Life Lessons and Chihuly

*All pictures were taken at the Dallas Arboretum.  The glass statues are by a man named Dale Chihuly.  You can check out the artist's website here: http://www.chihuly.com/.  This exhibit is bright and colorful and cool and weird and I highly recommend seeing it.

Life Lesson # 1.  Never take yourself too seriously.  Always be able to laugh at yourself.
Life Lesson # 2.  Learn how to write a good paper.  It is infinitely more beneficial than learning Calculus.  I took Calculus in high school.  I might as well have been trying to learn Martian.  In fact, I probably would have been better off trying to learn Martian.  I think I'm more likely to be abducted by aliens than to find a real world situation in which Calculus is actually necessary.
Life Lesson # 3.  Listen to people who are smarter than you.  I'm a stubborn person and I rarely take advice.  I can't tell you how much time I've wasted doing things my way only to find that someone, years ago, was actually right and that if I'd even considered listening to them, just to try something out, I would have discovered something new and useful a lot sooner.

Life Lesson # 4.  Don't use a pair of contact lenses longer than the recommended two weeks.
Life Lesson # 5.  Always, ALWAYS, trust your gut instinct.  Whenever I don't, I end up getting myself into some kind of mess.
Life Lesson # 6.  The best way to take the interesting out of a really interesting subject is to write an academic paper about it.

Life Lesson # 7.   Learn how to do percentages.  Unlike Calculus, you will actually use percentages in the real world.  I can't do percentages, so I really encourage this one.
Life Lesson # 8.  Cheeto Puffs > Regular Cheetos.
Life Lesson # 9.  God has a sense of humor.  He thinks He's really funny.

Life Lesson # 10.  If you've lived in Texas your entire life, feel free to assume that you can not drive in snow.  
Life Lesson # 11.  Don't take Hydrocodone on an empty stomach. 
Life Lesson # 12.  Movies are almost never better than books.  A lot of them are equally enjoyable, however.

Life Lesson # 13.  Take every opportunity to listen to music.
Life Lesson # 14.  Roller blading is easier than roller skating.  Both are easier than ice skating.
Life Lesson # 15.  Whoever told me that bugs are more scared of me than I am of them LIED.

Life Lesson #16.  "You'll never find it if you're looking for it." When my class took our senior trip to Pensacola, Florida, I spent the better part of my time on the beach looking for sea shells.  Our last morning there, my friends and I woke up really early to take one last sunrise stroll along the beach.  I lingered behind to take pictures of course.  While I walked, a wave washed across my feet.  I looked down and saw something bright and orange beneath the water.  Anyone who's been to Pensacola knows how clear the water is there.  Without thinking about it or rolling up my sleeve, I reached down into the water and pulled out this perfect orange shell.  Hadn't even been looking for it.  It was just there.
Life Lesson #18.  Learn to count.
Life Lesson # 19. Everything I need to know in life, I learned from the Magic School Bus.  "Take chances.  Make mistakes.  Get messy."

Life Lesson # 20.  One of the most valuable lessons I learned in my three years working as a counselor at All Saints Camp was to trust.  I'm not by nature a patient person.  I want things to happen exactly when I think I'm ready for them and then I get disappointed when they don't.  Two years ago, however, we were all sitting around a camp fire and listening to one of the visiting priests talk about the Tower of Babel.  I can't remember everything he said, but I do remember the message he was trying to convey.  "When God wants something to happen, He makes it happen."  At that moment, I felt that God was speaking directly to me, telling me to stop worrying about things that haven't happened yet.  If it's right, it will.  That's not to say we can all just sit around and do nothing and wait for things to happen.  But it does give me a lot of reassurance. 

BONUS LIFE LESSON:

Contrary to what they teach you in first grade, it is NOT always "My friend and I."  For example, "This is important to Bob and I" is WRONG.  Please spread the word!  http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/i-or-me

Keep an eye out for future fun filled entries such as 20 Things I Wish Every Guy Knew.

*All photographs © copyright by Jacqueline E. Smith.