Here's an enchanting story told to Frank "Fancy Warrior", spiritual Elder of the Pawnee Nation, by his mother, whom he considered the wisest woman in the world.   When he was a little boy he asked her how he could be wise like her. Once she stopped laughing, this is what she said: "Life is like a path, and we all have to walk the path. If we lay down, we even lay down on that path. If we live through the night, we have to get up and start walking down that path again. As we walk down that path we'll find experiences like little scraps of paper in front of us along the way. We must pick up those pieces of scrap paper and put them in our pockets.   Every single scrap of paper we come to should be put into that pocket. Then, one day, we will have enough scraps of papers to put together and see what they say.   Maybe we'll have enough to make some sense. Read the information and take it to heart. Then put the pieces back in that pocket and go on, because there will be more pieces to pick up. Later we can pull them out and study them and maybe learn a little more. If we do this all through life, we'll know when to pull out those scraps to read more of the message. The more we read, the more we'll learn the meaning of life. We can become wise--or at least wiser than we were."

From "Wisdom Keepers, Meeting with Native American Spiritual Elders" by Steve Wall and Harvey Arden