Sunday, September 27, 2015

Wisdom in Unexpected Places

Wisdom - knowledge, wise sayings or teachings.

When I was in high school and college and needed information for a paper or project, one of my parents dropped me off at the closest library where I spent a few hours looking through encyclopedias. The library continued to be a resource when I needed to read about a particular topic throughout much of my adult life. Recently, however, I discovered a new place of wisdom -  the wrapper of Hall's cough drops!!

Last week I had a sore, dry throat, so I purchased a package of Hall's sugar-free cherry cough drops. Unwrapping the first one, I noticed the following phrase printed on the paper: "A pep talk in every drop." Looking further I saw these words in the center of the diamond logo: "Dust off and get up," "It's yours for the taking," "March forward!" "Conquer today!"

Wisdom in a cough drop wrapper?? Through the next five days, while my cough healed, I accumulated quite a pile of wrappers, containing endless wisdom and good wishes including the following:

"Put your game face on ...Let's hear your battle cry ...Seize the day ....Get through it ....You can do it and you know it ...Power through ...Don't waste a precious minute ... Nothing you can't handle ....Keep your chin up."

I realized there were other "unlikely" places for gleaning wisdom such as fortune cookies, on pieces of Dove chocolate and the front page of the Indianapolis Star (which always prints the same Bible verse, 2 Corinthians 3:17 - Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.). The Fishers YMCA has a basket of narrow, multi-colored strips of paper containing scripture. Patrons are welcome to take one or more at each visit.

Perhaps the people at Hall's want to offer an encouraging word to those who aren't feeling well, to brighten their day and distract their physical duress. Well, it worked. I gained a bit of wisdom and energy, each time I unwrapped one of their cough drops.

Where do you find wisdom n unexpected places?

2 comments: