What I Finally Learned Today

I guess it has taken me a long, long time to learn the most basic thing in life. Today, I think I finally learned the secret of life. I should have know it for a lot of reasons... some of which I may write of later in this post, if I can manage. But for now I shall just try to explain what I learned and how I learned it. Today I watched an hour long program on the life of Nelson Mandela... a man who took not quite as long as it took me to learn. He somehow learned while in a terrible prison... and I just learned from him... the secret of a happy life is quite simple... to be a good person and love everyone. You have only to look at the sweet, smiling face of Mandela to realize he turned an angry life around and really, honestly began to love all people, be they friend, acquaintance, old enemy, black, white, or anything in between. As he came back amongst people he daily seemed to become sweeter, kinder and more forgiving of everything that had ever been done to him or his country. He taught his coountry the great power of forgiveness to all for every bad thing ever done or even felt toward another person, with no punishment if a person confessed to a missdeed... and then, the great power of a love for all other human beings. What power that man had... for for no one else have I ever heard it said, as I did today, from a young Indian man who said, "We sing and dance today, for we must not have tears that he is gone, but joy that he was here." Of who else could this simple thing be said? No one of whom I can think. He forced a country to have a time of reconciliation... not by torture or fights or battles or laws, but by the confession of ill deeds, the forgiveness for those deeds with no jail terms, no punishment, but merely forgiveness and hopefully an end to the hatred that caused them. For such a man, who had been hated and jailed and mistreated for so long to feel this way is not only almost unbelievable it is about as saintly as one can get. Nelson Mandela was that saint, and today, as his countrymen and women gather and sing of, by and for him, I finally got it through my head that he was right. If I want to be happy and live a good life in the tiny time I have left, I had better lose all of my bad feelings I ever had for anyone else and join Mandela in loving all of humanity. 

Now about what I said in the beginning of this piece. The reason I 'should' have learned this long years ago. I had a wonderful older sister, whom we used to kid about and call "The Saint" because she was so good, really good. I only saw her yell at her kids once in my life... and if they had been mine, I might have either gone crazy or beaten them. As it was, just going into their bedroom one night when they were yelling and fighting, slapping all the beds with a pair of pajamas and saying, "if I hear ONE MORE SOUND out of any of you I WILL BE BACK!" shocked them so much that we didn't hear one more sound for the rest of the night. But I didn't learn to be a saint like my sister, and I am just beginning to learn to forgive the world. What a lovely feeling that is... particularly as I live in San Francisco, where we live close and right on top of one another, with people from all over the world, all crowded in together. I guess that helps to teach one to love others, and I guess it has helped me. So I suppose one of the easiest things to do is to imagine, when approached by anyone one could feel a dislike for, the beautiful, smiling face of Nelson Mandela and smile back with a real feeling of love and happiness. One might also extend a helping hand if needed, or at least a kind word, and a real feeling of love for each person.