GREAT TEACHERS FOR LIFE

Aerial photo of the mouth of the river - Unless your heart, your soul, and your whole being are behind every decision you make, the words from your mouth will be empty, and each action will be meaningless. Truth and confidence are the roots of happiness.

I met a great teacher. She lived in a small Costa Rican village where
my family vacationed. She was no formal educator, philosopher or
person of any renown. Actually, she made chocolate to sell to
tourists.

She took us into her small home. It consisted of a single, partitioned
room with a dirt floor and a wood-burning stove. Its paneless windows
were open to an encroaching jungle that surrounded the dwelling. This
house, by my North American standards, might not be considered more
than a shack or a hut. Yet it was home to a warm and happy family of
four.

She showed us how she picks the cocoa beans from her porch, crushes
them, boils them in a paste, adds sugar and other ingredients and
finally produces chocolate. We sampled chocolate candies, bananas and
other native fruit picked from the jungle.

She not only invited us into her home, but into her life. And for a
couple of hours, she
allowed these strangers a glimpse into her world.

Here was a person who had no TV, no computer, no washer and drier,
no microwave oven, no automobile...no floor!...and none of the
conveniences of my daily life. I saw no books or magazines and
presumed that only her children (two lovely teenaged girls, home that
day from school) could read and write. Yet this woman taught me so
much. And if I could have stayed longer, I would have learned more -
about her life, her world, her culture and her ideas.

Who are not teachers? Who are so humble or so uneducated, so young or
so old, or so deficient in some way - that we cannot learn from them?
If we only take time to listen, who cannot tell us of things we have
never imagined?

Someone advised, "Live each day as if it were your last; learn as if
you were to live forever." And it's so easy when we discover that, in
some way, everyone is a great teacher.

From Lifesupport

Lifesigns Life Quotes