Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it.
~~ Walter Chrysler ~~ (1875 - 1940)
Not true at all. If you assign a hard job to a lazy man, you are most likely to hear a perfect excuse as to why the job couldn’t be done because the easiest thing for the lazy person to do will be to invent a perfect excuse rather than find an easy way to do the job. Once in a while a lazy man may be able to find an easy way of doing a hard job but that will be the exception rather than the rule.
I would rather assign a hard job to a dependable, intelligent and hard working person who will spend his time finding ways to get the job done rather than thinking of excuses as to why it couldn’t be done. As you might have noticed at your work, most bosses follow the same rule: Whenever there is an urgent job to be done, they always assign it to the most dependable and hard working person. And rightly so.
I have learned the difference between a cactus and a caucus. On a cactus, the pricks are on the outside.
~~ Morris Udall ~~ (1922-1998)
Also, on a cactus the pricks are not only on the outside, they make no effort to hide the fact that they are, indeed, pricks. But in a caucus, the pricks are not only inside, they hide the fact really well that they are pricks!
And many of these pricks go on to attain powerful positions in government, further messing up the already messed up world. It’s their relentless pursuit for money and power that makes them behave the way they do and they get away with a lot. Only a few of them get incarcerated if and when they are caught grossly crossing the line and doing something outright illegal such as taking kickbacks etc. So they don’t have much of an incentive to change their prickly behavior inside or outside of a caucus.
Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
~~ William Shakespeare ~~ (1564 - 1616)
Shakespeare has mentioned three ways of becoming great but there are actually four ways of achieving greatness:
- You can be born great. For example, you could have been born in some sort of monarchy or royalty. If you didn’t get that, don’t worry. You didn’t have a choice in the matter, did you? LOL
- You can achieve greatness - if you really want it. This one is admittedly the toughest route to follow and requires a lot of hard work, intelligence, cleverness, leadership qualities and all that jazz. Do you really want to put yourself through that grind? I didn’t think so!
- You can have greatness thrust upon you. That can happen if the lady luck smiles upon you and you manage to capture a high office. For example, the current US president George Bush - some still refer to him as a ‘great’ president. LOL
- Another way to achieve greatness; which Shakespeare failed to mention, probably because it wasn’t available in his times; is to buy greatness! Hire a BIG PR firm and soon everybody will ‘know’ that you are indeed a great soul! :-)
What if you can’t employ any of the above methods to become ‘great’? Don’t be afraid; greatness doesn’t really matter! So forget about it and continue living your life. LOL
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.
~~ Bertrand Russell ~~ (1872 - 1970)
Most of us take our work too seriously. That is a paradox considering that most of us don’t like our jobs; many surveys show that only about 2% of us are making our living by doing what we really like to do.
Don’t take your work too seriously. Work is a means for living, not the living itself. You might think that your work is extremely important and only you can do it well but you are sadly mistaken. Nobody is irreplaceable. What if you die right now? Will the world come to a halt? Absolutely not. The world didn’t come to a halt even when those who labeled themselves as ‘Great’ passed away.
When you are not around, there will be many others willing and able to fill your shoes and may be do even better than you! So relax, avoid nervous breakdown and premature death. LOL.
The wheel of time keeps on turning; with or without you!
When I was young I used to think that money was the most important thing in life. Now that I am old, I know it is.
~~ Oscar Wilde ~~ (1854 - 1900)
Young or old, everybody must learn quickly that money is the most important thing in life; nay, money is life! LOL
So now that you have been made aware as to how important the money is, from now on you should only dream of money and more money! And I mean gather lots of money like being a multi-billionaire - don’t even think of being a millionaire because millionaires now-a-days are dime a dozen. :-)
Money will help you a lot in attaining power and prestige. However, don’t delude yourself that if you gather a lot of money you’ll have a happy life or even a satisfied life because money is not capable of buying that. Heck, the money can’t even buy you love but it does give you the option of doing stupid things, if you are so inclined, such as the hiring of a high priced call girl just like the former governor of New York, Mr. Eliot Spitzer did! LOL
Now if you were a mere mortal, like most of us, struggling to pay your bills; you wouldn’t even dream of paying, in cash, in the neighborhood of $4500 per hour for tryst with a call girl, would you? But when you have tons of dough then…
To be fair to Mr. Spitzer, he is not the only one indulging in such an exciting activity; a lot of folks with tons of dough and the power that goes along with it, do the same and enjoy life! After all, he was just a client number 9. :-)
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
~~ Mahatma Gandhi ~~ (1869 - 1948)
So true and as events of the past few years in Iraq have shown that those in positions of power could not care less as to how much death or destruction their actions will cause. They have an agenda and they will follow that agenda conveniently using the holy name of liberty and democracy as a cloak. How much death and destruction their agenda will cause doesn’t seem to enter into their calculations or, which is even more likely, they are not intelligent enough to figure out death and destruction their actions will cause. Even worse, they usually laugh off the death and destruction caused by their actions as ‘collateral damage.’ For the dead, maimed or orphaned, the damage is not collateral but as real as the real can be.
And Iraq is just one of the examples of such madness. There have been many others in the past and, undoubtedly, there will be many in the future. The only way to stop such madness will be for the people all over the globe to rein-in their governments. The politicians have demonstrated time and again that they cannot be trusted.
They are essentially creating a $300-billion bank out of nothing.
~~ Lou Crandall ~~
Lou Crandall, an economist at a financial research firm, was reacting on the U.S. Federal Reserve’s efforts to expand credit to ease the credit crisis; a crisis caused mainly by the sub-prime mortgage lending.
I think Mr. Crandall is quite mistaken. They are not creating a $300-billion bank out of nothing; they are creating it out of the tax payers money!
Now is the moment when the reality has hit home. And the reality is trashing all the follies, such as the sub-prime mortgages, committed by the so called ‘whiz kids’ with their ‘creative ideas’. Where are these whiz kids now? Why don’t they step up to the plate with their creative ideas to stop the bleeding? Looks like they have run out of their creative ideas. LOL. That’s what happens when reality meets fantasy. Many so called big financial players will hit the dust; just like Beer Sterns did.
This $300-billion of tax payers money being thrown in by Federal Reserve may postpone the reality for a little while but ultimately the reality will prevail. And that means more financial upheavals until the fantasy world of lousy financing is crushed down to reality. Unfortunately, a lot of ordinary folks are going to be left holding the bag.
Goals allow you to control the direction of change in your favor.
~~ Brian Tracy ~~
It’s important to define our goals as precisely as possible. Without a goal, most of us are very likely to get distracted and even forget about our goal. That’s why it’s best to write down our goals. Once we know our precise goal and commit to it, it forces us to act in that direction and produce desirable results.
Most of us fall into the trap of not defining our goals and not making a toatl commitment to attain the goal, and as a result, we soon abandon our pursuit. That makes us bounce from project to project without any concrete results. If we can muster the discipline to define our goals and work towards it everyday with resolute determination and commitment, positive results are bound to follow.
I’d marry again if I found a man who had fifteen million dollars, would sign over half to me, and guarantee that he’d be dead within a year.
~~ Bette Davis ~~ (1908 - 1989)
Ha, Ha, Ha. Honesty is the best policy! Bette expressed her wishes without being diplomatic. It also gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Love at First Sight.’ :-)
It might have been difficult in Bette Davis’ times to find somebody with 15 million dollars but that is not a problem any more. There are lots of men around with tons of money and not much brain or may be they lose their brains once they accumulate such huge sums of money like the governor who allegedly was paying $5500 per hour (yes, you read it right - it’s five thousand five hundred dollars per hour) for a call girl! So if a lady were to be interested in such an enterprise, she wouldn’t have to look very hard before she finds a man with the dough and who will be quite happy to part with his money as well. The only problem that I see is how one will ensure the dude is actually dead within a year! LOL
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
~~ Mark Twain ~~ (1835 - 1910)
We frequently fear of the worst and unnecessarily limit our chances of success. Most of the problems and troubles that we think we are going to encounter if we embark upon such and such venture never actually come to pass.
It is obviously a good idea to try to foresee any problems that we may encounter in our endeavors but the possibility that such problems may be encountered should not deter us from pursuing our goals. A better approach will be to figure out as to what will be done - a sort of back up plan - in case we do actually face the problem. But most of the time the perceived problems will never be encountered.
Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
~~ Bertrand Russell ~~ (1872 - 1970)
That just about sums it up though I’d prefer to use the word ‘predator’ rather than the ‘criminal’ so that the quote would read ‘Life is nothing but a competition to be the predator rather than the victim (prey)’. It’s because at least a few of the powerful criminals do get caught and are punished whereas the predators roam free.
The whole universe appears to be in a predator and victim (prey) mode; everything is in a constant state of war like the bacteria attacking our bodies all the time trying to make us sick or even die, powerful animals like lions killing other animals for food etc etc. Humans are unique predators in the sense that many a times they kill other humans just for the sake of killing and they kill other animals sometimes for food, sometimes for their skin or bones and sometimes just for fun and call it ’sport’. So much so that humans have driven even the very powerful and agile animal species like the tiger to the verge of extinction.
And humans’ economic predatory practices over other humans are atrocious. For instance, corporate executives, usually in concert with the so called board of directors, earning hundreds or even thousands of times more wages than the average wages of their workers. Nobody is worth that much; it’s simply a case of the calculating predators sucking the blood of the working class people.
For everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you.
~~ Hillary Clinton ~~
After losing straight 12 contests to her rival, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton won both in Ohio and Texas. Many political pundits had predicted that her bid to become the Democratic party nominee for the US presidential election will collapse as it was widely predicted that she will lose one or probably both of these contests. She fought back hard, proved her detractors wrong and injected a new life in her campaign by winning contests in both these states.
After her victory in Ohio, she delivered a speech containing the above motivational quote to her cheering supporters. It was an excellent way to uplift the spirits of her loyal supporters and prepare them for contests coming up in other states.
In politics, as in life in general, fortunes can change very quickly. Not too long ago, Hillary Clinton was considered a shoe-in for the Democratic party nomination. Time has shown it to be anything but; the contest is so close that, at this point in time, nobody knows who of the two contestants will eventually win the nomination.
The important message in life is to get up when you stumble, keep working hard with courage and determination towards your goal and never to give up.
A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?
~~ Albert Einstein ~~ (1879-1955)
So Einstein felt the same way we all feel from time to time. :-)
I don’t know why Einstein couldn’t figure out the answer to such a simple question. I figured it out a long time ago that everybody except me is crazy! LOL
Hope is a feeling that life and work have meaning. You either have it or you don’t, regardless of the state of the world that surrounds you.
~~ Vaclav Havel ~~
We definitely hope that life and work has meaning though nobody has been able to establish for sure as to what that meaning might be. Perhaps we can say that work has meaning - to survive one must work! LOL. Life, on the other hand, does not lend itself to such a straight forward meaning. Nonetheless, hope makes the world go round; it’s a staple of life, everything revolves around hope. I don’t think one can even live without any hope in spite of the fact that many of our hopes get dashed to the ground.
I agree that hope is not dependent on the state of the world around us; we cling to hope even when the world around us may be falling apart. But I don’t agree that you either have hope or you don’t. Most of us have hope most of the time but all of us pass through moments or may be even days when we feel totally helpless and hopeless. Fortunately, most of us soon work our way out of that state of hopelessness and start hoping again.
Hoping for the best and dreaming big are really important ingredients for leading our lives, and we must liberally use them throughout our lives. Without hope and dreams there can be no progress, no achievement.
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
~~ T. S. Elliot ~~
It is true that if you stay within your comfort zone, you are never going to find out how far you may be able to go. However, it’s also true that if you happen to go too far in your risk, the results may be disastrous. For example, many business ventures go bankrupt because they went too far in taking the risk. Of course, they find out after they have gone bankrupt as to how far they could have gone safely but by that time it’s too late. Or the athlete who over-exerts himself, collapses and even dies.
So the question becomes if it’s really necessary to find out how far one can go. The answer will vary from individual to individual and how dire the consequences may be of going too far. Some people will take extra-ordinary risks and may win big or may lose their shirt if they happen to go too far but most people will not go that far but will limit themselves to reasonable risks.
One has to take risks in life as risk is a part and parcel of life; without risk there can be no progress or achievement. One should always strive to go as far as possible without going overboard. Like everything else in life, there are no definitive rules as to when one might be going too far. It’s basically a subjective decision based on one’s knowledge, experience, intuition etc.
Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.
~~ Thomas Carlyle ~~ (1795 – 1881)
So we are all rascals? Definitely! LOL
Since time immemorial, humans have been trying to impress upon other humans to be honest, truthful and upright but without any success. The one reason why it happens is that those who ask others to follow such ideals themselves fail to follow such ideals. Examples being parents teaching children to be honest and truthful, preachers preaching honesty and integrity, people in positions of power asking others to selflessly work for the organization or the country but themselves not doing the same. It’s like ‘do as I say, not as I do.’ Not going to happen. And we have even come up with fancy names like referring to lies as ‘extending the truth.’ Either it’s the truth or it’s not; what does extending the truth mean?
The second reason is that we soon discover in everyday life that honesty and truthfulness doesn’t pay. We all indulge in dishonesty and tell lies whenever it suits our purpose. It’s just that some of us have become very adept at this ‘art’. :-) And those who become experts in this art reap handsome rewards which becomes an incentive for the rest of us to learn the ropes. LOL
So, yes, ideally you can become honest and reduce the number of rascals in the world by one but it’s not a very practical or profitable proposition.
There is no amount of money in the world that will make you comfortable if you are not comfortable with yourself.
~~ Stuart Wilde ~~
While extreme lack of money will definitely make you unhappy and uncomfortable, having lots of money will not necessarily result in your being content and tranquil in life. The reason why money is important is because one needs a certain amount of money (income) to make a living and beyond that we are just chasing our wants and fuzzy dreams. Most of us have only a vague idea as to why we need more money but we continue to chase money just out of habit. Some people may say they need more money because they want to buy a fancy car or a bigger house etc. or perhaps a lot of people would express the desire to quit their distressingly boring jobs if they had lots of money.
But that is only an illusion as one doesn’t need a fancy car or a big house and a job is only one facet of life; there are a lot of other factors that affect us. Also, we know a lot of people who have a lot of money (though they may not think so! LOL), several fancy cars, several big houses (mansions) and have achieved great success in their profession, and we idolize and imitate them, but they still lead very troubled lives. These people are prime examples of the fact that just money and material possessions can’t bring one tranquility. Tranquility is something one can only find from within oneself.
In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
~~ Samuel Johnson ~~ (1709-1784)
Very true. As a matter of fact most of the time people lie because they think that we would not like it if they tell the truth. Truth, at times, can be very ugly and people don’t like to hear it. Politicians are a good example of people who can’t afford to tell the truth most of the time.
Who will vote for a politician who dares to tell the truth and says, ‘Elect me and I will raise your taxes.’? Yet the politician who says he won’t raise the taxes, gets elected and immediately turns around and raises the taxes! Happens all the time. So we can’t expect people to tell the truth unless we learn to hear and appreciate the truth even when the truth may be very ugly.
It is necessary to try to surpass one’s self always; this occupation ought to last as long as life.
~~ Queen Christina ~~ (1626 - 1689)
It’s true; in life one always has to try to be better today than yesterday. Life is a journey that does not stop at any given destination or point in time. It keeps on going until the end. The ultimate destiny of each and every life is death; the only unknowns being when, where and how.
That should give us great incentive to do good deeds; try to make ourselves better today than we were yesterday and to live life fully as we don’t know if we will be around tomorrow. We must keep on going forward, always, till we meet our ultimate destiny.
