Eleven Life Lessons I Learned from M*A*S*H*

For those of us of a certain age, watching M*A*S*H* every week, plus re-runs, was an important ritual. By chance, I watched a re-run on cable the other day - something I hadn’t done in quite a while. Seeing the characters and their banter brought forth a flood of memories, and it occurred to me that:

Eleven Life Lessons I Learned from M*A*S*H*:

1. Hawkeye, Trapper John, and BJ wouldn’t have been nearly as funny or cool if it were it not for Frank Burns.
   
   • Corollary: Throughout our lives, we are either Hawkeye or Frank Burns – depending on what the situation demands of us.             
2. The best friends we have are the ones we make in times of adversity.
3. It’s great to have a boss like Henry Blake, but the Sherman Potters of the world get things done.
4. No matter where you go or where you work, you will meet a Col. Flagg.
5. Watching a great movie like My Darling Clementine is good, but watching it with all your friends is infinitely more fun.
6. We all have a Five O’Clock Charlie in our lives- they are rarely named Charlie, they are seldom on time, and generally never hit the target.
7. Playing poker in a gorilla costume is more fun that playing it in khakis.
8. You never hear the bullet that gets you.
9. A large bureaucracy can feed a lot of people, but the food rarely tastes very good.
10. All good things come to end. Don’t try too hard for a sequel. Instead of bumming over what has ended, enjoy what you had.
11. Life is a series of episodes – each one with a varying amount of laughter, love, pain and loss. Don’t judge the episode – think about the whole series.