USE TO BEES

“He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age,

but to him who is of an opposite disposition, youth and age are equally a burden.

Plato, philosopher

On more than one occasion I’ve heard the motivational speaker Les Brown say, “Used to bees don’t make honey.”

What’s he talking about? Here’s the way I see it.

I don’t mind swapping stories about the good old days. You may have been a star athlete in high school or a beauty queen. Congratulations. I applaud you. But what I really want to know is what you’re up to now, especially since I’m what folks like to call a senior citizen. For example, last summer I met a lady who was running in her first 5k road race. What made her unique on that day was that she was in her early seventies. And after putting in a lot of years as a smoker, threw away the cigarettes and bought a pair of running shoes. Huffing and puffing on the running trail instead of coughing in a haze of smoke was her new passion.

And that brings us to an interesting question.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

No, it was not as most folks believe, to get to the other side.

It was to get away from Colonel Sanders.

Let me tell you about him. He was an American businessman who started the restaurant chain, Kentucky Fried Chicken. But before that he did several other things including work as a steam engine stoker, insurance salesman, and filling station operator. At the age of 65, he decided to start catching chickens. And what he did next was develop a secret recipe recipe for cooking them in a pressure fryer.

Next he started to market his recipe to restaurants. When all was said and done, the Colonel left this life for the next at age 90. At that time there were over 6,000 Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurants in 48 countries. And they were earning over two billion dollars a year.

Do you have any ideas for a recipe? Hurry. We’re all getting hungry.

Have you ever been bitten by the acting bug?

Robert DeNiro, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand, Judi Dench and a whole bunch of other folks who have counted more than seventy candles on their birthday cake still enjoy making movies. Maybe you should seek out some acting lessons and locate a local theatre troop.

Here’s another idea for your next career, stand up comedy. Funnyman George Burns said, “You can’t help getting older but you don’t have to get old.”  

     *            *            *

Trying to hang on to youth, trying to hang on to what was really great twenty years ago, throws you totally off.

You’ve got to go with it and seek the abundance that’s in the new thing.

If you hang on to the old thing, you will not experience the new.”

Joseph Campbell. scholar