Eggs on the Rocks

My father has always taught me some of the most important lessons in my life. Or if not taught them to me, but he has given me the information to learn the lesson. I have already posted the framed sayings that he gave me, which is just one example. I’d like to tell you another one that has come back to my mind recently.

I don’t recall the exact details of the situation, but at some point I was talking to my dad about some boss or supervisor or something. It was some situation that I felt that I was right and this other person was wrong. (And if you know me, you know how I like to be right.) While I don’t remember the exact details of why I was upset, I will never forget what my father said to me.

He told me “If you drop a rock on an egg, the egg will break. But if you drop an egg on a rock, the egg will break. The important thing to know is when you are the rock and when you are the egg.”

Recently I have been having troubles with the medical director at my work. I’m not writing to gripe about work, though. (I do that enough while I am at work.)

The point is, the more things I go through in my life, the more times I realize that I was given a pretty good set of tools by my dad. And I know that he got them from his father, who was also a wise man. All of the influences that I have had, from all the male figures in my family, have taught me to deal with problems with a certain wisdom and sense of humor.

The older I get and the more people I meet, the more I appreciate just how lucky I am to have been brought up the way I was. There are a lot of people out there with no common sense at all, and who rarely seem to think of others above themselves.

So anyway, I am off to see if I can find a way to be the rock instead of the egg.

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Random Fact: Until President Kennedy was killed, it wasn’t a federal crime to assassinate the President.