If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with two weeks vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days. -Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879-1958) was an American educator and writer. Born in Lawrence, Kansas, she lived mainly in Vermont. She was well educated and spoke five languages and was an activist in both education and politics at a time when not very many women did any of those things.
We’ll be honest, this quote has always hit home. You are reading this because we give an appropriate amount of thought to what we want to get out of life, but Lord knows few are capable of attacking a vacation plan like us, especially if it’s a road trip. Destinations, routes, hotels, especially if we have some money and can afford a 5-star joint. And let’s not forget looking to see if there is a Waffle House or White Castle in the area.
If we would only give…the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life…
If we have a detailed plan for two weeks off, why wouldn’t we have a plan for the other fifty weeks of the year? After all, the reason we come up with detailed plans for two weeks off is because we want to get the most out of that time. Why wouldn’t we want to maximize the rest of the year?
…the aimless procession of our busy days.
If we want to avoid an aimless procession of busy days we must have a plan for our lives. All of us come from different circumstances and we each were issued different talents and interests at birth, but each of has 24 hours in every day, the only commodity we are all issued in equal measure.
We must put those 24 hours to work for us. We must spend them developing and then maximizing the talents we were given because to do that is one of life’s great prizes, just like life’s great tragedy is to look back on wasted time and wasted talent.
And the hard part is not actually going out and maximizing our talents because Mother Nature has seen to it that what we are good we generally enjoy doing. No, the hard part is going out and doing it every day because the day’s 24 hours are relentless: they are there every day, waiting for us to either squander them or put them to work for us.
Ms Fisher makes one of the only points that matter: we can have a plan for our life or we can not have a plan for our life. We can give our lives the same attention we give our vacations, or we can choose not to.
Every day it’s our call.
