The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn’t already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder.

I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being..

She said, ‘Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I’m eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?’

I laughed and enthusiastically responded, ‘Of course you may!’ and she gave me a giant squeeze..

‘Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?’ I asked.

She jokingly replied, ‘I’m here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of kids…’

‘No seriously,’ I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.

‘I always dreamed of having a college education and now I’m getting one!’ she told me.

After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake.

We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this ‘time machine’ as she shared her wisdom and experience with me..

Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she revelled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.

At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I’ll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor.

Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, ‘I’m sorry I’m so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I’ll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know.’

As we laughed she cleared her throat and began, ‘We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing.’

There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humour every day. You’ve got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die.

We have so many people walking around who are dead and don’t even know it!

There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up.

If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don’t do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight.

Anybody! Can grow older. That doesn’t take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change. Have no regrets.

The elderly usually don’t have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets..’

She concluded her speech by courageously singing ‘The Rose.’

She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives. At the year’s end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those months ago.

One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep.

Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it’s never too late to be all you can possibly be.

When you finish reading this, please send this peaceful word of advice to your friends and family, they’ll really enjoy it!

These words have been passed along in loving memory of ROSE.

REMEMBER, GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY. GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL. We make a Living by what we get. We make a Life by what we give.

God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage. If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.

Pass this message on…. You will receive a miracle tomorrow ( if you don’t think so….look out your window when you wake in the morning and think about it)

~  Unknown Author

This was written by my friend, Brian Martin.  You can click here to read the post on his website.

Self doubt and confidence are major issues in people’s lives.

Self doubt is set up through negative thinking. One of the ways that I have learned to eliminate negative thoughts for my mind and trained my mind to run in a way that works for me, is to focus on my blessings each morning before I get out of bed.  Please try this. Write them down.  Do not focus on what you want, or have not got, just focus on your blessings.

In the course of my study and observation, it would appear that if a person is curious in asking questions, they are quite often a self-motivated learner.  My 90-year-old going on 20-year-old Japanese mother is unbelievably curious.  For all of her amazing wisdom of life (she worked until she was 88 years old), she is always learning.

In many of our trainings, we use an alternative model which we call ‘The Success Model’. There is also the traditional model, and one of the points made in the traditional success model is Know the Answer. This usually means that you get recognition from either your boss, your teacher, or your parents, and you get labeled ’smart’, ‘clever’, ‘whizz kid’, and often singled out for further opportunities.  In the alternative model, we have a box that says Know the Question.

What we’ve found is that it usually opens people up to possibility thinking. For example: ‘What do I want my life to look like in three years time?’ ‘How can I solve this challenge?’  ‘How can I be successful?’ It seems to alert the brain to resources both internal and external which were not being noticed before that question was asked.

If you practice this regularly, you will find that you get answers to what you want to know in many cases.  The point is to know the question that will open up possibilities for your life.

This does require practice, it is not instant gratification.

Written By: Brian Martin

Originally Posted on: www.AskBrianMartin.com

This video is a MUST see. It is just over 2 1/2 minutes long and will BLOW YOU AWAY.

If you didn’t catch my last blog post on Four Years. Go. – Click Here to read it now.  You can also visit FourYearsGo.Org for more information.

You may be interested in this blog about growing up with Michael Jackson and all the Jackson Kids, written by my nephew, Milbert Brown.  Click Here to visit his blog.

- Ray

2300 Jackson Street _{By Milbert Brown}

Quickly I ran out to play, under the puffy white clouds that hung neatly in the clear sky—a few miles from Lake Michigan waves.

Keeping watch was Mama, hawking me as I anxiously waited to get dirty with Joe and Katie Jackson’s kids.

My squeals of delight punctuated the summer air as I played for hours with the large family that lived across the street. Their petite home rested on the street named in honor of U.S. President Andrew Jackson in Gary, Indiana. It was only a short rock glide from my great-Aunt Esther’s house.

Tall and shapely, she was my favorite. She had cocoa skin and an empowering voice that vacillated between the conversation of royalty and the ferociousness of a bobcat during heated debates.

If there were even a hint that she was losing an argument, she would simply end it with “it’s a long story.” Her rich oral fables brought comfort to neighbors and guests, who were welcome to sigh, laugh and lie about the activities of the day.

Indelibly etched in my heart are Esther’s narratives with feelings that reflect the aspirations and hopes shared by my working-class family, the Jacksons, and thousands of others in Gary.

The house she shared with her husband, Turner, was where I grew, learned about life and witnessed the tumultuous rise of the world’s most famous musical family, the Jackson Five-my childhood playmates.

I was very young when I played with Michael—so all that remains are flashes of memory, largely obscured by the mist of time. We were only old as recharged car batteries-about 2 or 3 years old.

Years before Michael, the boy who would be King, whose talent engulfed the world and forever altering the course of musical history—-his grandfather, Samuel Jackson was a morning fixture sipping black coffee in Aunt Esther’s kitchen.

When the Jackson brothers were still performing on the “chitlin’ circuit,” they often played at Sonny’s Den, a neighborhood juke joint on 12th and Grant Street. I lived about a block away, but I was still too young to even walk pass the spot.

The emotions from those long-ago days at 2300 Jackson Street have unearthed stories of my family’s relationship with the Jackson family.

The eldest Jackson, Rebbie, and my older cousin, Faye often practiced jump-rope routines on the warm neighborhood sidewalk.

One evening, Jackie Jackson or “Jackie Boy” as he was called back then, was caught drinking gin by his Mama, Katie. Jeffery, Esther’s son was usually with Jackie Boy during his episodes of backyard mischief.

My Uncle Ike’s love interest was Michael’s aunt, Lula Jackson. Their relationship produced a baby boy, Wendell, who is my cousin—and “The King of Pop’s first cousin.

Many years have gone by since those times at Aunt Esther’s. But, I will always treasure the moments on Jackson Street and our family’s enduring love. Most of all, I hold close the memories of wrestling in the grass with the Jackson kids.

Milbert O. Brown, Jr., a Gary, Indiana native, is the online editor of “The Brown Report” and a freelance writer-photographer based in the Baltimore-Washington, DC corridor. 2009 Copyright by Milbert O. Brown, Jr.

Click Here to visit original blog.