Knowing YOURSELF is the beginning of all WISDOM.
How and When in your lifetime, do you start knowing yourself?
In kindergarten when you make friends?
As a teenager when you start working?
As a young adult when you move out from your parents home?
I didn’t find answers to any of those questions, but I always though my mother was the wisest person I knew when I was 7, 18, 25 and I still believe it at 43 years old.
Mother always had answers to questions that could not be answered
Anytime I would ask my mom a question that didn’t have a significant answer to it:
- At 7 “Mom, Who decided what’s right and wrong?”
- At 18 “Mom, Are soul mates a real thing?”
- At 25 “Mom, Why do people say that they ‘slept like a baby’ if they slept through the night when babies are known for not sleeping”
- At 43 “Mom, What age is considered old enough to die of old age?”
She rarely, or never, provides an “I don’t know” type of answer.
- At 7 “all I know is, if it doesn’t feel right, then its wrong”
- AT 18 “I think they are many soul mates for one single person, you just need to find one of them that is right for you.”
- At 25 “When a baby sleeps, they usually sleep peaceful, even for a short period of time. Your new born will eventually sleep for more then 6 hours a night one of these days.”
- At 43 “Whenever the body had enough I guess. You’r only as old as you feel”
Sometimes, when there was just no way of providing an answer, she would relate questions to a story that happened to herself or to someone she knew at one point of her life.
My mom would often provide examples of all sorts of different situations in order to provide us with our own decisions or judgment.
I guess you can say she had a lot of experiences in her life time.
And that last part I know it to be true!
Growing up too fast
Wisdom: the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment
https://www.google.com/search?q=wisdom+definition
I truly think my mom qualify that definition.
And that she had no choice to get to know herself at a very young age.
She had to stop school at grade 4 and help with chores at home.
Grandma (her mom) died giving birth to her 12th children when my mom was only 11.
Grandpa (her dad) didn’t know how to take care of 12 children so family members (Aunts and Uncles) took one or two siblings in.
At 11, she lost her mom, was separated from the only thing she had left her siblings, and she lived with an aunt and cousins that didn’t make her feel at home.
At 14 she left to work at a convent with one of her older sisters.
Mom’s teenage years where not your typical teenage fun as we know now.
My mother had no choice to grow up fast.
Being an introvert helped my Mother
The one thing that help my mother, was the fact that she is an introvert
https://www.google.com/search?q=introvert+definition
And with that she has typical introvert qualities.
Introverts, in general, seems to know more about themselves than the extroverts.
Mom never draw attention to herself when she walks into a room, she doesn’t initiate conversations, she likes quite people and quite activities.
And because of this, my mother studies a room when she walks in it, she listens without engaging much into a conversation, she secretly analyze the person in front of her without judging them to much. She was always careful with the type of people she interacted with.
Some could say she was boring, not the party going or adventurous.
It wasn’t none of that. It was only because she was matured and even if she knew her siblings where around, know if she didn’t take care of herself no-one would.
The value of Family
I really admire Mom’s side of the family in a way.
Because they were separated at such a young age, they would always try to get together as much as they could regardless where they were.
You could even say they got closer to each other.
The value of “Family” could not be stronger among themselves. Cause they felt they only had each other.
Things that makes you go hmm
My Mother and I are opposites, I’m extrovert.
I never regretted any of my life decision in 43 years.
However my mother doesn’t agree with much of my decisions in life.
One evening when I was visiting her, she had commented about a decision I had made and how “bad” the decision was.
In reality, it wasn’t a bad decision, it was just a different choice that she would’ve made if she would’ve been in my shoes.
In my defense, I replied with one of her favorite quotes: ” You raised me! The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, mom!”
In which she immediately replied: “Well the apple can roll down a hill, fall in a river and take it far far way!”
Her answer surprised me so much that I burst out laughing. The kind of laugh you just can’t stop for some reason. The kind that hurts your ribs. The kind of laughter you need to run to the bathroom.
I had no choice to have that reaction cause her comment couldn’t be closer to the truth, and her honestly makes it real.
Mom sometimes comes up with some weird sayings.
“Sex is like popcorn, you can’t stop at one handful. You’ll end up wanting more eventually”
“Boyfriends never stays, Friends comes and go, Family is forever.”
I don’t think she came up with all of them, but she would definitely use them at the right time in a conversation.
Admiration for my Mom
My mom’s not a guru of anything. She will not win any Nobel Price. She will not be famous for any of her quotes. She is however wise in her own way, and I will always admire her for the words she used on us when raising me and my two older siblings.
Thanks mom!