Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/AvoidTakingAdvice.mp3 or read on…
I’ve rubbed elbows with many wise and witty and even famous people in my span…I’ve had contact with even more wise and witty and famous folk via literature and media and public presentation.
You’d think that more than half a century of being exposed to the wisdoms and outrages of the renowned as well as the insignificant would make me a sage, a vizier, a Village Elder, one to whom you come to find a Better Way—or at least a Better Oblique View.
But, nay, even though the thoughts and comforts of far-superior people have crossed the threshhold of my consciousness as well as my conscience, very little seems to have adhered, not much of those wise and wonderful ideas have stuck.
This is mostly because I seem to have been born a Contrarian, a skeptic, a little professor who automatically examines each person’s reality and dismisses it as profound but inconclusive. Can’t help it. I’m just that way.
The good news is, I also inherently pick and choose the ideas and thoughts and wisdoms and witticisms that seem to fit my chaotic psychic makeup. This means that at times I am smart and alert and creative and helpful to those seeking help…while at other times I just have goofy ideas that entertain me but affect almost no-one else.
So, if you want to be in the presence of an active and entertaining mind, you have to approach me when I’m in the right place, cosmically. Sometimes you’ll run into a wise-cracking, ebullient curmudgeon, while at other times you’ll find yourself at the feet of the Master. I can’t tell you how to predict what you’ll encounter, but I can guarantee that if you approach me nonjudgementally and are open to a special experience, you just might come away with something nice to ponder. At the very least, you’ll have heard something funny or outrageous or off-center. And even that will bring you one step closer to mending the Universe until it fits you just fine.
It would be a World more special if each of us would simply enjoy the moment and avoid trying to improve anybody but ourselves. Look upon it as entertainment—people are just who they are, and we would do well to leave them be. We just have to be cautious and give the angry and the violent and the bigoted a wide berth.
There are so many entertaining people to know that, once you learn to do this, you’ll never miss the disturbed ones
(c) 2011 A.D. by Jim Reed