It’s Saturday morning, my dear readers, and I get to participate in another Bloganuary post! Yeah, I made my own rules and am jumping in where I can instead of every day. Sorry!

AND I have wonderful news! My husband fixed my WordPress problem…that is, after I decided to stop acting like an exhausted child and use my words, I asked him to take a look at it when he had time, and he did because he DOES love me after all. It turns out that he’s not a mind reader. We’ve been married 23 years. How could I have missed this fact?

What is a life lesson you feel everyone can benefit from learning?

How about this crazy idea? There is no lesson that everyone can benefit from learning. Sure, there are wonderful things we could each be doing, lessons we can take to heart: be kind, don’t eat yellow snow, put your grocery cart back, don’t follow so closely on the road, etc. But not everyone needs to learn every lesson. Many of my vital lessons may not apply to anyone else.

But then, hold on…isn’t “there is no lesson” a lesson? It’s one of those contradictions like, there is no wanting “nothing,” wanting nothing is wanting something.

So, there’s the lesson we can all learn. Leave people alone to learn what’s important and beneficial to them specifically. Your needs are not theirs.

A small side note: In response to my statement over lunch that I was certainly NOT a people person, a close friend told me that she thinks I get so upset with people because I love so much, and I get disappointed. I rolled my eyes at her and changed the subject.

Thinking about it more (because that’s what I do, I repeat conversations in my head over and over and over again until I die), I’m starting to see her point. I do have high hopes for almost everyone I meet. I think everyone has this awesome potential and to think otherwise is just cynical and mean. And then they do things…and I get mad at them. How could they not be what I think they should be?!

Which leads me to that lesson I mentioned above. It’s something I need to learn. Everyone is on a different timeline toward different goals. My place is not to judge them, but to let them be. I feel like I do that, in general, most of the time.

But if I’m honest with myself, really take a good look, I judge people. You didn’t return my phone call the way I wanted you to. You didn’t read that book. You didn’t watch that movie. You didn’t make the same choices I would. That leads me to believe that you’re clearly not doing life right. What’s wrong with you?

I’ve got work to do, haven’t I? Good thing, too. If I didn’t, I’d be dead, right? The price of life is growth.

On another note, I’m still reading The Vanishing Hitchhiker by Jan Harold Brunvand. You’ll hear more about that when I finish it tomorrow.