Free lessons of life

Have you ever asked yourself? What lessons have I learned from life so far? I know I have. And for the most part after looking at the big picture I know I have learned many things from life. For everything and anything I ever did, there was some sort of learning experience from it whether big or small, bad or horrible, I learned something.

Goes back to when I was a child and I asked my dad to buy me the Grease record from the movie grease with John Travolta. Like the good dad he is, he always did his best to give his daughter everything he could, so he bought it for me. But, like the pesky little brat that I was, I broke the 45 inch record in half because I was unhappy that dad did not buy me the Grease album, that I was not specific about upon making my request. As you can imagine my dad was not happy and boy did he let me know. Okay, so what did that teach me? Number one, it taught me to be specific when I say or ask for something, Number two, ungratefulness gets me no where and three, don’t mess with dad.

Life is so amazing this way, you can look back and be thankful for something that at the time seemed useless or even humiliating. I have had many free lessons along the way. One in specific was in practicing humility.

There was a time when I could not imagine myself cleaning toilets and scrubbing floors for someone else. Not because I frowned upon it but, because I thought with my education I should be working in an office with glass desks and shiny door knobs. Well, needless to say, I could not find the shiny door knob job and things were getting hard financially.

While discussing my situation with a few friends, one of them made a mention of a person who was looking for a cleaning lady. My friend asked me if I would be interested. I said yes, only because I did not want to seem like a Pri Madonna, which would have been ridiculous given the circumstances. That job was one of the best things I ever did in my life. I worked cleaning houses for about one year and besides earning a few bucks to pull me through while I got back on my feet, I gained so many other things from it like strength, good honest work ethics and gratitude for being given the opportunity to actually see that where there is a will, there is always a way.

Of course part of life lessons can sometimes involve people you hate. I know, I know that sounds harsh. But in the lesson, you actually learn not to hate and not to be so quick to judge. At least that is how it was for me.

Let me tell you about this woman. Oh my goodness, I could not stand the sight of her and I knew darn well she felt the same about me. Why? Well as me and her know today, we were jealous of one another, plain and simple. She did not like the fact that she thought I was prettier than her and I did not like it that she had more money than I. When ever she had a boyfriend, she made it a point to inform him or rather demand not to even look at me and well frankly, I did the same. As you are probably saying to yourself right now “that is ridiculous.” Yes it was. My husband use to jokingly say she was my arch-nemesis.

I had a very low point in my life three years ago, emotionally and spiritually. It could have easily been my worst if; my arch nemeses had not extended her hand out to me and help me recover. Yes, my dear readers the woman that I hated, turned out to be my angel during my time of great difficulty and I have been hers during her rough times. Today we are good friends.

The life lessons learned for me here was, do not be so quick to judge others, look beyond the exterior and into the interior, those you criticize may very well be the ones you help and help you some day.

Looking back there were some difficult moments and hardships but, they all taught me valuable lessons on how to live life and be a better person.

Madison O'Sullivan