Category Archives: Quotes To Live By

Lessons Learned: John's List for Living

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 We welcome contributions of life lessons to the Legacy Project site. This wonderful list of lessons learned was sent to us by John, age 76.

There are no definitive answers to any of life’s questions, but quality joy-in-life can be had in the pursuit of those answers.

Loyalty to one’s own personal beliefs and respect for others’ is the path to a serene life.

Family, country (maybe God if you are religious) need to be honored if one is to survive in an intolerant, unjust world.

Little things do matter and must be tended to so they don’t pile up to become complex things and more difficult to cope with.

Health and marriage must be treated in the same way…daily maintenance with occasional spoons full of sugar to make bad times go down.

You should listen more than speak, which is hard for us to do, so that takes practice.

You should find work that you will be content with because 40 years is a long time doing the same thing.

Heed the advice of your elders. They may not have all the answers, but they have had much more experience than you.

Experience can be a cruel teacher; learn from it.

Being cautiously pessimistic about life will make the sporadic good things that actually do happen seem even better.

You should not fret very long; all things pass. One way or another they will no longer be experienced.

Whether or not you believe in heaven and hell (religion) should not prevent you from being a nice person.

Injustice exists. Get used to it.

Growing Up Is the Work of a Lifetime

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Maurice, 77, has a different take on the expression “live life to the fullest.”

The advice I would give to my grandchildren is to treasure every day of  their existence and to do their best at every task they face. 

I do not believe in “living life to the fullest” in the sense in which that expression is often used.  Most important when you look back on your life are the unselfish things you have done, the love and support you have  given to others, and the sense that you have made the most of your talents and  opportunities.

I have learned that growing up is the work of a lifetime and that  we should strive to continue growing until the end of our days.

A Key Piece of Elder’s Marriage Advice: Choose Carefully

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I’m fascinated by the issue of regret. On the one hand, it’s challenging to deal with regret, and for some people regrets can drag them down in later life. But regret also serves a highly useful function: It helps us avoid mistakes in the future. One very common strategy for “regret prevention” among the elders had to do with finding a life partner. Over and over, elders told me that the most important thing about this critical life decision is: choose carefully, or you will regret it.

Virginia, 73, wanted to make sure her message about not rushing into marriage was strongly conveyed to younger people. Born into rural poverty, she lost her father at age 6. Her mother remarried, had two more children, and Virginia became a caretaker.

I had big responsibilities for a child my age. I took care of the kids, and I can remember when, I think I was in sixth grade, and my mother was not completely well. I mean, she had dizzy spells, and she would keep me home from school a day or two a week to take care of the little ones. I’d get up in the morning and she’d ask me to stay home from school that day. In some ways, I have been a caretaker all my life. It seems like I’m always taking care of someone.

Virginia describes rushing into marriage as one of the biggest mistakes anyone can make, and we should take her words seriously. She’s done it twice.

The first time, I got married to get away from home. I married young, I was only eighteen. I had started college in the mid-1950s, but lack of money and circumstances just didn’t allow me to continue, and I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I wanted to join the service. And my stepfather said no, and this was in the fifties, you understand, so I listened and I didn’t, but I knew I could no longer live at home. So there was this fellow I’d been going with, and we up and got married the week I turned eighteen. I’d had enough, and my stepfather was difficult to get along with. And they wanted my bed actually, and I didn’t know where to go, what to do, so I got married.

Well, two children and eleven years later, we divorced. It wasn’t a wise decision to marry him but it was an out for me at that time. So please, tell younger people: Don’t marry so young, get an education any way you possibly can. It’s easier in today’s world then it was back then. But when it comes to marriage, don’t rush into things. Give it time before you jump in.

After the divorce, Virginia remarried. Unfortunately, she admitted: “And that was a mistake too. I haven’t had the best luck.” Again, the problem was making the decision too quickly.

I rushed into something I later regretted, it was in the middle 1960s, and my first husband was an alcoholic and he had become very abusive. I decided to return to school, and I was taking courses. I wanted to go to school, get my teaching degree, and then I could leave my first husband and support my children and myself. But it just got so bad I had to leave, and I met this fellow, and there again I rushed into things. It was a way out and my kids liked him.

Well, at first it was good, but after that it was pretty bad. He had girlfriends, he ran around on me, he, oh, he didn’t work, he didn’t provide. So I knew that I had made the same mistake again. By marrying too soon, not knowing the person, he wasn’t what I thought he was. I was really taken in.

I haven’t had an easy time of it, frankly. But maybe I can help others understand. Here’s my advice to the people looking to get married. When you get to be like me in your seventies you realize that life is too short. One of my biggest regrets is wasted opportunities and the need to see that if you’re not happy in a situation you need to change it. I could have made a major difference in my life if I had chosen my husbands carefully, really gotten to know them before committing to the relationships. Know the person in and out before you get married. You think nowadays that you can get out of it easily, but that’s not always the case.

(Do you have marriage advice? Please share it on our new site!

Back from Italy! Which Reminds Me of Maria

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I’ve just come back from two weeks in Italy (yes, it’s a hard job, but someone has to do it). While there, I noticed something that one doesn’t often see in the United States.

 In all the little villages, there is the custom of the passeggiata. In the early evening, after the heat of the day, whole families take a gentle stroll, usually winding up in the central piazza of the town. What you see are entire families: small children on bicycles or kicking soccer balls, parents, and grandparents. As you watch the nonni (most often the nonna, or grandmother) keeping a watchful eye on the grandchildren, there’s a feeling of real integration into family life.

Spending time in Italy made me think of one of our Legacy Project elders, Maria. Like many Italians of her generation, Maria immigrated to this country, experiencing a mix of opportunity, hardship, and resilience. Maria has been married for 57 years. It would be hard to find a happier 83-year old, despite what many would consider a hard life.

Maria shared her lessons for living:

I didn’t have opportunity to go to college but we did have a school, and we had to go miles away from home even for that. And sure, it’s very important to get a good education. But now young people expect too much and too soon. We didn’t have what we have today; we didn’t have computers, we didn’t have TV. So today they’re lucky, they can learn a lot. But I feel that they don’t enjoy life, they look for something they cannot find. So they go with the bottle, they go with drugs and all that.

My life has been hard at times. I went through so much that I can’t even explain. The decision to come to this country was the best one at that time, because we had to go someplace, but we lost everything, it was very hard to leave your own country. I left my hometown at sixteen with my father and my brother. What I learned there was how to grow up fast and take care of my brother who was little, be a mother for him. I worked hard, I will suggest to everybody that if they want something, work hard and they’re going to get it.

I wasn’t spoiled, I was happy with nothing, and that made me work hard to get a little bit more. Take life the way it comes, easy. Try not to think about tomorrow too much, you know? Enjoy today because you don’t know when it’s tomorrow, if you’re going to be here tomorrow.

I enjoy every minute! I love my husband; every time he goes out, I never let him go without a kiss because you always wonder if something can happen. Never fall asleep without saying goodnight to the husband, never. And don’t be mad, that’s what I learned in my life, don’t be mad at other people. Enjoy things now, and stop worrying.

Wisdom from the Past – For the Graduating Class

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Verna, 91, wrote this “list for living” to her great-grandchildren. It’s a good one to pass on to the next generation in your family (be it children, grandchildren, or further down the line)  and perfect advice for the college graduates this month!

TO MY WONDERFUL GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN – ALL OF THEM:

1. So many things in the world have changed since the time of my grandparents and parents and the earlier times of my own life, and I know that there will be lots of changes in your lifetime too.

2. I hope you will always take school seriously (I was a teacher) and become well-educated to be ready for whatever kind of work or service you will be doing; that you will respect your body- take good care of it and try to have good health.

3. I hope that the governments of the world will do a better job of getting along with each other so that you can experience peace among nations.

4. I hope you will be a positive thinker, not negative or cynical; look for the good in people and things, and fill your life with love, kindness, and thoughtfulness for others.

5. Most important is to know God as you go into the future. I would hope that you will know the peace and joy and courage that come from following a life of love and service- the peace that passes all understanding.

5. Your real success in life lies is the kind of person you become, not with how famous or wealthy you are, so my most sincere wish is for you to live the wholesome life that will lead you to make good choices along the way, to Reach That Star that you are striving to reach.

YOU CAN DO IT!

Finding a Purpose: Can You Help One of Our Readers?

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Dear Legacy Project Blog Readers:

Cathy commented on this post (see below) asking for advice. In the past, you all have had some great advice for people like Cathy. Do you have any suggestions for her? If so, please comment!

I’ve been talking to friends of ours whose children are applying to college (thankfully, ours are done with that!). It got me to thinking about one powerful message of the elders to young people: Take time to find your life’s purpose.

Many of the Legacy Project elders told me something along the lines of: “Find what you love and do it!” What’s interesting is that people said this from all walks of life and all professions: Look for your purpose and your passion, or you miss out on a lot of what life has to offer.

Gary, 74, trained in engineering and spent his career as an executive in the railroad industry. Gary’s calm demeanor and self-effacing, folksy comments  reminded me a bit of Jimmy Stewart. He’s someone whose goal was to “do his best,” and he looks back on his life with dry humor.

His main advice (indeed, it was his primary life lesson) is to take the time to identify your life’s purpose.

One problem is you go through life and you don’t tend to think very much about these kinds of things. You go along, the dishes need to be done, the groceries need to be bought, you have to get off to work. So insight number one is that there’s more to life than getting the chores done every day. You should draw back from the hurly-burly of daily living and spend a little time thinking about: What’s my philosophy of  life?; Why am I here? What am I doing? Does it make any sense to be doing this? Those kinds of questions.

We need to take the time, perhaps even a little time every day, to reflect on our lives. I don’t know if we do as much as we should, so I think that might be rule number one. Even when you’re in high school. High school a good place to start, that’s where you begin discovering who you are. You should  start laying the groundwork  to develop a philosophy early in life. And throughout life, take a little time to determine what the purpose is to what you are doing. You can view your life as a kind of continuum, one you can direct more if you know the purpose behind it.

This can begin in school. When you’re in school you have a once in a lifetime chance  to learn something. And go for it. You can go for for it to shape your philosophy. If I were to go back and tell those kids in the class I would tell them to  get into whatever you’re doing now as intensely as you can. I think you need to spend some time reading history to this so you can  understand what life was like 2000 years ago versus today.

The end result of this reflection, Gary says, is to discover your underlying passion.

My first thought would be; ‘Is there something in life you have a passion for?’  And if it’s possible, can you start your career in whatever that field is? It could be butterfly collecting, anything. There are people that live very good lives in butterflies and collecting. It doesn’t matter what it is. so I think if you have a chance and you have a passion, follow it. A lot of people don’t have a passion, but if you do, see if you can somehow incorporate that into your career. And it could lead you interesting things and if that’s the case then take advantage of it.

It’s a balance. You need to be careful of what you do, to plan ahead, and so forth. But if you do too much of that you’re going to become stunted.You need some kind of middle ground. And it depends on the individual. If your passion in life is climbing mountains then go climb mountains because that is a talent that you have, a desire, and if you don’t do it, if you consciously give it up because something bad might happen, you’re going have a lot of regrets of missing your dream. But of course, check your gear before you go!

Great Elder Wisdom Contest Entries! Keep ‘Em Coming!

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We’re thrilled by the initial response to the contest we’re running on elder wisdom. You’re invited to share elders’ life lessons in two ways:

  • People of any age can submit (in around 100-200 words)  a lesson they have learned from an older person
  • Older people can submit one of their own lessons for living

Prizes include $100 Amazon gift cards and copies of the just-published book 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from theWisest Americans. Click here to enter!

Here are a few gems that have been coming in over the past few days:

“Attitude, attitude, attitude. Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. That’s what my mother use to say all the time when I was younger.”

“My grandparents’ calm and gentle demeanor towards each other and toward me gave me a strong sense of stability and of hope for the future. Their gift to me was the gift of observing and participating in a simple, but happy lifestyle at a time when there was great instability and unhappiness in my immediate family.”

“My dad has given me a lot of good advice. He always says that in life you don’t owe anyone an explanation and that too many times people get worked up about trying to justify things to other people. He truly never worries about what other people think.”

“When visiting an elderly home in Maine I was talking to a group of women with more energy than you could possibly imagine. One woman left an impact on my life and I always remember what she said when we were leaving, “Variety is the spice of life, EXCEPT with your husband.”

“My grandfather has said that you should be smart about spending money. But this does not mean that we should meticulously scrimp on everything. “Money that should be spent, should be spent.” I recently applied to medical schools. At one point, I did not want to add anymore schools. Applications are very expensive, with each school at $100 to $150. But then I was reminded of my grandfather’s words. I should not concern myself with the cost of education. Plus, I was limiting my list to the point of concern because I was not applying to enough schools to be safe. Thanks grandpa.”

Thanks to everyone who has submitted lessons, and we look forward to receiving many more!