If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for the battle. – I Corinthians 14:8
First Corinthians is a book in the New Testament of the Christian bible, written by Saint Paul while he was in Ephesus to the church in Corinth he had founded. First Corinthians is generally thought to have been written sometime between 53 and 57 AD and is one of 13 epistles credited to Paul in the New Testament, and one of seven of these to be considered by most biblical scholars to be of unquestioned authenticity.
Today’s Thought comes in the context of Paul encouraging his church’s members to speak in tongues and to prophesize, but to do so in a manner that is easy to understand, because if they don’t who will hear the message?
Today’s Thought is relevant in our lives, even for those of us for whom the bible holds little influence and who do not speak in tongues.
We must be confident in this life. We must be confident in ourselves. We must be confident that the path we are on is the life we were meant to be living. There is no substitute for this because only when we are living the lives we were meant to live are we doing ourselves or anyone else any good.
No one will believe in us like we believe in ourselves. It’s not possible. Sure, your mother will come pretty close. A good spouse will try. But that’s really it because nobody has the breadth or depth of vision for our lives that we do. It’s not possible nor, frankly, is it particularly desirable because why should somebody believe in ourselves more than we do?
Our trumpet must not give off an uncertain sound. No matter what we do – build a chair, teach a class, serve a customer – our trumpet must ring with certainty because only with the certainty of being true to ourselves will our lives resonate with others.
The Thought for the Day runs regularly. Quotes are from Gaylon’s personal quotebook, begun in a motel room in Berkeley, California in 1988.
CAPSULE SUNDAY DINNER REVIEW: BBQ’d Steaks, Tin Biscuits, Velveeta Shells and Cheese, Onion and Mushroom Mixture; The Shire, Hayden, Colorado: We’ve been big fans Sunday dinner since we were kids growing in Los Angeles when Grandma and Grandpa (Mom’s side) would come over. They usually arrived in the early afternoon and since Mom’s side of the family was Mexican, dinner was usually Mexican, too. If there was a ballgame on – this was before the era when there was always a ballgame on – we’d watch that, but if not Grandma would insist on watching the bullfights from Tijuana on Channel 34.
What was funny is Mom had four brothers and sisters that still lived in the area, but we were the ones they visited every Sunday. Looking back, it was probably because my late brother Loren was Grandpa’s favorite. No debate, he made no secret of it, all us other grandkids were battling for the runner-up spot.
Back To The Future: So when The Wife started making her usual noises about doing something for Sunday dinner, I was excited because I am keeping rather odd hours right now and dinner together is sometimes not all that easy to coordinate.
ROFLMAO: The Wife also asked what kind of vegetable I wanted,to which I waved a hand dismissively. Under these circumstances – a fine steak, to which I added biscuits and macaroni and cheese – a vegetable would just get in the way.
Dry, Technical Matter: Despite my limited cooking skills, The Wife put me in charge of the kitchen, while she stood post outside, tending to the barbecue. I was in charge of putting the biscuits in the oven and presiding over macaroni and cheese prep plus – get this – cooking our usual onion and mushroom mixture.
Write This Down: Despite the fact I cooked it, the mixture turned out really good. Really good. First you saute the onions in butter and some salt and pepper. Then I threw in a spoonful of some ginger/garlic paste The Wife had picked up at some Indian store somewhere. Then I added the mushrooms. Then I stirred them occasionally. It turned out that a spoonful of ginger/garlic paste was perfect. You didn’t have to go hunting to taste it, but it wasn’t dominating, either.
The Bottom Line: Dinner was great. Offhand, I’m calling it Home Cooked Dinner of the Year, a title it will probably retain until our Christmas prime rib.
GREAT MOMENTS IN RACIAL TOLERANCE: History’s long hatred of the Jews continues when several Jews are killed and the rest banished from Brussels, Belgium on this date in 1370.
Jews would not return to Belgium until the 16th century, when Jews who had been expelled began to filter back in.
Was This An Enlightened Century, Or What?: Pope Gregory XI issues several proclamations – known as papal bulls – regarding the writings of English theologian John Wycliffe on this date in 1377. Wycliffe had had the temerity to suggest, among other things, that the church had become corrupt and should sell all its property, while it’s clergy should live in poverty, views which were not shared by either the church or its clergy.
Despite the fact Gregory had determined that Wycliffe’s On Civil Dominion was both “erroneous” and “dangerous” Wycliffe – who enjoyed broad-based, if not universal, support – was never charged or otherwise punished for his views.
Get Out Your History Books: Cliff Curtis of the Boston Braves breaks the major league record for most consecutive losses by a pitcher, losing his 23rd consecutive game on this date in 1911.
Pitching at home against St Louis, Curtis goes the distance and didn’t do too badly, giving up three runs, all earned, on seven hits in a 3-1 loss. Curtis, who lost his last 18 games in 1910, would break the streak on May 26, defeating Brooklyn 7-2.
Oh Yeah: Curtis’ record would stand until 1993, when it was broken by Anthony Young of the New York Mets, who would go on to lose 27 consecutive games.
Up, Up, And Away…At Least Until The Explosion: A flight from Chicago to Kansas City explodes above Centerville, Iowa on this date in 1962, killing all 45 people on board.
You Know, A Good Cavity Search Would’ve Prevented This: The investigation showed the explosion was suicide bombing by a man named Thomas Doty, who had brought several sticks of dynamite on board. Doty had also purchased a $150,000 insurance policy before the flight. His wife attempted to collect on it, but since Doty’s death was ruled a suicide, all the wife received a $3 refund of the policy’s purchase price.
Thought For The Day: …Malcolm felt his heart pound with hope because he knew that intuition and instinct had once again performed their customary miracle. – William McGivern Choice of Assassins
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The Tonight Show replaced Broadway Open House on NBC.
Today’s Stumper: Pope Gregory XI was History’s last pope from what country? – Answer next time!
GOP, YOU’RE ON THE CLOCK: One of our favorite things to watch during the Trump Era is whether or not the Republican Party is going to be able to survive it.
At first we thought Trump losing the general election might mean the end of the GOP. That point, of course, is academic, because he won. But Trump is nothing more than a 72-year-old spoiled brat who lacks a long-term vision for our country, so we started thinking maybe Trump’s victory might spell the end for the GOP.
We’re not so sure. True, we are only four months into his presidency, but if there was going to be a palace revolt I think we would already have started hearing the first rumblings.
OTOH: The conditions remain ripe for both elected GOP officials and GOP members to bolt. The Trump Administration has been four months of non-stop chaos and intrigue and scandal. No actual governing is getting done because the Trump Administration has turned out to be a quagmire jumping from one fiasco to another.
It is being led by an insecure, brutish man whose only real talent is drawing attention to himself. The remainder of his term will accomplish nothing of substance, obliging America to mark time, instead of making substantive progress on any issue at a time when America and the world could use some real, substantive leadership.
The Bottom Line: While the GOP cannot be looking at the 2018 midterm elections with any degree of enthusiasm, who’s to say they will take a beating next year? Recall this is a party that survived Nixon and got George H.W. Bush – a man of no particular substance – twice elected president. With the Democrats lacking anyone to rally around and the Libertarians hampered by a populace that prefers to stick with the familiar, the GOP might – despite everything they have to answer for – be able to ride out yet another storm.
Dry, Technical Matter: America has its media to blame for this, of course. Long gone are the days of Woodward and Bernstein because a proper media would not have let Trump anywhere near the primaries. A real American media would have had Trump out of the race in two weeks. But Candidate Trump meant TV ratings and internet hits and he was allowed to talk in vague generalities and insults, permitted to bulldoze his way through candidates that, frankly, weren’t a whole lot better than he was.
INSERT OWN LEAD LINE HERE: Queen Mary I grants a charter to the Derby School in Derby, England on this date in 1554. Though founded in the middle of the 12th century, the school had been closed for a few years. It closed permanently in 1989.
Up, Up And Away: Charles Lindbergh lands in Paris in this date in 1927, becoming the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. The flight from New York City had taken 33 hours.
Oh Yeah: Lindbergh’s flight was also the first flight between the North American and European mainlands, and the second transatlantic flight. In 1919 two British pilots flew a plane from Newfoundland to Ireland, which is about 1,800 miles less than what Lindbergh flew.
Hey, What About Me?: Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to make a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean on this date in 1932, landing in a pasture in Northern Ireland. Earhart had taken off from Newfoundland the previous day and had originally planned to fly to Paris.
Here, Take That: Michelangelo’s Pieta, a sculpture depicting a dead Jesus Christ lying in the lap of his mother Mary, is damaged in St. Peter’s Basilica on this date in 1972.
The attack was by one Laszlo Toth, an Australian originally from Hungary. He took a hammer to the sculpture, taking off Mary’s arm at the elbow, plus parts of her nose and one of her eyelids.
The Pieta was eventually restored, and is now kept behind bulletproof glass.
Great Moments In Mental Health: While attacking the Pieta, Toth advised onlookers that he was actually Jesus Christ. In light of the fact he was crazy, Toth was never charged with a crime and after a couple of years in an Italian mental hospital, Toth was deported to Australia, where he died in 2012.
Theeeerrrreee’s Johnny: Johnny Carson hosts his final Tonight Show with guests on this date in 1992. Carson’s final show, a retrospective in front of invited guests, would air the following night. Carson hosted The Tonight Show for 30 years and 4,531 episodes.
Thought For The Day: Fortune had betrayed him for the moment, and the world had turned against him. Victory was slipping from his grasp even as he stretched out his hand to seize it. But his arm was long. – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The last deed under the Homestead Act, signed in 1862, was issued in 1988 to Ken Deardorff of Alaska. Today’s Stumper: What show did The Tonight Show replace in the NBC lineup? – Answer next time!
He forged fiercely a path for his truth, until at last kings, popes, and emperors catered to him, thrones trembled before him, and half the world listened to catch his every word. – Will Durant, On Voltaire
Will Durant was an American writer and historian, known for a variety of works, including the multi-volume History of Civilization and The Story of Philosophy, a book which does a good job of putting philosophy in a context non-scholars can appreciate.
Voltaire, of course, was a French philosopher who flourished in the 18th century. He enjoyed poking fun at the Catholic Church and other established institutions and remains one of liberty’s best friends.
Voltaire wrote even when others made it difficult for him. His father wanted him to become a lawyer and kept finding him jobs that had nothing to do with writing. He wrote anyway. Voltaire’s thoughts on religious tolerance and freedom of thought, in an age where the authorities cherished neither, also kept Voltaire on his toes. He was imprisoned twice and once was obliged to flee to England. He wrote anyway.
He forged fiercely a path for his truth…
Despite the obstacles that attend every endeavor, Voltaire never stopped writing. He wrote from the depths of his heart and his mind. He wrote for himself and for others and for History, brilliantly doing what you pay us writers to do: provide insights into our human experience that are both thoughtful and entertaining.
Fiercely forging a path isn’t reserved for those you read about in books and those who happen to live down the ages. All of us should be forging – fiercely, if required – a path for our truth. It doesn’t matter what that truth is, either. All that is required is the wisdom to know ourselves and the courage to go make it happen.
Writer’s write. Parents teach, guide and fret. Athletes train and compete and carpenters build. Each are on paths which lead to their truth.
What’s your truth? If you are not sure, search inside yourself for it. When you find it, follow it. Use it. Exploit it. Enjoy it. Your truth will take you exactly where are meant to go in this life.
The Thought for the Day runs regularly. Quotes are from Gaylon’s personal quotebook, begun in a motel room in Berkeley, California in 1988.
She’d often observed that people generally lived up to whatever expectations they had of themselves. – Emily Brightwell, The Inspector and Mrs. Jeffries
Emily Brightwell is the pen name of an American writer named Cheryl Lanham, and The Inspector and Mrs Jeffries is the first in a series featuring Mrs Jeffries. In this book, Mrs Jeffries is the maid for the Inspector, a particularly dimwitted sort who only solves crimes because Mrs Jeffries tells him what to do.
“Now, Inspector, you are, of course, going to look into this exciting new clue, correct?”
“Excuse me, sir, the Inspector will attend to that immediately after he attends to this matter, won’t you, Inspector?”
You may have observed today’s Thought in action yourself over the years. How many times have you seen someone with a lousy attitude fail at something? Or succeed at attaining something easy and unsatisfying? On the other hand, how many times have you seen a hard charger get what they set out for? Probably more times than you might think. It happens all the time in our human experience.
How many times has this person been you? How many times have you reached the expectations you had for yourself? I would venture to say fairly often. If you set your goals high you may well have met them because you knew what you wanted and you had a plan to get there. If your expectations could have been higher, if you settled for less than what your could have been, you met these expectations, too, because it is not difficult to meet low expectations.
In both cases you met the expectations you had for yourself. Us humans do this all the time. It’s the way the world is built. It is important that we expect big things out of ourselves, that we set our goals high, perhaps a bit higher than we think we are capable of going. This is how we advance both as individuals and as a society.
It doesn’t matter what it is either. What’s important to me might be of no particular consequence to you and what drives my neighbor might bore me to tears. All that matters is what you strive for important to you, that you are answering to a calling from deep inside you.
What’s calling you today? What expectations are you prepared to meet today?
The Thought for the Day runs regularly. Quotes are from Gaylon’s personal quotebook – begun in 1988 – and all commentary is original.
HERE WE GO AGAIN: Major League Baseball (MLB) executives are talking about farting around the game’s rules again, changes designed to make games go quicker.
As they should. The average MLB game now takes three hours and five minutes to complete, a tedious amount of time to spend watching anything – sporting event, your cute neighbor sunniny sporting event, be it in person or on TV.
Their catch phrase is ‘pace of play” and baseball executives toss it around as if it means something. Don’t kid yourself, it doesn’t. They talk pitch clocks and limiting the number of times a catcher can visit a pitcher and adding a few millimeters to the strike zone but the only way to alter the game on the field to significantly reduce game lengths is to start everyone off with a 3-2 count.
Dry, Technical Matter: This season MLB took the bold step of making intentional walks automatic instead of making pitchers throw four wide ones. With intentional walks running rampant, an average of one every other game, baseball has slashed almost a half-second of their average game times.
It was silly, too, because every now and then you see a team screw an intentional walk up because the pitcher throws the ball to the backstop or close enough to the strike zone for the batter to swing at it.
Let’s Cut To The Chase: The real problem, the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about, is the two-and-a-half minutes between half innings. If MLB executives really want to cut game times to below 12 percent of a day, they must start here.
It’s easy, too, merely cutting the time between innings from 150 seconds to 90 seconds would cut almost 20 minutes from game times. And i don’t want to hear any whining about lost revenue, either. One, when you make something scarcer, like TV commercial inventory, it becomes more valuable. Two, ads can be added on-screen, during the game. Heck, they might already be for all we know, because we haven’t seen a baseball game on TV in years.
Fly In The Ointment: But good luck getting this to happen. Baseball has never been accused of too much foresight. Recall novel ideas like the designated hitter and interleague play were first introduced in the Dark Ages before 1940. MLB executives will say this and they will say that, but nothing of substance will get done.
GO IN PEACE, SERVE THE LORD: The first ecumenical council of the Christian church opens on this date 325 AD in Nicaea, which is now known as Iznik, Turkey.
Known by History as the First Council of Nicaea, it clarified the divine nature of God the Son, took the reckoning of Easter away from the Jewish calendar and issued the first part of the Nicene Creed, still used in Christian churches around the world.
WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST USE GPS?: The world’s first modern atlas, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, (Theater of the World) is published on this date in 1570 in Antwerp, Belgium by Abraham Ortelius.
Though himself a noted cartographer, Ortelius included none of his own maps, preferring to use the maps of other acknowledged masters. Considering the era, the maps are more accurate than you might think. South America and China are not completely accurate, but the rest of the world looks much like it does today.
No, This Shouldn’t Cause Any Confusion At All: President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act on this date in 1862. The act gave away federal land to any US citizen – there were exceptions to this – who was willing to live, farm and make improvements on the land for five years.
Dry, Technical Matter: All told, the government gave away over 270 million acres of land to 1.6 million homesteaders. The program was ended in 1976, except in Alaska, where it was allowed to continue until 1986 since nobody really wanted to homestead anything there, anyway.
Great Moments In Thermonuclear War: The first airborne test of the hydrogen bomb is conducted by the United States on this date in 1956, when a hydrogen bomb is dropped over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. It was the second hydrogen bomb test and a total of 23 tests would be conducted.
Thought For The Day: She’d often observed that people generally lived up to whatever expectations they had of themselves. – Emily Brightwell, The Inspector and Mrs. Jeffries
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The Kentucky Derby became a mile-and-a-quarter race in 1896.
Today’s Stumper: When was the last deed under the Homestead Act issued? – Answer next time!
We should constantly be reminded of what we owe in return for what we have. – Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is, among other things, a former first lady of the United States. An active, outspoken woman in an era where women of this sort were rare, she remains a towering figure in American history.
Today’s thought is particularly relevant in today’s divided America.
Now, America has always been divided, make no mistake about that. Liberty in this country was originally was reserved for white, landowning males, obliging everyone else to fight tooth and nail for every gain.
It is difficult, however, to imagine an America that is more partisan, fractured and bickering than the America we have today. It is a good time to reflect on what we have and what we owe ourselves and our country.
What we have: citizenship in a country where what we get out of life is largely dependent on the work we put into it.
Even those of us who, materially, at least, might not seem to have much in fact have a lot: 24 hours every day to make something good happen for ourselves. Those 24 hours are our most prized possession, the only commodity each of us is issued in equal measure. This provides us with one of life’s great prizes: the opportunity to say “this is what I am today and this, this is what I am going to be tomorrow”, a quote we stole from Louis L’Amour.
What we owe: vigilance in how we are governed. This doesn’t mean steadfast constancy to this political philosophy or that one. It means being a demanding and participating citizen, a citizen that holds its leaders responsible. Let’s be honest, America doesn’t have that right now, because we keep electing leaders that provide the partisan, fractured and bickering government we have now.
We should constantly be reminded of what we owe…
As citizens, we must get involved. We must decide we deserve better and then go and do something about it. We must tell ourselves as a nation we might be this today, but this is what America will be tomorrow.
We have a collective responsibility to do just that. We cannot expect anything more out of ourselves, but we must demand nothing less.
The Thought for the Day runs regularly. Quotes are from Gaylon’s own private stock.
FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!: It is plain that we are not going to get any leadership at all from the Trump Administration. Actually, that has been obvious almost since Day 1.. All we are going to get is four years of Trump jumping from one fiasco to another. After 16 years Bush and Obama – the worst back-to-back presidential leadership this nation has been obliged to endure – America is going to spend the next four years marking time.
USA! USA!: This means four more years of making some zero progress on our country’s biggest issues, issues that if not addressed will spell the end of our nation, probably before this half-century is out. This means four more years of fighting wars not declared by Congress and four more years of high taxes and excess regulation and an economy that still doesn’t work for a lot of people.
We Are Not Being Led, We Are Being Managed, And Not Particularly Well, Either: I don’t think America has been led since Kennedy said let’s go to the moon. Lyndon Johnson could manage the US Senate and become wealthy in the process, but he got bogged down by Vietnam and in trying to have the government do too much, like try to end poverty. Richard Nixon was evil. Ford meant well, and we think History looks favorably on his pardon of Nixon, but he had no chance. The Son of Man himself would have had a tough time following Nixon.
Carter was ineffective. Reagan was brilliant at reducing his presidency to a few things that mattered, but he was the most managed president in history, setting a precedent that festers to this day. George H.W. Bush did not have the skills to parlay a war victory into a second term. Bill Clinton, well, he was the last president to govern without a budget deficit, but it was always one scandal after another with him. George W. Bush had trouble speaking coherently while lying to us in order to get us into wars we are still fighting. Obama tried to be all things to all people, and wanted government to do the same, and made us all buy health insurance when a government has no right to mandate its citizens buy anything at all.
Dry, Technical Matter: And now we have Trump. We can’t really blame him, though because he is just being himself. He was a misfit of a private citizen and an embarrassment as a candidate and none of us should be surprised he is a misfit and an embarrassment of a president. The surprise would have been if Trump had actually turned out to be a leader.
AND DOWN THE STRETCH THEY COME: Aristides, ridden by Oliver Lewis, wins the first Kentucky Derby on this date 1875, Aristides ran the mile-and-a-half in 2:37.
Well, This Should End All Racial Tension In America: The United States Supreme Court on this date in 1954 votes unanimously that separate public schools for whites and blacks are unconstitutional.
“Separate Educational Facilities Are Inherently Unequal”:History refers to the case as Brown vs. Board of Education. It stemmed from a 1951 class-action suit by parents of students in Topeka, Kansas. The parents had attempted to enroll their kids in the closest public school, but had been turned down and instead referred to the nearest segregated school. Before reaching the Supreme Court, a Kansas district court had ruled in favor of the Topeka Board of Education.
FunFact: The decision overturned Plessy vs. Ferguson, an 1896 Supreme Court decision that legalized segregated schools.
Dry, Technical Jurisprudence Matter: The Supreme Court decision stated segregated schools violated the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution which states, in part, that no state shall:
…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Get Out Your History Books: David Wells of the New York Yankees pitches a perfect game on this date in 1998, defeating the Minnesota Twins 4-0 at Yankee Stadium. It was the 15th perfect game in major league history and the Yankees joined the Cleveland Indians as the only team to have thrown two perfect games, a record that was extended to three by the Yankees and tied by the Chicago White Sox.
The Post Game Show Is Brought To You By Old Style Beer: After the game, Wells would admit to being hung over during the game.
Thought For The Day: We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. – Albert Einstein
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: One man died on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Sgt. Charles Floyd, probably of acute appendicitis, in August, 1804, near Sioux City, Iowa.
Today’s Stumper: When was the distance of the Kentucky Derby changed from a mile-and-a-half to a mile-and-a-quarter? – Answer next time!
Skid row was disgusting. The life of the sane, average man was dull, worse than death. – Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye
Charles Bukowski was an American poet and writer. We were introduced to Bukowski in 2011 at the Huntington Library in southern California. In the same room as one of eleven Gutenberg Bibles known to exist, was an original manuscript of Ham on Rye. It was open to a page where the main character, who was based on Bukowski, was about to get beaten for the first time by his father.
We stood there and read the passage over and over. We wrote down the title and the author so we wouldn’t forget it. We didn’t need to, though, because the people that run the Huntington Library are not idiots and it was not the Upset of the Year to find Ham on Rye for sale in the gift shop.
Ham on Rye is one hell of a book, as good as we’ve read, with Bukowski contributing no less than 30 quotes to our personal quotebook, an extraordinarily high number for what is a novel of average length.
Fans of Bukowski are familiar with the theme of today’s Thought, because Bukowski talks a lot about ordinary people leading ordinary lives and Bukowski’s characters spend no small amount of time coming to terms with the mindlessness of everyday life, about the conformity required to get along, much less get ahead.
This is hardly a bulletin. In fact, it is the sum of our human experience since time immemorial. You’re born and you die. In between you pass a life, a life of undetermined length, a life you generally have no idea when it will end.
…dull, worse than death.
Why do some people seem to avoid the life Bukowski talks about, while others appear not to? The difference lies in those who get the most out of the gifts they were issued at birth and those who do not.
A good life awaits those who look deep inside, realize the life they were meant to live and have the courage to go and live that life. It sometimes means going against the grain, even when most people you know might not. People who do this generally look back at lives well-lived Those who don’t might well be looking back at time squandered.
When in doubt, be yourself. Answer to what summons you from deep inside because we can’t climb Mount Everest if we are aimlessly wandering around the Gobi Desert.
The Thought for the Day runs regularly. Quotes are from Gaylon’s personal quotebook – begun in 1988 – and all commentary is original.
These poor bastards. They’ve got us right where we want them. We can shoot in every direction now. – Chesty Puller
Chesty Puller is the most decorated Marine in United States history. Six times he earned the nation’s second highest award for bravery, five Navy Crosses and one Distinguished Service Cross from the Army. Revered by his men, Puller was as firm as he was fair. Puller retired a Lieutenant General in 1955 after 37 years of honorable and expert service to his country.
Today’s Thought is our favorite example of optimism, a supreme example of turning something bad – being surrounded by people intent on killing you – into something good – the opportunity to fire wherever you want because you’re probably going to hit someone.
If Puller can find something positive out of being surrounded by the enemy, certainly we can find find something positive out of every day circumstances that don’t go right, circumstances that range from the inconvenient to the annoying to, perhaps, the tragic.
Here’s a good way to that:
First, be open to new things. Plan A often, perhaps even usually, doesn’t work out. Instead of decrying this, be open to the new circumstances awaiting you. With a positive attitude and a bit of ingenuity, it’s rare when what you end up with isn’t better than what you sought.
Second, trust your instincts. We talk a lot about this here at the Thought for the Day, usually preceded by the words “follow your heart”.
Our instincts are there for a reason: they are there to show us how to get to where we want to go and unless we are trying something completely out of our element, they are usually pretty trusty.
Third is expect good things to happen! The importance of this cannot be underestimated because to an extent that is astonishing, we usually get what we expect out of this life. Those with lousy attitudes usually have lousy lives because no one is going to accomplish anything of substance when they are grousing about this or that, whining about how others have it better or how someone has it in for them. When whatever they were wasting their time on fails they are the first to say they always knew it would happen, and they will carry this attitude with them to whatever they screw up next.
On the other hand, those who attempt something – anything, really – with a positive attitude, with a deep-seated belief – usually claimed from past experiences – that, something good is going to happen, generally end up having something good happen. Those who dream big either get big results, or obtain every possible benefit from an experience, one of life’s great prizes.
Finally, when something good isn’t in the cards, turn it over and make something good happen. There are few circumstances that cannot be turned to advantage.
Plans change? OK, change with them. With a good attitude and an open mind, there is no limit to what you can accomplish. Your first choice of college didn’t want you? Their loss. Go shine someplace you’re wanted. Your employer doesn’t pay that much? OK, identify a job that does pay what you want and put yourself in a position to get it. The examples are endless. Your first book didn’t sell? Go write another one.
We may never find ourselves surrounded by the enemy, but we can always shoot in every direction. All we have to do is see the opportunities when they present themselves.
The Thought for the Day runs regularly. Quotes are from Gaylon’s personal quotebook – begun in 1988 – and all commentary is original.
