Thoughts about life
The wisdom of understanding how to live and enjoy life as expressed by others can help us think and reflect on things to ponder from time to time. In 1979 United Technologies Corporation published these messages in the Wall Street Journal.
- Do you remember who gave you your first break?
- Keep it simple.
- We're gonna miss ya, Duke.
- I take pride in my work.
- Get out of that rut.
- This will make you feel better.
- Anything you can do, they can do, too.
- Have you looked in your backyard lately?
- Here's an idea that can strengthen your family.
- The most elusive gift of all.
- The kid on the end of the bench.
- The dumbest person in the world.
- You're the finest.
- Will you commit larceny today?
- A pledge.
Do you remember your first break?
Someone saw something in you once.
That's partly why you are where you are today
It could have been a thoughtful parent, a perceptive teacher, a demanding drill sergeant, an appreciative employer, or just a friend who dug down in his pocket and came up with a few bucks.
Whoever it was, had the kindness and the foresight to bet on your future.
Those are two beautiful qualities that separate the human being from the orangutan.
In the next 24 hours, take 10 minutes to write a grateful note to the person that helped you.
You'll keep a wonderful friendship alive.
Matter of fact, take another 10 minutes to give somebody else a break.
Who knows?
Someday you might get a nice letter.
It could be one of the most gratifying messages you ever read.
Keep it simple
Strike three.
Get your hand off my knee.
You're overdrawn.
Your horse won.
Yes.
No.
Walk.
Don't walk.
You have the account.
Basic events require simple language.
Idiosyncratically euphemistic eccentricities are the promulgators of triturable obfuscation.
What did you do last night? Enter into a meaningful romantic involvement or fall in love?
What did you have for breakfast this morning? The upper part of a hog's hind leg with two oval bodies encased in a shell laid by a female bird or ham and eggs?
David Belasco, the great American theatrical producer, once said, "If you can't write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don't have a clear idea."
We're gonna miss ya, Duke
When you came riding into town, varmints scrambled, dance hall girls powdered their noses, and yellow-bellies ran for the hills.
You ambled into our hearts, stiffened our spines, and made us stand taller.
From the sands of Iwo Jima to the gates of the Alamo, you taught us all a lesson.
Sure, your movies were play-acting. But they showed that our true strength is in our people.
The worker on the production line, the fighting man, waitress, miner, farmer, nurse, cowboy.
Wherever you're going, Duke, roll yourself a smoke, take a slug of whiskey, lean back, put a thumb under your suspenders - and take pride that you taught us the meaning of true grit.
John Wayne gave more to America than he took from America.
How many of us can say the same?
I take pride in my work
I'm a little fed up with the constant criticism of American workmanship.
How other people do their jobs is their business.
But I do good work and I know it.
I have perfected my skills.
I make each minute count.
When I make a mistake I correct it.
I would gladly sign my name to every piece of work I do.
I'm going to hang this message over my work area to let my employer, my customers, my co-workers know that I take pride in my work.
Get our of that rut
Oscar Wilde said, "Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."
So stop getting up at 6:05. Get up at 5:06
Walk a mile at dawn.
Find a new way to drive to work.
Switch chores with your spouse next Saturday.
Buy a wok.
Study wildflowers.
Stay up alone all night.
Read to the blind.
Start counting brown-eyed blondes or blonds.
Subscribe to an out-of-town newspaper.
Canoe at midnight.
Don't write to your congressman, take a whole scout troop to see him or her.
Learn to speak another language.
Teach some kid the thing you do best.
Listen to two hour of uninterrupted Mozart.
Take up aerobic dancing.
Leap out of that rut.
Savor life.
Remember, we only pass this way once.
This will make you feel better
If you sometimes get discouraged, consider this fellow:
- He dropped out of grade school.
- Ran a country store, went broke and took 15 years to pay off his bills.
- Took a wife and had an unhappy marriage.
- Ran for House and lost twice.
- Ran for Senate and lost twice.
- Delivered a speech that became a classic, but the audience was indifferent.
- Attacked daily by the press and despised by half the country.
Despite all this, imagine how many people all over the world have been inspired by this awkward, rumpled, brooding man who signed his name simply
A. Lincoln
Anything you can do they can do, too
While you flex your muscles in front of your morning mirror and congratulate yourself on your nimble brain, consider this:
The light over your mirror was perfected by a deaf man.
While your morning radio plays, remember the hunchback who helped invent it.
If you listen to contemporary music, you may hear an artist who is blind.
If you prefer classical, you may enjoy a symphony written by a composer who couldn't hear.
The President who set an unbeatable American record could hardly walk.
A woman born unable to see, speak or hear stands a great achiever in American history.
Those with significant challenges in life can enrich our lives.
Let's enrich theirs.
Have you looked in your backyard lately?
Dr. Russell Conwell of Temple University once delivered a lecture in which he told of a man from Titusville, Pennsylvania who sold his farm for $833 to look for oil in Canada.
The fellow who left Titusville never found oil, but the man who bought his farm did and launched a billion dollar industry.
Today, with faster communications and transportation, it's not so important where you are, or that the grass may be greener in the next field.
What counts is that piece of real estate between your ears.
Is it rich, fertile, productive?
Or is it a wasteland?
If it's either, a change in geography won't matter.
Unpack, and take a look at your own backyard.
Here's an idea that can strengthen your family
Tonight at the dinner table, read something out loud to your family.
Tomorrow night, let another read something.
A news story.
A Bible verse.
A Robert Frost poem.
A cereal box panel.
History, humor, anything.
Each night a different family member can read a selection.
Imagine the wide range of subjects your family will read in 365 days.
What a stimulating way to have your children develop good reading habits.
We have too many illiterate adults in America.
We wouldn't have one, if each of them had been served reading as part of their nightly diet.
It's not fattening, but enriching.
And it doesn't cost a dime.
The most elusive gift of all
If you asked most of the sane and temperate men and women throughout the world what they wanted most for any holiday or celebration, their first choice wouldn't come in a magnificent box with a fancy ribbon.
They couldn't find it on a colorful page of a fat holiday catalog.
They wouldn't see it glistening out at them from a window of a smart boutique.
Because it's the most precious and elusive gift of all . . .
peace on earth.
To the kid on the end of the bench
Champions once sat where you are sitting kid.
The Football Hall of Fame (and every other Hall of Fame) is filled with names of people who sat, week after week, without getting a spot of mud on their well-laundered uniforms.
Generals, senators, surgeons, prize-winning novelists, professors, business executives start on the end of the bench, too.
Don't sit and study your shoe tops.
Keep your eye on the game.
Watch for defensive lapses.
Look for offensive opportunities.
If you don't think you're in a great spot, wait until you see how many would like to take it away from you at the next season practice.
What you do from the bench this season could put you on the field next season, as a player, or back in the grandstand as a spectator.
The dumbest person in the world
How dumb?
Very dumb.
It's the American who knocks what he's got.
Here's what he's got:
- A country of unbounded beauty.
- Almost unlimited natural resources.
- A judicial system that is the envy of the rest of the world.
- Food so plentiful overeating is a major problem.
- A press nobody can dominate.
- A ballot box nobody can stuff.
- Churches of your choice.
- Freedom to go anywhere you want, with the planes, cars and highways to get you there.
- Social security, Unemployment insurance, Medicare and Medicaid.
- Public schools and plentiful scholarships.
- Opportunity to become a millionaire.
O. K. complainer, what's your second choice?
Go.
You're the finest
In just 200 years, your country, through freedom and hard work, has changed the world.
In agriculture, industry, education, medicine, law, transportation, and on and on.
No country can match America's record in religious freedom, civil freedom, human rights, the importance of dignity of the individual.
We do have our differences.
But when we join together in times of crisis, our strength is awesome.
Among all the world's nations, American still stands out in front.
You're an American.
You're the finest ever - and don't you ever, ever forget it.
Will you commit larceny today?
You may be committing larceny and not even know it.
You could be stealing from someone important to you.
Two of the most important equities you have are time and money.
If you steal money and get caught, you suffer.
If you steal time, someone else suffers.
When you have a date at 9 o'clock, be there at 9, not 9:15.
Otherwise you have stolen 15 minutes.
Your theft can push everybody back.
The person scheduled for 5 o'clock may be bumped and have a tough time getting rescheduled.
Put yourself in his position and perhaps you won't be late.
If you're the person being robbed, read this page to the thief.
I PLEDGE
1. I now realize that the greatest power in the world is the power of knowledge.
2. I want to be smart. Dumb, misinformed people go through life missing so many rewards that could be theirs.
3. I will learn my basic skills and be expert in them.
4. I will read books on the subjects that interest me most. But I will also read books and articles on other subjects to broaden my awareness of what is happening in the world around me.
5. I will discuss at dinner time what I have learned or questioned at school today.
6. I will study the ideas and dreams of our history to see how they can help me today.
7. I will set aside some time each day to think about my future, to discuss it with people I respect and to work on accumulating the knowledge that can guarantee that future.
8. I pledge this to those who love me and are trying to help me succeed. More important, I pledge it to myself.
