From The Storyteller
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December 11, 2017, Wisdom
During the late 70’s, day time long distance phone calls were expensive. Living in Kansas with business interests in four cities, you can understand my concern. An ad in one of the small town newspaper told of a breakthrough in long distance bundle billing. For a one-time fee of $300 you could buy in and have a flat monthly rate of $30. This would cut my long distance bill by over a hundred a month. I called the 800 number, talked to a nice woman on the phone. She took my information, gave me a P.O. Box mailing address and said as soon as my check cleared the bank I would be connected. At this point you can imagine how this turned out. Yes, at the time I was pretty upset. Coming face to face with my personal foolishness has never been fun. In my head I knew that when a deal is too good to be true, it is not true. I also knew that just because “they” say it’s true doesn’t make true. As a 34 year old practicing lawyer, who regularly advised people on business matters, I had repeated these mantras over and over. Yet, there I was eating my own words. Now you might think this event registers as a bad memory, and that would be wrong. It is a reoccurring memory because it has been one of the best life lessons I have ever had. It has saved me more money and heart ache than you can imagine. The lesson – “Wisdom is knowing when you don’t know.” When you know that you don’t know, you keep your eyes open, mouth closed, and checkbook in your pocket. Moral – Looking both ways before you step off the curb is still a good idea. |