” Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. “ James A. Baldwin

Like the quote above says I was never good at listening, especially when it came to listening to my parents. I was the type of child who would act first and then reap the consequences later.

However, as I evolved from childhood to womanhood and became a mother myself I began to notice something – all those wonderful catch phrases that I once heard my mother saying were all things that that I was now saying to my own children.

More importantly the older I got the more important my relationship with my parents became. I began listening more than speaking and the words that I heard have come to influence me on a daily basis.

You see as we get older we tend to dismiss what our elders in the community are telling us. But here’s the thing that we forget, these people who are our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles have lived far longer than we have. Their eyes have experienced things that we our eyes have not. Yet we think that because we’re younger we somehow have far more knowledge than they do.

Elders in the past were once deemed as leaders of their tribes, ones who were most knowledgeable and who’s presence gave cause to bow before them. Somewhere over time we have lost that respect and now we acknowledge our elders by simply placing them in old age homes or worse yet by disrespecting them.

So for today’s illumination moment take some time to listen to what the elders in your life are telling you. You never know they may impact your life in a way you never thought possible.

xoxo

Elle

Be Sociable, Share!

•