It Was...The Best Summer

Ok, so one crazy summer in college I decided to head to Cincinnati, OH to sell books door-to-door (yes, I’m totally serious!). I worked with a group from the Southwestern Company and sold The Volume Library and various other books to whomever happened to be home during the day. It was both the best and the worst summer of my life…but mostly, the best, I think.

When else would I ever be daring enough to head off to a new city, with a few strangers and one friend, to do something so random? There wasn’t much of a plan in place; I knocked on doors until I found a place to sleep, and then knocked on doors to sell books. I used the partial payments from my sales to finance my expenses. Seriously, I would never let my daughter do that today!

Here are my top 6 life lessons from Cincinnati:

1. People are good at heart. Strangers took care of me that summer. They fed me, they worried about me, and they made me lemonade.

2. Your brain believes what your mouth tells it. Negativity breeds negativity and the same is true for positivity.

3. Perspective is personal; own yours. Your perspective is your reality.

4. Effort is the difference between success and failure, talent helps, but effort matters (when I knocked on doors, I sold a lot of books, I had the knack, but I put my effort into meeting people, writing letters and having fun).

5. You constantly affect others, so be nice. I received a handmade blanket from a woman I met in Cincinnati right before my wedding day. Her husband sent it with a note explaining that she had worked hard to finish it for me, and that she insisted my picture be hung on her family wall, before she died. I had no idea I affected her that much.

6. The truth really matters to you. You can pretend to be whomever you want for other people, but you know the truth about yourself. Like your truth.

I can also tell you that Cincinnati has a fabulous zoo, the street vendors are hilarious, the stadium is very cool, and there are a few to-die-for shops downtown. I spent two evenings boating and swimming with some spontaneous new friends (against company rules), met a gang of boys that were very funny, flirted with some businessmen, took some funny pictures and got dumped by boyfriend (that’s another blog).

I think that summer was, mostly, the best summer.

Margaret