A collection of life advice from six Lexington residents
Each section features an excerpt from a separate interview, where each interviewee was asked, “What is your biggest piece of advice?”
Jean Paul: Expect the unexpected.
You have opportunities in life that aren’t always so clear to your eyes. The lucky ones are the ones who recognize those opportunities. Most of the time, those opportunities are seen as chores by other people. It’s something that they don’t want to do.
But suddenly you must decide “maybe I should just try that.” Maybe there is something special about that.
For example, my wife's career. You know, it is very difficult to get published because you will get rejected by almost every publisher. So, you first just write books that won’t bring in any money. When my wife first started her career, she was teaching literature at a school. One day, the chairman of the department said, “I need someone who will create language tests.”
Everyone else wanted to do literature because making tests was a meaningless job. But my wife decided to try it. She was trained by a top professional in testing and learned a lot. She eventually wrote a book on language testing which started her writing career.
It opened doors to many other opportunities.
Loretta: One thing that was said to me, and I think is the most important one, is to set goals.
If you set goals, even if they're way too big and you think it’s never going to happen, what will happen? All you do is risk falling short of that goal, but you've gotten further than if you didn't set it. Too many people just go along. Even if they get good jobs, make good money, a lot of friends, husbands, or all kinds of doctorate degrees . If you don't set goals, you kind of flow along. You get farther if you set a goal. Things like “I want to do this” or “I want to go there” are great.
Rita: The younger generation should focus on what they want from their heart.
Also, they should think about the less fortunate people around them so that they are not just closed in their own world. There's so much pain, and there's so much misery. If the smart people of today pay attention, they would definitely figure out solutions.
Albert: You gotta do something that attracts you.
I can’t understand doing something to make money when it’s not what appeals to you. Medicine is what I wanted to do, what I felt I needed, so I went at it and really studied it. Since I retired, I found a lot of reading that I enjoy, but you can’t spend your life reading. You’ve got to do something.
Judith: The thing to do with the good things in your life is to pay it forward.
For instance, I have a son who is wealthy. He's a financial person. He participated in starting a foundation in Boston. All of these things that support and educate youth, keeping them off the streets. If people do as well as he does and pay attention, they will do wonderful things with their money.
Everybody can pay something forward.
No matter what you do and in what way.
I did a lot of volunteering at Planned Parenthood. For years, I was a Planned Parenthood nurse. Adoption, abortion, birth control, counseling, and clinic work. I mean, whatever you choose to do, whatever route you take, you can pay forward the good stuff.
That's what everybody needs to do, instead of getting holed up in your own life. You know the whole, “I've got the house, got the kids, I got the dog, and I have a future and I have my insurance.”
Pay something forward.
Mr. Rogers was the speaker at Middlebury College for my grand niece's graduation. All the graduates “grew up” in Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. There were 2000 people in the audience. It was outdoors, and it was beautiful. And you could hear a pin drop. Couldn't wait to hear what this guy had to say. And it was all about paying forward with what you've got.
“All the people who got together, however, you got here: you're educated, you're graduating, and it's time to start giving back no matter how big or small”.
That's the only thing I can hope that young people will do. Pay attention to politics. Fight for what's correct.
Don't bury your head like an ostrich in the sand and hope somebody else takes care of it.
Stephen: What I found useful is knowing how to find information that is of significance to something that you're doing.
In fact, I think that was the key lesson I learned as a graduate student.
It happened to be that I was working in chemistry, but the whole notion of, “Where do you look for information?”
Now, of course, this has changed drastically with the introduction of computers on the internet. But it also is important to know how to judge whether information is reliable. And that is a skill that takes a lot of practice to get down to where you're willing to rely on your judgment.
I think that that is very important, and it is incidentally in our current political situation, a skill that far too many people in this country lack.
And in fact, politicians take advantage of the fact that people don't know how to judge information, and they're doing it far too well for the good of this country.
Otherwise, I think, develop some skills, for a profession or a calling of some sort. My grandson, for example, is an electrician and very successful at such. And also for your mental health—for things to entertain yourself, to keep busy, to interact with other people. It is good to have methods to get along.
