You Called Me Stupid by Lori Loesch

If you are going to call me stupid, you should be at your best.  The mistakes you made will now, be amplified.  You make mistakes too.  You had no patience with me when I made a mistake, however I will have them with you.  I will say that maybe you had a difficult day at work.  Maybe you had a few drinks with dinner.  There are many reasons why you made the mistakes, none of which are because you are, as you prefer to phrase it, stupid…tired yes, stupid, no.  

I took a look at your profile page, after all, I should know who is calling me stupid.  You said that you went to, not one, but two prestigious college’s on the East Coast.  It’s ironic, because you probably have spent upwards of  two hundred thousand dollars, on your college degree, and I have spent nothing on mine, and yet you still make mistakes, just like me.  

You were upset, I didn’t agree with you.  You lashed out and called me, stupid.  We don’t agree on every theory, however that doesn’t mean that we should be nasty and resort to name calling.  Your theory isn’t right and mine isn’t wrong.  We have different ideas and that’s what makes great things happen.  

I’m glad I took a few steps away before I made a rebuttal comment.  In so doing, I look like the intelligent one, and I wasn’t trying to be…it just happened.  I took the higher road, so to speak. I wasn’t trying to do that, either.  But it happened.   Everything happens for a reason, and I have learned through this experience, that knowledge doesn’t come from a degree, it comes from within.  It comes through weathering the storms and the sunshine in life.  It comes from having faith in God.  

There’s too much faith placed on a piece of paper.  A piece of paper stating that you have, in fact,  successfully earned a degree.  This doesn’t mean that you graduated at the top of your field, nor does it make you the best person for the job.  Personality goes a long way, in addition to your degree.  Please do not think for one moment that I condone not going to college, I don’t.  Learning is a wonderful experience and should be something to strive for.  What I do not condone is, those people who think, because they have a degree, or two, they are somehow smarter than people who do not.  

I have grown from this experience, not older, but wiser, and there’s satisfaction in learning…rather it be from school, from God, or from experience.  There is a positive side to growing older, I am not so quick to blurt out a response to a posed question.   I stop to think, I take my time. I ask myself, “as a servant of God, what is the best response?”.  

I would like to close with a writing from Mother Teresa. I am not catholic, but… if it is the truth, what does it matter who said it…..

People are often unreasonable and self centered,

Forgive them anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you,

Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous,

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow,

Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough,

Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.

Shalom, my friends.