It has been a good summer. I spent most of it in condos filled with stairs and at my kids’ houses which have the same malady. The blessing was that this year I did not fall down any stairs. It is a painful experience and dangerous at any age. At my age it takes a long time for the pain to go away.
Have you noticed that people usually don’t stumble going up stairs? It strikes when going down and usually when you are in a hurry and not thinking. That has been my pattern anyway. If I stumble going up I seem to have little trouble catching myself. I have learned to be careful on the way down.
Isn’t that the way it is in our daily lives. There is some quote about the wise man learning from the experience of others but most of us have to learn from our own mistakes. It is easy to ignore mistakes when they don’t cost us anything.
That is why it is destructive to hand out charity the way the government does it. When you have the kind of safety nets that everyone wants they never learn from their mistakes. You can ignore your spendthrift ways if someone else is paying the bills. That is one reason why the children of the wealthy often end up losing what the parents have accumulated.
Be grateful for your pain. Take advantage of your embarrassing moments. Learn from your failures. Gain from your losses.
Or get wise. I have not had too much luck with that.
homo unius libri
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