Life’s Little Lessons Forever:
The Rhythm and Reason for Life
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Life is not performed in a vacuum. The individuals around you and the environment you live in all impact who you are and who you will become, in some measure, and often in unexpected ways. It is in these interactions where we learn to understand who we really are and how best we are to live and work in that environment. Life usually provides us with numerous opportunities to learn what we need to become successful in our lives. What we see, hear, and eventually learn impacts us and often the written word will also have a profound impact. It is what we learn from all these activities along with the total mix of the contents of those events that will affect us the most. It also might be the number of unrealized opportunities to learn from an interaction that when finally understood reinforces the importance of those event and how that understanding will impact us going forward in the future. This book represents a compilation of written thoughts that have taken me years to understand, develop, and compile. It was originally conceived as a book of my thoughtful meanderings that could be passed on to my children and possibly to theirs. It is one of those legacy issues that we often get interested in as we get older. Much like reviewing favorite tools and old relics from the past, the thoughts, too, can have value when passed on to the next generation. After consulting with many friends, colleagues, and past students the consensus was that this work, or at least the parts I shared with them, had merit, and needed to be formally published. It was unclear during their readings what was important enough for them to express their encouragement in the value of the work, but they often had thoughtful smiles after the readings and on a few occasions, I heard them express some of the contents to others using my style of wording. Clearly most of the thoughts in this work have been heard by my immediate family, probably on too many occasions, but they were not provided in written form and not all in one volume. I have tested some of these written passages on selected family members who have all indicated that they have heard this all before and, again, on more than one occasion. I suspect some of the concepts, quips and comments were heard ad nauseam, particularly by my children. I have since heard these same children schooling their own charges in what I claim are my thoughts and concepts, so there might be some value to my thoughtful meanderings. I will acknowledge that most, if not all, of my thoughts are a rehash of earlier understandings from many others but like in music the notes may all be the same, but the arrangement can make them unique and impactful. While I am not sure my family and friends got the exact meaning, or the totality of the messages, that I was trying to convey with my thoughts, they remembered the concepts and thus I did succeed in getting at least some of my points across, hopefully some of it was of value to them. No matter the result, this book will put at least some of those thoughts, those important at least to me, in one place so that when I pass on there will be a permanent record of my being here, at least in written form. This writing exercise has also had another impact that I didn’t anticipate. It has forced me to revisit those earlier concepts and to solidify at least some of them into a more presentable form. It has also reinforced what I believed when I originally conceived them, helped to formalize the prose, and hopefully added further depth to the concepts because of my continuing maturation process. Thus, I pass my thoughts on to the reader in hopes that you will also find a few gems that you can smile about and reflect on. While it might be wistful thinking, it is also hoped that these thoughts and concepts will have at least some form of a positive impact on your life. Every positive impact, no matter how small, has an impact on all of us and for this author it will have had an even greater one.
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About the Book
Life’s Little Lessons Forever: The Rhythm and Reason for Life James E. Smith, Ph. D. This book is the third in a series of the lessons learned during my life. The first volume, Life’s Little Lessons - with some not so little was primarily situated during the adolescent years up until college. That book was about those experiences that we all most likely encounter in our own way during those developmental years. The second book, Life’s Little Lessons, too - A Proper Life with a Career, starts off where the first one ended extending those life lessons learned while developing and executing a professional career. As in both volumes, it is the individuals you interact with all around you, plus the social, physical, and clearly professional environments you live in that impact who you are now and who you will become in the future. While these lessons, collectively, are all unique influences in your personal development, it turns out these factors are only part of a set of what I refer to as lessons that everyone is exposed to and allowed to integrate into their personality, at their choosing. Together they essentially become the building blocks of your existence and help to determine how well you will, and can, participate in your ever-changing social, personal, and professional environments. It is in the responses and reactions created through our experienced stories where we learn to understand who we really are and how best we are to live and work in the complex and interwoven environments that we exist in. This book consists of a series of prepared thoughts on what I think are life’s most important issues: love, spirituality, leadership, family and friends, passion and intimacy, plus some thoughts less specific. It also includes several quotes and sayings used to reinforce ideas for my friends, family members, and students. It is hoped that reading this book will help the reader realize the importance of these lessons and how attention to their details in your own life will enhance and encourage your continued professional, personal, and social development.
About the Author
James E. Smith, PhD is a retired university professor with forty-five-plus years of career experience as a practicing engineer and educator. This career, an easily recognizable façade, is overshadowed by his seven decades of living and experiencing life, often outside of his control or choice, which is the subject of this latest book in the Life’s Little Lessons series. It is the interactions with others and the environment we all live in coupled with the many choices that we are required, or choose, to make that establish who we are and who we will become as we walk this path through life. During his professional career, he has taken on the roles of engineer, corporate consultant, research center director, and professor. While these professional roles have satisfied his need to stay connected to his engineering profession, it is the maturing nature of experience where life takes on meaningful expression. Thus, the acts associated with living allow us to learn in a more meaningful way and to provide to others the results of those experiences. The contents of this book reflect some of those experiences. Some were used in classroom situations and others were prepared for friends and colleagues. Many more were written as an aid in understanding life’s little mysteries. Currently, during his infrequent downtimes, he is especially active in chasing after grandchildren and the operation of a “gentleman’s” farm where he and his wife look after deer and wild turkey plus an occasional meandering bear. Their four children visit at will but are particularly attentive when they need to borrow something or wish to leave their offspring to their parents’ designs. The four children he and his wife raised survived and flourished, so it is assumed that as grandparents they can handle the next generation hopefully as well, as inexpensive babysitters. This, again, may become part of another Life’s Little Lessons for the future, if we the older generation survive the energetic set of munchkins left to our designs. Grandkids are such a blessing, and grandparents frequently look forward to their visits, but they often feel the same way with their departures.