Success,, Failure, Praise, and Criticism

So much of life we have control over and so much of life we have no control over. Sometimes those most likely to succeed don’t or maybe they could not. Sometimes the least gifted hit upon a good idea or make the right connections and experience success beyond anyone’s dreams. Sometimes we make mistakes that place a damper on all we do for the rest of our lives. Yet some folks can overcome the greatest of mistakes. Sometimes there are accidents and illnesses that limit lives or end lives much too soon. And sometimes the sickest among us manage to live long past the expected three score and ten. Some people are equipped with the best of tools. But sometimes the people who have the best tools are unable to use them. Sometimes they refuse to use them. Sometimes people pick up broken tools and remnants and manage to build something great. Some people can hear hateful words and it rolls of them like water off a ducks back. Other people can hear the same words and they sting the soul and act as a curse forever. Some people can take charge of their lives and some people cannot. I do not understand all of that but such is life. And since that is the way it is we probably need to be a little more reserved in both our praise and in our criticism.

My grandfather Williams was a country preacher. I remember him but I was four years old when he died so obviously I did not him well. Most of what I know about him comes from the stories my mother told me. My mother often quoted an old saying that she had heard from him. “There is so much bad in the best of us and so much good in the worst of us that it hardly behooves any of us to talk about the rest of us”. Sounds like a wise word to me.