The Proper Use of Old Men

Old men should be squeezed and wrung out until every drop of knowledge, every lesson learned, every mistake they made, and every success they achieved can drip out where others can use it.

Old women are vital sources of wisdom and the wisdom that they provide is every bit as vital as that  which can be learned from old men. From old women one can best learn the relationship between oneself and others. From old men one can best learn the relationship between one's self and time.

The most important lesson that one can learn from old men is how to prioritize one's life.The old man understands priorities because he is  aware that his time to achieve that which he must is limited and is more acutely aware of the existence of the ultimate deadline than are those who have walked the earth but a few decades.  The old man knows that there is a time for patience and a time for immediate action. The time for patience is when dealing with the shortcomings of others and the time for immediate action is when others need the old man's assistance.

The old man understands that there is a time for each phase of life to begin and a time for each phase of life to end. The old man understands that their is a time to be an infant, a time to be a toddler, a time to be an adolescent, and a time to be a child. But the old man understands that the time to be a child reaches its end before many children want it to. The old man understands that being a child cannot be a life goal and that the responsibilities of adulthood exist whether one wants to be a child or not.

The old man understands that labor is not punishment, but is, in fact, one of the greatest rewards that ever come into a human life. The old man understands that the most unproductive waste of time is worrying about having enough time instead of just getting the job done.

The old man understands that "good enough" is both good  and enough.

The old man understands that the only accurate answer to some of the most vexing questions that consume popular culture is, "It don't matter."