WORDS TO THE YOUTH AND THE REST OF US (WHEN OUR "STOOPID" GENE TAKES OVER)

Sunday was testimony meeting in our ward. One of my most favorite people bore her testimony and said "...years and years ago President. N. Eldon Tanner told the kids, (and I don't know exactly what he said, ) but in essence it was, 'Now go out and have a good time,... but make sure that it will still be good when you look back on it in five years, ten years, twenty years...'"

Good advice, no? When I remember some of the things I did and the repenting I've had to do to be able to live with myself I wonder why I didn't know this years ago.

Thanks, Maisel!

ADVICE

If you are going to your son and daughter-in-law's house to tend the kids and eat their delicious food and help the nine-year-old with her Valentine box and then the 12 year old decides he will decorate his box instead of just taking it "as is," which was a black shoe box, and then the six year old decorates everything in sight with every sticker available, and you decide this is the perfect photo opportunity for tonight's post and you get out the camera and click the shutter and the camera displays a message something like, "no image taken" and then you remember that because you are such a technologically challenged person--not an idiot, mind you, just technologically challenged--that you still don't have your Christmas camera's software downloaded and so every night you take the photo card out of the new camera and put it in the old camera and download the photos from it and then erase the card and then put it back into the new camera and when you see the message on the new camera you remember that the card is still in the old camera and that if you had just put the extra card in your purse like you told yourself you should have done you wouldn't have missed the great shots of kids and construction paper and stickers and Valentine's boxes and you would have a picture to post on the blog tonight.

So, take my advice and don't do this or you will be sorry, like I am.

AN EMAIL ABOUT STRESS

Minkey is right where he wants to be, with Her Excellency of Mousehole. Kramer is right where he wants to be, with Her Excellency of Mousehole. The trouble begins when Her Excellency of Mousehole shows the two that they are occupying the same person.

Minkey would like to eat Kramer, not because Minkey is hungry, mind you, but because then Kramer would be out of the way. He growls and hisses and then...licks his lips. Kramer just wants to be friends but with a growling, hissing, licking-his-chops cat mere inches away it's difficult to remember why he wants to be friends.

This is stress for the animal kingdom.

I'm taking the easy way out tonight. This is from an email forward. I hope it will help someone. The list of things at the end is something someone tacked on and you've heard all of them before. There were a couple that spoke to me and so I'm leaving them there. Some, of course are silly but that's like life. Knowledge, good advice and something stupid just to see if we are paying attention.

STRESS

A lecturer when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked "How heavy is this glass of water?"

Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.

The lecturer replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."

He continued, "And that's the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on. "

"As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden."

"So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can."


So, my friend, Put down anything that may be a burden to you right now. Don't pick it up again until after you've rested a while.



Here are some great ways of dealing with the burdens of life:

* Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.

* Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

* Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

* Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.

* If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

* If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply be kind to others.

* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on.

* Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

* Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.

* The second mouse gets the cheese.

* Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.

* You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.

* We could learn a lot from crayons... Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.

ADVICE FROM AN FEISTY EIGHTY-EIGHT YEAR OLD

The other night a couple of friends stopped by to visit and sit on the lawn swings. She was telling us about her family. She had six kids. They had kids. Their kids had kids, now there are over 100 in her family. She is the most beautiful eighty-eight year old woman I have ever seen. Her hair is gray, curly and long.

She recently lost one of her sons--she didn't misplace him, he died. (When someone says "She/he lost someone," I want to ask if they ever found them. I don't actually ask that--i just want to.) He was only sixty-five. Two of her children have a serious illness. Some of her family have strayed from their religion. Some are doing "interesting" things. Of course a lot of them are boringly normal and she likes boring. Boring is good. Boring allows her to keep her sanity.

She sighed and then said, all in one long drawn out breath, "Do you have kids? I suggest you nip their little heads off before birth." Then she laughed and her eyes twinkled. Who knew this beautiful eight-eight year old had such a pithy sense of humor?

SIX WORD THURSDAY 7-03-08

The freedom to choose good advice.