Wisdom

My mom used to be a never-ending fountain of advice, but it was when I grew older that I discovered how wise her words were.

If I (when I) came to her with a problem - boys, classes, dreams, you name it she would get a cup of coffee (always the coffee), sit me down and ask the same question: "Honey, have you done everything that you can possibly do for now?"

If my answer was "yes" then she would tell me to let it go until there was something more that I could do, then do it because to worry about something that could not be changed or acted upon was a useless drain of both mental and emotional energy that could best be put to use elsewhere, like refilling her coffee. Then she'd give me a hug.

If my answer was "no" however, then she would ask me what I could be doing at that particular moment to remedy, influence, or otherwise proactively do about my current worry and why I was still sitting on my proverbial ass worrying about it instead of doing something about it until no more could be done. Then she'd ask for more coffee, and give me a hug.

Along those same lines if I was worried about something and the outcome was not in my favor, or something quite bad had just happened - to me, my family, a friend - she'd give me a huge hug and say wryly (we all believe in humor - even dark humor), "Honey, look on the bright side. In 100 years, is this really going to have made so much of a difference?"