Residents Offer Words of Wisdom! – Guest Post

Submitted by:  Leslie Palmer, Activities Director

Integrity Healthcare Communities

In one of our recent Activities sessions, I asked many of our residents for words of wisdom. I asked them what advice they would give to the younger generation.  Here are their answers!

• Believe in yourself
• Whenever hard times come along know that things can be fixed with time. Don’t give up it could always be worse.
• Open your heart and your arms instead of your mouth
• Roll with the punches
• Tend to your own knitting
• Three squares a day improves your health
• Live life to the fullest
• Top of the list is you must have a higher education
• Anything that goes in your body must be clean and pure
• Trust and believe in the Lord
• Stay away from taverns
• Stay away from cigarettes
• Don’t gamble
• Make friends and give due respect
• Go to school and mind your parents
• Help keep friends out of trouble
• Go to bed early so you are able to wake up in early in the morning
• Don’t take candy from strangers
• Things cannot go right all the time.
• Pray everyday
• Believe in yourself
• Keep your eyes open

Later that afternoon, one of our gentlemen slipped a small torn piece of paper in my hand.  He said, “find this and read it.”  After I did, I sure understood why he wanted me to ready this poem by Peter Winbrow Senior, written in 1934.  It still holds true today!

 

The Man in the Glass

Peter “Dale” Winbrow, Sr.

 

When you get what you want in your struggle for self
and the world makes you king for a day
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself
and see what that man has to say

For it isn’t your father or mother or wife
who judgment upon you must pass
The fellow whose verdict counts the most in your life
is the one staring back from the glass

Some people may think you a straight-shooting chum
and call you a wonderful guy
But the guy in the glass says you’re only a bum
if you can’t look him straight in the eye

He’s the fellow to please never mind all the rest
for he’s with you clear up to the end
And you’ve passed your most dangerous difficult test
if the man in the glass is your friend

You may fool the whole world down the pathway
of life and get pats on the back as pass
But your final reward will be heartaches and
tears if you’ve cheated the man in the glass.