LAS CRUCES – This month, I asked several people about the
wisest advice their moms had given them. Ever since, I’ve been thinking about
the best advice I’ve gotten and the legacy and bon mots I want to leave with my
own son and grandson.
I’ve thought about conferring with my older sister and
younger brother but I suspect there might be a consensus about the most
memorable (if not the best) advice from our parents.
“Don’t do as I do, do as I say,” was Dad’s fave. He meant it
to be funny, but I think the lasting affect was that all three of us strived to
be better role models for our kids and to aim for honesty rather than
hypocrisy.
“Smile sweetly, say ‘Yes, dear,’ and then do as you damn
please,” was one of mom’s pre-feminist maxims, and I wish she’d followed it a
bit more herself.
On the other hand, I’ve come to greatly appreciate her
suggestion to “Bat your eyelashes and say, ‘You big, strong, handsome, wonderful
man,’” on occasions that require lots more upper body strength, mechanical
skills or tolerance for major messes than I possess.
I use the line a lot, and it always works, and I honestly
don’t feel that it’s exploitive or offensive, now that I am a vieja, and
flirting is no longer a blood sport.
I suppose I should check with Human Resources, just to be
sure, but for now, I’m sticking with another favorite, generally attributed to
U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper: “If it’s a good idea, go ahead and
do it. It is often easier to ask for forgiveness
than to ask for permission.”
My spiritual mentor had so much great advice to give us all
that I wrote a book about her (“Tenny Hale” American Prophet.”)
A conversation that I think about a lot (and nearly every
day, when I lived in Palm Beach, and during Presidential election campaigns)
involved the social and spiritual plagues that each generation must confront.
“The diseases of my age were innocence and ignorance,” Hale
told me, adding that the cures involved enlightened experience and education.
“The diseases of your age are arrogance and greed. Good luck
with that,” she told me, shortly before her death on the eve of the 1980s “ME”
decade.
I wish I could have just one more long consult with her about
my theories regarding the only possible cures for arrogance and greed: humility
and charity. How can we disseminate the cure in a world so dominated by
arrogant, greedy sociopaths and narcissists who think things are just peachy as
they are? (And break their spell over the multitudes who admire and follow
them?)
The struggle between good and evil rages on, but as Dr.
William Sheldon once opined, “Wherever there are two seeking consciousnesses,
there is hope.”
And I have been heartened by the wit and wisdom of new
generations, Gen X to Millennials, who continue to impress me with their
resilience, adaptability and creative fusions of the best of the past, present
and future sagacity.
I think we all have some important and original advice we
should be collecting to pass on to the future. Here are a few truisms from my
personal collection:
• The more some people feel they are out of control, the
more they try to control others.
• The price of awareness is awareness.
• The absence of vice does not necessarily indicate the
presence of virtue.
• Society should be more like a fugue than a football game.
• Everything (including life in general) is better with
green chile.
Let me know if you’ve come up with some original advice
you’d like to share with the next generation. We need all the help we can get.
S. Derrickson Moore may be
reached at 575-541-5450, dmoore@lcsun-news.com or @derricksonmoore on Twitter.
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