He would probably not last long, a black man in the position of president. They would kill him. Hillary is a very sharp lady. It might be calmer if she wins.
~~ Doris Lessing ~~
In an interview with Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter, Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing expressed her fears as to what may happen if Barack Obama becomes US president.
Unfortunately, these fears are not far fetched. The possibility is real that such an incident may occur. As a matter of fact, I won’t be surprised if an attempt is made on his life even before he becomes the president. It is conceivable that some individuals or groups would be extremely upset simply because Barack Obama is black and they might try to cause physical harm to him.
Such risks and dangers should not deter either Barack Obama or anybody else from seeking the office of the president. In the history of USA, many white presidents have been assassinated for one reason or another. That does not deter white folks from seeking the office of the president; nor it should. We can not allow people with extreme views in any society to dictate to us what we can and can not do.
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
~~ C.S. Lewis ~~ (1898 - 1963)
I only partially agree with this quote. While it’s important to aim high, the aim should have a reasonable chance of getting achieved. The trouble with aiming extremely high is that most people will give up when they find themselves no where near their aim in spite of their best efforts. Aiming extremely high or pursuing an unattainable goal may turn out to be nothing more than day-dreaming.
A good example of an aim that is unlikely to be achieved is Ralph Nader’s efforts to become president of the United States of America. This is his fourth attempt and his chances of getting elected this year or in the foreseeable future, if he decides to try again, are next to nil. This doesn’t mean that he won’t make a good president if elected; indeed he might make an excellent president. But the political reality is that his aim is unattainable.
I don’t think anybody in this world ever really knows where exactly they want to go. However, one can charter one’s journey of life as to what direction one wants to go. That can be done with setting a reasonable and realistic aim or goal, persistently working towards that goal and overcoming any problems that will inevitably arise.
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
~~ Oscar Wilde ~~ (1854 - 1900)
Ha ha ha. I think in that case most of us don’t suffer from the lack of imagination! Considering that a lot of us live from hand to mouth, we seem to possess way more imagination than we can handle!
Kidding aside, it’s prudent to live within one’s means; it has nothing to do with one’s imagination or lack thereof. Living beyond one’s means spells nothing but trouble. It involves incurring debt usually on credit cards which charge ridiculously high interest rates. And once one gets trapped in that vicious cycle of debt, it becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get out of that cycle.
Imagination does not necessarily involve spending money, many people use their imagination to make money! Imagination is the ability to think forward, to conceive what doesn’t exist and make efforts to turn it into reality.
The voters have spoken - the bastards!
~~ Morris Udall ~~ (1922-1998)
LOL. A good one that describes the true feelings of politicians when voters don’t vote for them and they lose the election. Though most of them may feel that way, they usually refrain from saying so publicly. On the other hand, those politicians who get elected describe the voters as ’smart and intelligent’ even though inside they may still feel that the voters were quite gullible in voting for them!
Even though I am not very fond of politicians, I try not to be unusually cynical about them. As in any profession, there are committed politicians who are genuinely interested in improving the lot of common people. Like any other game, politics has its own rules and regulations by which the politicians must play. Since it’s a politician’s job to convince people that he or she has got what it takes to make their country and the world a better place, many of them tend to go overboard when making promises.
Their unflattering thoughts about voters when defeated are not so unusual. Just like an employee would use colorful language to describe his or her employer when the employee is ‘let go’ (fired) by an employer, so do the politicians when ‘let go’ by the voters. It shows they are just humans like everybody else.
Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’ Never forget this message when working with people.
~~ Mary Kay Ash ~~ (1915 - 2001)
This is so true. Consciously or sub-consciously, we all carry that sign. It’s just the way we are. Whether in business (jobs) or in personal matters, we feel good when others appreciate us and make us feel important. And usually it doesn’t cost anything to appreciate somebody and make them feel important.
Unfortunately, most businesses as well as us as individuals fail to recognize this important fact of life in our day to day dealings with other people. May be because we are so concentrated on ‘me’ that we don’t have the time or the inclination to appreciate others. That’s why Jean-Paul Sartre said, ‘Hell is other people.’ :-)
It doesn’t have to be that way. We should all learn to be more appreciative of other people. That will make for a better world.
First, golfers don’t have to be fit. Second, they keep their clothes on while playing. And third, they frequently wear plaid.
~~ Richard Wiseman ~~
Richard Wiseman, a British psychologist found in his study that as far as women are concerned, golf is the least sexy sport a man can play. The above is his explanation as to why that is the case.
I have played golf a few times and found it to be quite boring; I just can’t seem to understand as to what the challenge is in hitting a little ball with a stick and see how far it goes. Plus the cost to play a game of golf is atrocious. I think the popularity of golf has to do more with the human herd mentality; we just tend to follow the herd thinking that since everybody is doing it, it must be good.
I think golf is a game for those who have lots of money to waste and lots of free time on their hands. Besides the exorbitant rates charged by the golf course (Why do they call it a golf course? Just wondering!) owners and operators, it takes almost a whole day to play a game of golf. And, like Richard Wiseman reasons, you don’t have to be fit to play golf! The average Joe has just been suckered in by the marketing machine and will walk away from this sport as soon as he wakes up from his slumber.
Women have a sixth sense; that’s why they know way before the average Joe that there is nothing sexy or even remotely interesting about this game. Kathy Lette said that Average Golfers Handicap is his IQ LOL.
The desire to be thin has been going on for centuries. Get real. That is what women do. Why did women wear corsets and keep fainting? We do it because we think it looks good. That is what we are like.
~~ Felicity Kendall ~~
I totally disagree with the views of Felicity Kendall expressed in this quote. I never buy the argument that we must continue to do something just because we have been doing it for centuries. We have more knowledge now than we had centuries ago. And if with our advanced knowledge we learn that what we have been doing for centuries is, in fact, injurious to our health then we should discourage that activity or desire. That would be just common sense.
There are countless examples of activities which, after we have discovered them to be injurious to our health, we actively discourage people from doing that activity. One such example will be cigarette smoking. While in the past nobody cared as to who smoked and who didn’t, now we actively discourage smoking because we know for sure that cigarette smoking is very injurious to our health. As a matter of fact, most jurisdictions have laws banning cigarette smoking in public places.
Now there is nothing wrong with women (or even men) desiring to be optimally thin; it’s is actually good for your health. It’s being ‘extra’ thin that is injurious to one’s health and, therefore, should be discouraged.
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.
~~ Nikita Khrushchev ~~ (1894 - 1971)
That’s quite a generalization but nonetheless true in the case of most politicians if not all the politicians. Politicians all over make ridiculous promises which they can not deliver.
The question is: Why do politicians make promises they know or ought to know, they can’t keep? I think there are two primary reasons for it:
- Democratic form of government, though far more superior than any other form of government mankind has known or experienced so far, is still plagued with a lot of imperfections. Many a times the people (voters) do not have much of a choice in electing their government; they just have to choose between the devil and the deep sea. This situation discourages people from participating in the election of their government as evidenced by dwindling turnout at the polls.
- The people in democracies themselves have to share some of the blame for their politicians making unrealistic or totally ridiculous promises like ‘the promise to build a bridge where there is no river.’ :-) We, the people as voters, vote mostly for those politicians who promise us the rose garden! Most politicians, being humans like the rest of us, soon realize that to ‘win’ they must learn the art of ‘extending the truth’ and convincingly deliver unrealistic promises. Those politicians who fail to master this ‘art’ or whose conscience won’t allow them to play this ‘game’ soon drop out of the game or are sidelined. And we end up with the type of politicians we have today.
Blaming the politicians or ridiculing them won’t solve the problem. We all need to think as to how to improve the system of electing our governments and work towards improving it.
Speeches don’t solve our problems, but if we can’t inspire people to believe again it doesn’t matter how many policies we have.
~~ Barack Obama ~~
The above quote was Barack Obama’s response to Hillary Clinton’s criticism that speeches don’t solve problems, and it certainly is true. A true and successful leader needs to have both - the ability to inspire people and the fortitude to devise and follow policies for the common good.
You may be able to fool the people for a while with good speeches but if you don’t deliver results, the same people will turn against you, and rightly so. And if you have good policies but you can’t convince people and get them inspired and involved, it’ll become extremely difficult, if not impossible, to successfully implement those policies.
A leader possessing such qualities is hard to come by. Everybody makes grand speeches but very few deliver results. That’s why only a few leaders become popular and are remembered a long time after they are gone while most others are forgotten as soon as they exit the scene.
The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.
~~ Mark Twain ~~ (1835 - 1910)
So true; each party (class?) is equally foolish in believing the other is happier.
At least the poor can be excused for believing that the rich are happier because they watch the rich displaying their wealth like owning several big houses (mansions?), private jets, luxury cars, hiring the most expensive lawyers when they get on the wrong side of the law etc. etc. Since poor can’t even dream of such luxuries, it leads them to wrongly believe that the rich must be really happy.
The reasons as to why the rich think that poor are happier are not so obvious. May be the rich think that the poor don’t have to worry about such important matters as to ‘how I am going to make my next million dollars today!’ Or may be it’s a classic case of “The grass looks greener on the other side of the fence.” :-)
Being happier is not dependent on how rich or poor you are; rather it’s dependent on whether you view life as a comedy, a tragedy or something in between. Moreover, whether rich or poor, the humans are not designed to be perpetually happy. So expecting that somehow we can attain perpetual happiness is like expecting to catch hold of the rainbow; not going to happen.
We should often be ashamed of our finest actions if the world understood our motives.
~~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld ~~ (1613 - 1680)
Though it may seem cynical, in my view, it’s quite true. Very few people in this world commit themselves to do good things for others without any selfish motive. Most people have some ulterior motives, sometimes the motives are extremely sinister and even criminal motives. For example, the cases of some priests abusing boys under their care. Priests, by their very profession, are supposed to be God fearing and caring of other humans. That did not prevent some of them from indulging in such criminal activity. And there have many other cases such as volunteer coaches etc. indulging in similar sinister activities.
Sometimes the motive may be just the expectation of getting some fame or publicity or both. Though it’s still a selfish motive, I have no problem if somebody does good deeds just to gain some fame and publicity.
I think that it will be prudent for the world not only to scrutinize the evil deeds but also sometimes to scrutinize the motives behind the so called good deeds. It’s no secret that what humans think, what they say and what they do, is often worlds apart.
Lawyers (are) operators of the toll bridge across which anyone in search of justice has to pass.
~~ Kathleen Quinlan ~~
Well, it’s not lawyers’ fault that you need to cross that justice bridge! It’s like any other business; the bridge costs money to construct and maintain, and the lawyers spend years in school to train to become qualified and licensed justice bridge toll operators. So it stands to reason that the users should pay for these costs plus a ‘little bit of profit!’ Every business does that!! LOL
Being qualified toll operators, lawyers meticulously and ‘accurately’ log the time that you actually spend crossing the justice bridge and never charge you a penny more! Everybody has to make a living somehow; charging toll is how lawyers do it. Plus lawyers, many whom become politicians, help write very easily interpretable laws. People have just formed a habit of picking on the lawyers unnecessarily. ;-)
It is not our fault because we did not start it.
~~ Vladimir Putin ~~
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a farewell address, expressed strong concerns against NATO’s expansion into former Soviet bloc states of eastern Europe and said Moscow would respond by modernizing its military and weapons systems. He blamed the West for starting a new arms race and phrased the above quote.
Politicians almost never admit that ‘anything’ is their fault but I think, in this case, Putin has a point. It will be foolhardy for the West to think that they can install ‘defensive’ interceptors and radars next door to Russia and expect Russia to stand idly by. The West’s rationale that these defensive installations are for containing threats from Iran seem very far fetched. What exactly is the difference between a defensive weapon and an offensive weapon? I don’t think there is much difference; it’s more like splitting hair!
These developments have obviously made Russia very edgy. Putin has stated more than once that arms race has begun and blames the West for starting it. It also gives Russia an excuse to assert itself as a power to be reckoned with. Personally, I think it’s much better for World security to have several more or less equal Super Powers rather than just one or two. With Putin’s rhetoric to respond to this arms race, I guess we are back to ‘The More the Things Change, The More They Remain the Same.’ ;-)
He will make Cheney look like Gandhi.
~~ Pat Buchanan ~~
That is quite a dig at his fellow conservative, John McCain - the leading Republican presidential hopeful, by U.S. conservative pundit Pat Buchanan. Cheney, as you know, is considered a hawk - some would say a war monger - in the Bush administration. So likening Cheney to Gandhi who practised and preached non-violence all his life, is like comparing night with day. But that is the whole point of Buchanan’s dig.
While McCain have made some quite hawkish statements, particularly about the war such as bombing Iran etc. - I think he said, “Bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb” or something similar; I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
Although anything is possible in any election, I don’t think Americans are going to elect a Republican as their president this time around; be it McCain or anybody else. Most American voters do not seem to have much faith in Republicans at this point in time. This is borne by the fact that while record number of voters have been participating in Democratic primaries the same is not true of the Republicans.
Even if McCain does get elected, the realities of the world, including the precarious state of the American economy, would force him to moderate his views and actions on war and he won’t make Cheney look like Gandhi. :-)
As we all know too well, what politicians say during election speeches doesn’t necessarily translate into action. And if McCain really carries out his war agenda then the consequences for the world will indeed be disastrous as starting a war is easy and it’s outcome is always unpredictable.
Early in my business career I learned the folly of worrying about anything. I have always worked as hard as I could, but when a thing went wrong and could not be righted, I dismissed it from my mind.
~~ Julius Rosenwald ~~ (1862 - 1932)
One has to realize that in business or even other facets of life, sometimes things will just not work or go wrong and can not be righted, no matter how hard you try. In such cases it’s best to accept the inevitable, give up and move on, and not perpetually worry about your failure. Constantly worrying about something you could not accomplish in spite of your best efforts only increases your stress level; it does nothing to solve the problem or resolve the situation.
Once you give up on something, there is always the possibility that other people may say or you yourself may think that you gave up too quickly. Everybody is wiser after the event; there are no hard and fast rules in life as to when it’s too soon to give up on something. It’s mostly a subjective decision on your part. Most successful people fail at one or more ventures before they finally succeed. Once you have given your best to something and you are convinced that you have hit a dead end; it’s best to learn your lessons from the experience and move on.
This is what change looks like when it happens from the bottom up. This is the new American majority.
~~ Barack Obama ~~
Barack Obama is certainly making the change happen from bottom up in America. Starting as the underdog, lately he has won many decisive electoral victories and is now ahead of Hillary Clinton, in committed delegate count, in Democratic party’s nomination process for the president. Even though he has a long way to go before actually getting nominated, he is an excellent example of what one can accomplish by dreaming big and working towards your dream. I don’t think many people took him seriously when he entered the race for the president. After all, he didn’t have much experience in Washington.
Now the possibility exists that Barack Obama, a black man, may actually become the president of USA. It also shows that average American voter (at least those belonging to the Democratic party) is not concerned about the color of a presidential candidate but rather they care about as to what a candidate has to offer and how he or she is going to solve the problems facing the nation. That is exactly the way it should be.
In any case, the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has become very interesting, with no clear winner. Time will tell if Barack Obama can keep his ‘from the bottom up’ change happening. I think that either one of them will make a great president. It may be in their interest that whoever wins the nomination for the president chooses the other as the running mate for vice-president.
Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.
~~ Thomas Carlyle ~~ (1795 – 1881)
I think the use of the phrase, ‘infinite capacity for taking pains’ is an exaggeration to make a point. But almost all the people we consider as genius, tell us that their success is more the result of their persistent hard work (taking pains) and resolute determination not to give up in the face of failures rather than their intellect. Failure is always painful; what sets the genius apart from the ordinary is their enthusiastic willingness and capacity for enduring the pain in the pursuit of their objectives.
Not everybody has the discipline, the willingness or the capacity to be a genius. However, we have within ourselves to develop these qualities by making conscious efforts and become better, if not an outright genius, at whatever we do in life.
By the way, what or who is a genius? The American Heritage Dictionary defines genius as ‘A person of extraordinary intellect and talent’.
Now intellect and talent are qualities that anybody can improve upon if they so desire.
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
~~ Albert Einstein ~~ (1879 - 1955)
I think this prediction of Einstein is not going to be correct as I don’t think there is going to be a World War III in spite of the fact that some highly placed public officials have recently mentioned the possibility of it happening. There will be localized wars as we are having wars right now but World War is highly unlikely.
The reason for that is that if World War III occurs today, there will be rapid nuclear exchanges among several countries. That will mean that the whole of human race may be wiped out including the top leadership of the warring parties. The top leadership of warring parties will never allow such an eventuality to occur.
You see, wars are only started when top leadership of at least one country has reasonable expectation that the leadership itself will not be annihilated during the war. If World War III was to happen today, it will be a nuclear war. That will certainly mean that the top leadership of warring parties will be annihilated along with the common folks. The top leadership will never allow such a situation to occur; instead they’ll find a compromise to their conflict just like it happened during the Cuban missile crisis.
Actually, I think that the World will become much more peaceful and secure if there were five or six nations with almost equal strength in nuclear weapons or something even more potent than nuclear weapons making 100% sure that in any World War, the top leadership will be annihilated along with the common folks. Under such circumstances, there will be no World War III - Guaranteed!
I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day.
~~ Abraham Lincoln ~~ (1809 - 1865)
What a classic quote! All of us experience days in our lives when everything seems to be falling apart, nothing seems to work and we feel helpless as if we have nowhere to go. The quote above is proof that some days even great ones like Abraham Lincoln feel helpless. But that did not prevent him from becoming a great President.
Life has a habit of throwing curves at all of us; that is just the way how life works. We must never give up in despair, no matter how trapped we might feel. Instead we must carry on with the hope and determination that this too shall pass. We lose only if we give up and stop making concerted efforts to change or rectify the difficult circumstances that we may find ourselves trapped in.
Life is essentially a sort of a battle with its little ups and downs here and there. I think there is no need for us to worry too much about such ups and downs; when one door closes down usually another door opens up. We just need to look around a bit harder.
The cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.
~~ Charles De Gaulle ~~ (1890 - 1970)
Very funny and true. It’s usually the politicians, though there are others as well, who portray themselves as indispensable as if the world will come to a halt or cease to exist if they are gone. Time has shown, as evidenced by the burial of countless so called indispensable men, that the world is quite resilient and is not dependent on any one individual or even a group of individuals.
Nature made the law that everybody, without any exceptions, must ultimately die. The only unknown is when, where and how. Nature obviously doesn’t consider anybody indispensable; rich, poor, powerful, powerless and even those who claim themselves to be messengers of God with special access or connection to God, must die.
When any individual who thought himself to be indispensable ends up in a cemetery, there usually are a lot of others willing and able to fill in the shoes. And the world keeps humming along as usual. On a greater scale, nature doesn’t seem to consider even the entire human race as indispensable and even Earth existed long, long before humans showed up. So to portray or consider any individual as indispensable is a lot of stretch.
We should be more modest in our belief that we can impose democracy on a country through military force. In the past, it has been movements for freedom from within tyrannical regimes that have led to flourishing democracies; movements that continue today. This doesn’t mean abandoning our values and ideals; wherever we can, it’s in our interest to help foster democracy through the diplomatic and economic resources at our disposal. But even as we provide such help, we should be clear that the institutions of democracy – free markets, a free press, a strong civil society – cannot be built overnight, and they cannot be built at the end of a barrel of a gun.
~~ Barack Obama ~~
This is a very true and factual quote. Democracy is not something you can build overnight. While sometimes it may be possible to impose democracy on a country through military force, such an imposed democracy is unlikely to be successful unless a vast majority of the people of that country are convinced that the democratic form of government is in their best interests. In a true democracy, the willing participation of the people and their firm belief in the institutions of democracy is essential. And that can not be achieved through the barrel of a gun.
The best way to propagate democracy in any country is to educate and convince the people of that country the benefits of democracy; a task easier said than done. Probably a bit faster and more productive way to promote democracy may be to apply gentle political and economic pressure to convince the rulers of the autocratic countries to move towards democracy. Again, very slow and not an easy process but certainly much less expensive and less disruptive than flexing military muscle.
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
~~ Helen Keller ~~ (1880-1968)
In a way, hope and optimism are interconnected; you can’t feel optimistic if you feel hopeless. Hopes and dreams act as the foundation of life. When one loses all hopes and dreams then one is as good as dead. Therefore, it’s essential to have hopes and dreams with an optimistic outlook to achieve success.
To realize your hopes and dreams, you need to act on them with confidence and conviction. Each and everyday you must make persistent efforts to move towards your goal. You’ll invariably run into difficulties, setbacks and problems when you move towards the goal of realizing your dream. An optimistic attitude will view these obstacles as learning experience, figure out ways to overcome such obstacles and, with hope and confidence, will continue to make efforts in the direction of realizing the dream. Without hope, optimism and confidence coupled with persistent and strenous efforts, nothing can be achieved.
If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
~~ C.S. Lewis ~~ (1898 - 1963)
I don’t think universe has no meaning. It’s just that we don’t understand it and will probably never understand it. While we consider ourselves to be very important, in the grand scheme of the universe, we are actually quite insignificant.
Sun , Earth and Sun’s other planets have been around for billions and billions of years whereas, as individuals, most of us live less than 100 years - a totally insignificant number compared to billions. Even collectively as a human race we have been around for only a few million years - still a very tiny and insignificant number. The universe, which comprises of not just our Sun and its planets but countless other stars and planets, happily existed long, long before us and will happily exist if, by any chance, we become extinct just like the dinosaurs.
So the question remains: What is the meaning of universe and why does it exist? The simple answer is: We don’t know. What we do know is that the universe is limitless, just take a look at the sky on a clear night and all the stars that you see also make part of this universe. Some of these stars are way larger than our Sun which, by the way, is also a star. We also know that these stars also have planets circling around them just like our Sun has planets. And then we have comets and asteroids and all other stuff floating around in space. All this show - if I can call it a show - of countless stars and their planets can’t be just meaningless; it has to have some meaning. We just don’t know what that meaning might be.
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
~~ Mahatma Gandhi ~~ (1869 - 1948)
There has to be more to life than just increasing its speed. We are too engrossed in the speed; everything must be done faster and faster. Where is the limit? Does increasing the speed of life improves our quality of life? I don’t think so. We are all in a kind of a rat race, everybody is trying to outrun the other.
In some instances, increasing the speed of certain electro-mechanical devices may be necessary or beneficial. For example, if we want to explore other planets and outer space, the increase in speed is a necessity. But it seems our appetite for speed in every facet of our lives has consumed us and we have become addicted to increasing the speed of life in general, without pausing to think if and how it adds to the quality of our lives.
On the contrary, our addiction to speed leads to several harmful results. For example, due to the hectic (faster?) pace of life, stress levels among the people are on the increase. Take the automobile - most of us drive automobiles and we usually try to drive faster than the legal speed limit or faster than the road conditions permit resulting in many accidents and even deaths. Usually there is no pressing reason for us to drive faster, we just do it because we are addicted to it. Same goes for fast foods; we never seem to have enough time to prepare and eat healthy food, so to get our food fast we resort to easting fast foods or TV dinners. The results of this are proving to be disastrous, we are all getting fat. Some cities in North America reporting as much as 30% of their population as obese; that means one in three persons is obese! In my view, that is a disaster.
We need to take a pause and think if increasing speed in every facet of our lives and keep increasing it is really necessary. There has to be something more to life than just increasing its speed.
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
~~ Thomas Jefferson ~~ (1743–1826)
Having knowledge of our past is good if we want to learn from it. Apart from that, there is not much in the past. Brooding over past failures or disappointments will accomplish nothing. Nobody can change the past, ever! Also, many a times the history is quite unreliable in recording as to how and why the events occurred in the past.
However, we have the ability to mold the future to our dreams if we dream about the future and put in dedicated efforts to realize those dreams. So it’s definitely preferable to dream about the future than to sweat over the past history.
Fame, we may understand is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such: it is an accident, not a property of a man.
~~ Thomas Carlyle ~~ (1795 – 1881)
It’s true; just because somebody is famous doesn’t necessarily mean he or she is meritorious. While many famous people fully deserve the fame they get, there are many others who just manage to become famous without having much merit or capability. They just manage to become famous through manipulation or some other similar accident. Fame is an happenstance; it’s not a property or quality of a person.
On the other hand there are many meritorious people, many a times referred to as unsung heroes, who deserve fame but never get it. Why that happens? Because we live in a twisted world, has always been twisted and will always be twisted; that’s why. :-)
So never automatically assume that because somebody is famous that person must have a great merit. While there is the probability that the famous person has a great merit, one can never be sure as fame is simply an accident or happenstance of the circumstances.
He was too New York, too Italian, and he had too many wives.
~~ Dorothy Kaliades ~~
Dorothy Kaliades, a New York Voter and retired jewelry designer, makes good points about the troubles and eventual withdrawal of Mr. Rudy Giuliani from the presidential race.
When you aspire to be a national leader like the President is supposed to be, you need to evolve your views and state your positions on a national level and not just on a city or state level or your ethnic background. One needs to tell the people what he or she will do for the nation as a whole if elected to be the President. As time has shown, Rudy Giuliani failed to do that, so he had no choice but to run for the exit. While he earned good reputation and praise for his handling of the aftermath of September 11, 2001 attacks, many of his detractors criticize him for totally ignoring the ongoing threats to New York City before the attacks occurred.
Considering how people seem to have very little faith and trust in politicians in general, having too many spouses in the past doesn’t help. It raises even more doubts in the minds of the people. Though I think having too many spouses wouldn’t have mattered much if he had clearly stated his position as to how he intends to solve the problems facing the nation.
The will is never free - it is always attached to an object, a purpose. It is simply the engine in the car - it can’t steer.
~~ Joyce Cary ~~ (1888 - 1957)
While I agree that the will is like the engine in a car and it can’t steer, I don’t agree that will is never free. What exactly is a will? Will is simply one’s ability to decide one’s course of action. If you have the freedom to decide your own course of action then you are said to have a free will.
In many instances our ability to exercise our free will is restricted. A good example will be our jobs. While we have the freedom to quit our jobs, most of us won’t do that because we have to pay our bills. :-) So in such instances, we still have our free will but only in theory and not in practice.
On the other hand we do have and exercise our free will in many instances. For example, I am writing this post because I decided, of my own free will, to write this post. I didn’t ‘have to’ write it.
A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else.
~~ Bette Davis ~~ (1908 - 1989)
Very true. If you are always obsessed with attaining happiness, you’ll surely lose it. Happiness is not some commodity that you can buy from a store.
I think happiness is simply a state of mind and like everything else in this Universe, the state of the mind keeps changing all the time. Sometimes we feel happy, sometimes sad, sometimes we are angry etc.etc. The mind is indeed incapable of staying put in any single state for a long time.
Nobody, rich or poor and everybody in between, stays happy for ever; that’s an impossibility. All we can try and hope for is that we will have more frequent moments of happiness. If we are always chasing that elusive dream of eternal happiness, we are more likely to miss the moments of happiness that we would have otherwise enjoyed. The very act of always wanting happiness at the expense of everything else itself becomes the cause of unhappiness.
