Being alive isn’t entitling; it’s a gift.  Do something with it, no matter how the cards are dealt.

Be thankful, for life.  Longer you live the more schooling death will do on you.  There’s a great random out there, and some of these deaths are gonna ring your bell.  Especially…the too young, who in your measurement, were your betters.

Beware debt.  We need water, food, air, clothing and shelter.  Everything north of that is extra.   

In Closing…

Value yourself.  He does.  So much so that He wants a till-death-do-us-never-part relationship with us.

Listen to your feelings.  The sight comes later, the nouns come later, the feelings lead us to the truth.

Your conscience is your seeing-eye dog.  If it’s telling you it doesn’t like what it’s seeing then assume you are in a blind spot, and trust the dog.

Be grateful.  This is your one ‘n only life, of uncertain duration.  To be grateful is to respect The Gift, and to respect The Gift Giver.

You are never alone.  You are under High and Loving Eyes.  You have messed up, you will mess up, but you cannot make the Love go out of His eyes.

…and I close with…

You don’t have to save the world.  

All you have to do is be You.  To do that, you have to find out who You are.  Have fun with that.  It won’t happen day after tomorrow, but keep at it, because it’s nice to one day reach a place where you say, Hello me!  

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This edition of Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by Eighty-one, where our writer learned most of this the hard way.  

Uncle P’s Bedtime Stories are available in book form at Eighty-one, 3507 Ryan St Lake Charles.  He can be reached at eightyoneantiques@gmail.com. 

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