Understanding is Knowledge (Part 3 of 5)

When?

 

No time like the present! Get started. It’s easier than you think. Simply imagine: Success!

Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! Four seconds lost. Gone! Forever! Just do it---Now! Merci!

Made an acquaintance out Oregon-way, some years ago, now. Forrest (his real name) was a tender eighteen by the calendar, then. Quite the character, he was. Had already spent a couple of summers up Alaska-way hiring out on fishing boats for three months to earn money; in that short summer season he pocketed over twenty thousand dollars. Not bad coin collecting in those days.

Attending his high school graduation ceremony at which all four hundred plus honorees looked spiffy in their handsome caps and gowns while most of the boys sported freshly shined shoes which occasionally peeked out from the hem of the gowns and every girl-graduate sported fashionable high heels in a varied array of myriad hues as they proudly stepped through the magic portal from childhood toward, finally, that long-awaited entrance to the adult mecca. All in all: Quite a day! For graduates and spectators, alike.

From the bleachers in the gymnasium, I had a “bird’s-eye” view of the festivities; I watched for my friend Forrest to march in. At last, here he comes wearing that impish grin I can still picture in my mind, today. Made me wonder what he was up to; had to be something---Good!

Then, I spied his feet peeking out from the bottom of his robe. Holy cow! Sandals!

That I found myself surprised is the surprise! That’s Forrest! My young, irreverent friend!

So, now the query of: How? Indeed. The answer, like other understandings, is: Simple!

By the year of Forrest’s twentieth year, he had visited each of the seven continents! Wow!

He was not some rich kid whose family funded his excursions; not by a long shot. On those treks, he worked his way along doing whatever job presented itself. In Columbia, South America, he hired out as a laborer in an emerald mine. One day, the roof caved in on his head, fracturing his skull. They brought him twenty miles through the jungle in the bucket of a high lift where he finally received medical attention. Guess he has a hard head, he survived the ordeal.

 Forrest became a “Smoke Eater” jumping out of airplanes to fight forest fires. Imagine that!

He married a girl of kindred spirit; they serve on the same fire team.

But, the question I get when I relate Forrest’s worldly adventures is: How? Visited all seven!?

Easy! He did it: “one” step at a time! First one, then, another, and on and on! Easy! Simple!

Skepticism betrays the petitioner when I offer that analysis. Doubt! Yet, it is the Truth!

The problem with most of us is: Taking that First step! Therein lays the rub. A lack of Faith!

They say a college education is very expensive, and, of course, that surmise is true.

But, try Ignorance! Now, there is an eternal expense. Challenge with courage!