Living with People Who Lived Alone

People who have lived alone for a very long time enjoy the luxury of doing exactly what they want to do “every day” and without having to make any allowances for the needs of others.

And they recognize that if they ever live with another person,

they will have to learn to accommodate the needs of the other person

and they know that it will take some sacrifice of their own needs sometimes

and that it will take real effort.

As a Result,

When they then begin to live with someone, they will try very hard to be considerate and accommodating to the other person.

But if they overdo this compensatory accommodation,

they may later find out that they are trying “too hard” and in doing so, they are ignoring their own needs,

and that they then must stop being so considerate of the other person and do “more” of what they need to do “for themselves”

until they find out they just can’t reach a happy medium
or some happy compromise is reached between the 2 of them.

Robert Jorrie,
April 19, 1991

When you live by yourself …

you live with a person whose faults are perfectly acceptable to you …

and whose faults, if you see them at all, you may think are “not very important” in the “Grand Scheme of Things.”

But an onlooker might make you feel the full weight of your imperfections … and especially if they have some of their own.

G-Ma Marx & RJ
August 12, 1992

Julie came in one day complaining that Life wasn’t “fair.”

I sent her to the filing cabinet in the garage to get her Birth Certificate.

When she returned with it,

I made her read it to me and when she was finished, I asked her to tell me where it said that Life was “fair.”

Robert Jorrie

If you haven’t thought about it enough to know what you Like,

you can’t tell what you Don’t Like.

Robert Jorrie

I Never Resist Temptation,

Because I have found that Things that are Bad for Me,

Do Not Tempt Me.

George Bernard Shaw
The Apple Cart Act II (1930)

I do the very Best I can,

And I mean to keep on
doing the Best I can until the End.

If the End brings me out Right,
What is said against me won’t amount to Anything,

If the End brings me out Wrong,
Ten Angels swearing I was Right would make No Difference.

Abraham Lincoln

“Most of what I really Need to know about How to Live, and What to Do, and How to be, I learned in Kindergarten.

Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.

These are the Things I Learned:

Share Everything.

Play Fair.

Don’t Hit People.

Put Things Back Where you Found Them.

Clean Up your Own Mess.

Don’t Take Things that Aren’t Yours.

Say you’re Sorry when you Hurt Somebody.

Wash your Hands before you Eat.

Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are Good for you.

When you go out into the World, watch for Traffic, Hold Hands and Stick Together.
And it is Still True, No matter How Old you are,

When you go out into the World, It’s Best to Hold Hands and Stick Together.

 

 

Rector V. James Jeffrey, Reno, NV
and Minister Robert Fulghum, Edmonds, WA

Rector V. James Jeffrey, Reno, NV and Minister Robert Fulghum, Edmonds, WA

 

 

Have Patience,

Remembering that everything worth building

Costs Much expenditure of Zeal and Effort and Sweat.

 

Also have Faith

and never for a moment doubt your Ability

to Do the Things you Really Want to Do.

 

B. C. Forbes

 

En la Tierra de las Ciegas,

el Tuerto es Rey.

Translation:

In the Land of the Blind

the One-Eyed Man is King.

What this means to Me:

Some Help is Better than No Help.

an old Mexican Proverb
repeated to me by
Dr. Bill Hauser

Only dead fish go downstream.

Rachel Jorrie Farber
October 18, 1993