Numbers You Play To Win

Numbers are very important in our lives. Some people are excellent in math as arithmetic was called then. Others cannot comprehend anything that has to do with numbers. Now, every kid has a calculator to take to school to do math. In my day, you wrote a list of numbers and added them up and that is how you learned to add and subtract. When you went into a store and they had to figure out the cost of perhaps buying material, they took out a piece of paper, a pen and did it by hand. That was the way. We learned to do math in our heads too. If something was ten percent off, we knew how to get the final price. Have you ever thought about how numbers may have played a part in your life today? I know someone who met his wife by numbers. He was working full time at a job that was temporary for him because he was getting a higher degree in another profession. He went to school with part time classes after he finished his day job. He already had other degrees and wanted to change his profession. He had a friend at this temporary job who he helped encourage him to go further too and study something more lucrative for his final profession. The other young man had his eye on a female employee who he thought he wanted to meet. He somehow did not have the courage to ask her for a date; his friend kept encouraging him to do so. Finally, one day, they heard she was leaving because she was getting her degree shortly and had found a job in that profession. The friend encouraged him to go after her before she left their facility. So he did and they courted (as was called in my day) and he eventually left the workplace after receiving his second degree. They went out for a year or so, got engaged, married, had children and numbers played a part in their lives. The friend kept telling him, you only have a week to ask her out, you only have five days and she is gone. Numbers were important and when it came down to the final three days, he decided the time was right and the rest is marital bliss. Sometimes, we have a countdown of numbers when we are waiting for some furniture to be delivered. We say only five more days until the new sofa is delivered. When we are waiting to get married, we count the days until the happy moment occurs. When we are waiting to graduate high school, we say that in forty more weeks we will be off to college .If we need a medical procedure, we count the days not so happily until it is over with. When Mom was moving into a new apartment after Dad died, she did not want to move into number thirteen of Cobblestone Court. She thought the number thirteen bad and I investigated it for her and found that thirteen in some religions was a great number. So she took my advice and moved into number thirteen and lived there for twenty years and had fine neighbors and happy days there. The number eighteen means good life, good days and good luck in Judaism. In other religions, numbers mean something important too. My late friend Dr. John Levay was born on December 24th. He always jokingly said he missed out on birthday gifts, because they were combined with Christmas gifts. I was married on the fifth of July. I wanted the fourth of July but the caterers said they could not get employees on a holiday. I know someone who wanted the twenty-fifth of December, the same thing was said to her and her fiancé because they could not get employees on that day. My brother passed away and the funeral was supposed to be on a Sunday which happened to be Easter. It was out of town and it would have been easier for guests to come on a weekend day rather than have to miss work and travel on busy highways from Baltimore to Philadelphia during work days. The funeral director told my niece he would try to accommodate her and he was able to bring in the necessary people to conduct what is needed for the sad occasion. Numbers played a part even in this happening. I often think that if I had not chosen to obtain a job on the 30th day of a month way back in 1952,my life would not be as it is today. Perhaps, someone else would have been employed in that position if I had not decided on a Friday to not wait until the following Monday to interview for the job I saw advertised in the paper. My brother was getting married two days later and we were all busy preparing for the coming nuptials and I first thought, wait until next week. I changed my mind, got the interview, went on a long streetcar ride from uptown to downtown and got the job. From working there and befriending an employee there who introduced me to his friend and his friend to my husband of now almost fifty- six years. Numbers played a great part in the decision to go and try for the job. If you all think back, you will see numbers had a big part in your life. You will be amazed at the concept that simple numbers can influence your whole future. If you are on a waiting admission list for a college you prefer, and you get called, you are in, everything in your life changes. The future is different than if you had chosen the other college and not changed and are going to the one who just called and admitted you. I know a young woman who was getting a cup of tea at a Starbucks. She stood in line and while in line waiting, a young man standing behind her started talking to her when he heard her order tea and usually everyone buys coffee there. They got together and we went to her wedding in October to him. If she had not been number five in line, he may have not been behind her and there would not be these happy lives melded together from being at a Starbucks. We started dance lessons on November 2nd, 1977. Our teacher was on that night, thirty-nine years ago, Laurence E.Miller, a young fellow assigned to be our coach. If we had come perhaps on the 3rd of November, maybe we would have had a different person as our coach and we would not have been stimulated to continue on for all these years. I would not have been a dance competitor and won my beloved fifty-eight trophies and medals ,So fifty-eight is a momentous number in my life. I would not be writing these articles on dance and life and I would have lost much happiness and knowledge. If my dad had not waited extra days( numbers too) to seek medical help for not feeling well; perhaps he would not have passed on at only seventy-two years. Numbers are significant in happy results and yes, bad happenings too. Seek out your numbers so far and check out future numbers and it can be like a happy game of instant results. Just like the lottery states in there television commercials, you must play to win as their slogan says. I think numbers can be your new friends, watch them, seek the good ones for the coming events in your life and most of all enjoy the numbers left in your life and make them productive, interesting, helpful and even become healthy from using them and knowing when to be advised about a health problem you might have to do. N stands for Now, U stands for Understanding the significance, M stands for Motivate yourself, B stands for Be Aware, E stands for Ever, R stands for Revive. Now understand, motivate, be aware, ever know, revive your life and live on happy, healthy and heartfelt. Simple things like numbers can influence your life and those around you and those coming from unions begun on a certain day would not be here right now. You are here, use your brain, your heart, your soul and live your days as if each day is important whatever the number is. It is your number, your life and your adventure. You are Number One!!. elita sohmer clayman Fairfax Station Patch