Thursday, April 20, 2017

How to be powerless and happy

I admit that there are some powers I have and am happy about having them.  I can stand up.  I can swallow.  I can lift my hand in front of me and close my fingers.  I can walk.  I am not going to list all the things I can do.  It would be boring and almost certain to be incomplete.  I can do things I don't know I can and I am certain to omit some things, even important things I am doing right now.


Once, I purposely controlled my face and voice and asked my adorable greatgrandson, aged 5 at the time, in serious and buddy-buddy tones, to advise me about some fake problem I had.  It was a financial or health thing, something rather adult.  I explained my difficulty in simple terms but he responded,"Grandad, I'm just a kid!"  We could paraphrase his statement as "Get off my back! This is an issue way over my head and beyond my experience. Go pester a properly qualified person!"


This son of my granddaughter fully grasped the wisemen's advice.  Know your limits and more importantly, accept them.  Of course, you may dream of being king of the prom, or of the whole world, but you aren't.  As you mature, you may develop very rapid abilities to mentally put yourself on this throne or that, and simply imagine a thought experiment that shows you the unexpected difficulties, disappointments and headaches those kings experience all the time.  


You can't control the weather, all the others younger, older or your age, you are going to forget things you want to remember and remember things you don't need to think of.  Take a moment to rejoice in all the things you can't do!  You are rich indeed and have an unlimited supply of inabilities!

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