NATASHA'S CHRONICLES : LEARNING FROM OUR ELDERS

For those who were wondering ‘so what’ about the elders, I suggest you take a second thought. There’s obviously much too much to learn from them because they’ve obviously seen more days and gained more experience from their days, enough to be called appreciable teachers. Not many even have teaching degrees but they’re naturally able to convey to teach and convey their messages. I say, this kind of wisdom comes with age. There are too many things in which we can borrow a leaf from the elders for example; doing the right thing, at the right time is a good quality leant from them. An elder will simply advise ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ if something’s not right, deal with it and solve it before it causes more problems. Also, especially for the young, the right amount of sleep; regular and obviously healthy. But how many of us manage it? And what exactly are we doing in all honesty? Elders will try their best not to complain by simply saying ‘early to bed, early to rise makes man healthy, wealthy and wise’ who doesn’t want health, wealth and wisdom? And for that, I’d fly in and out of bed! Fighting against laziness; we should notice that our elders are always singing the anti-laziness song to us and we’ll realize it’s through this that we manage to do many of our responsibilities. The thought implies that we can’t go any further in life without working towards it. They always urge us to keep clean right from childhood; ‘keep that properly’, ‘wash that’, don’t make that dirty’, etc, we’ve grown up hearing all this. But with time they’ll only say ‘cleanliness is next to Godliness’ and let then let you choose. They are usually the encouragements to keep us working by being the example, bearing the testimony that, ‘every thousand mile journey begins with a first step’ and that ‘one by one makes a bundle’. They also teach us how to socialize once in a while and remind us all the time of how, ‘work without play made jack a dull boy’. They also remind us not to simply wish and wait for wishes to come true because ‘if wishes were horses, all beggars would ride’ and ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ Those who want to teach us wisdom will teach us not to be proud since, ‘pride comes before a fall’. We don’t have to overdo things however popular they are since ‘too much of anything is always bad’. Elders encourage us to keep trying because ‘to stumble is not to fall but to move forward’ and even go as far as training us on how to save some of our own for ‘a rainy day’ as well as to invest in education regardless of the cost because education will never be more expensive than ignorance. The list is endless and our rich culture that passes from generation to generation deserves a pat on the back. Experience is the best teacher after all, isn’t it? The author is a student at Riviera High School hozatash@yahoo.com