Sixty years ago......................

 

The Electric Prunes.....I Had Too Much To Dream 

Who knows...............?

 

In other words, so far, AI is replacing tasks, not jobs.

-Noah Smith, thinking about the future of work

True, these..................

 

272.   One of my goals is to be an ambitious 85-year-old.

273:   Life is a series of continuing education classes.

-Michael Wade, Random Thoughts: Brief Reflections and Moments of Clarity

wise things in small, mysterious ways......

 

     Elias Schwartz repairs shoes.  He's short and round and bald and single and middle-aged and Jewish.  "An old-fashioned cobbler," says he, nothing more, nothing less.  I happen to be convinced that he is really the 145th reincarnation of the Haiho Lama.

     See, the Haiho Lama died in 1937, and the monks of the Sa-skya monastery have been searching for forty years for his reincarnation without success.  The New York Times carried the story last summer.  The article noted that the Lama would be recognized by the fact that he went around saying and doing wise things in small, mysterious ways, and that he would be doing the will of God without understanding why.

     Through some unimaginable error in the cosmic switching yards, the Haiho Lama has been reincarnated as Elias Schwartz.  I have no doubts about it.

     My first clue came when I took my old Bass loafers in for total renewal.  The works.  Elias Schwartz examined them with intense care.  With regret in his voice he pronounced them not worthy of repair.  I accepted the unwelcome judgment.  Then he took my shoes, disappeared into the back of the shop, and I waited and wondered.  He returned with my shoes in a stapled brown bag.  For carrying, I thought.

     When I opened the bag at home that evening, I found two gifts and a note.  In each shoe, a chocolate-chip cookie wrapped in waxed paper.  And these words in the note: "Anything not worth doing is worth not doing well.  Think about it.  Elias Schwartz."

     The Haiho Lama strikes again.

     And the monks will have to go on looking.  Because I'll never tell—we need all the Lamas here we can get.

-Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten

Faithfulness.................

 

     Faithfulness is not blind belief; it consists of steadfastly practicing the principle of shunning those things which are not within your control, leaving them to be worked out according to the natural system of responsibilities.  Cease trying to anticipate or control events.  Instead accept them with grace and intelligence.

-Epictetus, A Manual for Living

Imaginary boundaries..........

Once you understand the backstory, you realize that the New York Times story is not really about flight at all but about how elites and credentialed “experts” mistake their own failures for the boundaries of possibility.

-and the rest of the story is here

Love....................

 

God loved the world so much that he gave his son and he gave him to a virgin, the blessed virgin Mary, and she, the moment he came in her life, went in haste to give him to others. And what did she do then? She did the work of the handmaid, just so. Just spread that joy of loving to service. And Jesus Christ loved you and loved me and he gave his life for us, and as if that was not enough for him, he kept on saying: Love as I have loved you, as I love you now, and how do we have to love, to love in the giving. For he gave his life for us. And he keeps on giving, and he keeps on giving right here everywhere in our own lives and in the lives of others.

It was not enough for him to die for us, he wanted that we loved one another, that we see him in each other, that’s why he said: Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.

-Mother Teresa, from her 1979 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech

Ultimately.....................

Even if all these needs are satisfied, we may still often (if not always) expect that a new discontent and restlessness will soon develop, unless the individual is doing what he is fitted for. A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately happy. What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization.

-Abraham Maslow, as cut-and-pasted from A Theory of Human Motivation

Just asking...............

 

Here's a wonderful way to avoid an argument—simply ask questions.  Instead of jumping in and disagreeing before you know any more about the subject under discussion and the other party, ask the person to state his case, specifically, and to define his terms.  People who like to argue, and will at the drop of a word on any subject, are people who enjoy ruffling the feelings of others.  Willard Sloan once wrote an article entitled, "Arguments Don't Win Friends" in which he points out that arguments are useless and largely ridiculous.  They're more a matter of temper than temperate conversation and discussion.

-Earl Nightingale, as excerpted from The Essence of Success

Let's talk............

 

In short, the first duty of a man is to speak; that is his chief business in this world; and talk, which is the harmonious speech of two or more, is by far the most accessible of pleasures. It costs nothing in money; it is all profit; it completes our education, founds and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed at any age and in almost any state of health.

-Robert Louis Stevenson, as found here

Essence......................

 

The essence of God does NOT include human frailties such as partiality, controllingness, duality, judgmentalism, vindictive retaliation, wrath, righteous anger, resentment, vanity, limitation, arbitrariness, revenge, jealousy, vulnerability, or locality.

-David R. Hawkins, Spiritual Power and Integrity

a choice................

 

Your economic future is not going to be determined by the economy, but rather your own philosophy.

-Jim Rohn, as culled from Leading an Inspired Life