Life's lessons are taught to us by life itself. The more that we experience Life, the more of life's lessons we learn. However, many of life lessons are learned when we experience life along with an "instruction book" in our hand.
This was brought home to me quite vividly over this past week-end when my husband was trying to fix our answering machine. Daughter had called last week to tell us that she had called earlier in the week and tried to leave a message but the answering machine never clicked on. Strange, we said.
Without thinking about why it was not working, my husband; who can fix most electronic things effortlessly (if we are not talking computer) recorded a new message. Then I used my cell phone to call and make sure it came on. This procedure was done three times and still no message came on.
Then "the man" actually went and got the instruction book for the answering machine and read one simple line. "Press ON/OFF to manually turn the system off or on. When the answering machine is ON, the light inside the button will glow steadily." There was no light glowing; so he pressed the ON/OFF button. All I heard him say was, "Don't tell me it can be that simple!"
Then I remembered that in a speedy cleaning effort to prepare for company, I had noticed that the answering machine base unit was quite dusty and rather greasy as it is in the kitchen area and we have a gas stove. (I know, I know, if you clean it more often it doesn't get that gunky!) As I was degreasing the unit, I inadvertently pushed a variety of buttons. One of which was the Turn Answering Machine On/Off button.
When we stopped laughing, we talked about how true that experience was of most of life's lessons. Many of those lessons are really quite simple if you experience life fully and are armed with an instruction book!
