The Thought for the Day – George Moriarty
Who can ask more of a man
Than giving all within his span
Giving all, it seems to me,
Is not so far from victory
– George Moriarty, The Road Ahead or The Road Behind
George Moriarty was a major league baseball player, manager and umpire, as well as an amateur poet. As I recall, I was introduced to this poem at John Wooden’s basketball camp.
Life is funny. On the one hand, we are told it pays to be a winner. Winners get a bigger trophy and cuter girls and are the ones History tends to remember. On the other hand, not everybody can win. Sometimes you come in second place and sometimes you’re kept off life’s medal stand entirely.
So what separates number one from number two?
Not very much, actually. I’ve heard more than one coach say that on a percentage basis the difference between champion and runner up is two to three percent. I believe that. My experience with sports officials is the difference between the very best and the very good is equally slim and the difference, frankly, is usually hard work.
How do you withdraw that extra three percent out of yourself? We must put ourselves in a position to succeed. We do that by having a plan and executing that plan even when we’d rather be doing something else. To become our very best at something – anything – requires complete focus and the work required to get the most out of our talents. Usually this work is hard and the sacrifices complete focus demand are many and varied and sometimes difficult to resist.
Giving all, it seems to me/Is not so far from victory
A lot of success is out of our hands. The human experience is rather random. Sometimes circumstances will accompany to us the heights we’ve worked for and sometimes fate’s hand will stop us somewhat short of our goal.
That’s why it is important to remember our very best is all that matters because it is all we have any control over.
The Thought for the Day – Brice Union Taylor
Aim high; believe yourself capable of great things. You will succeed. – Brice Union Taylor
Brice Union Taylor was a college football player. A running back, in 1925 he became the first All-American at the University of Southern California. This quote is on a plaque of him in the peristyle end of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum commemorating that accomplishment,
Aim high…
Aim high is great advice for everyone, but particularly the novitiate. If you are just starting out at something there is no sense in setting your sights low. This isn’t always easy. Your very best takes courage, because there will always be those around you who will not give their best. It is easy to give a second-rate effort; that’s why so many people do it. But there is nothing more unrewarding than accomplishing something that is easy. No one who has done great things set out to be average. If you set out for second best, that is the most you will get.
…believe yourself capable of great things.
It is important to remember you probably won’t be great right off the bat. Great things do not happen immediately, they are the result of preparation and work and accented with skill because we cannot do great things we do not have a knack for. However, from start to finish you must believe yourself capable of greatness. The average never stumble on to greatness. The great become great because, in part, they expect it.
You will succeed.
Success must be measured, not by external factors like notoriety and fortune, but by having become your very best. It is the only barometer that matters. And only you can pass judgement on yourself. Only you can decide if you have become your very best.
You’ll know, too. Something inside will tell you this is the best you are going to get. Then you can look up and see what it got you. Simply because it is your very best it will be enough.
The Thought for the Day – Francis Bacon
But men must know that in this theatre of man’s life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on. -Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon has been quoted here before. He flourished in late 16th and early 17th century England and was a varied thinker writing, among them moral philosophy, theology and English law. From time to time he also wrote about his fellow humans getting the most out of their lives, albeit in a fancy, 17th century English manner.
Regular readers of the Thought for the Day know we like talking about that, too. I believe the ultimate bottom line in our human experience is when our time comes to die, we are going to be forced to exam our lives. I don’t have specific first-hand experience in this matter, but it is probably reasonable to conclude we will ask ourselves if we did well, or did we waste our time on this planet.
Instead of waiting until it is our time to die to examine our lives, we should do so now. Today. As soon as you are through reading this. We must ask ourselves if we are living the life we are meant to live. The happiest lives – regardless of circumstances – are lived by those who look inside themselves and answer “Yes”.
And it doesn’t have to be anything great, either. A personal example is my high school officiating career. I am mostly retired now, but for many years I was an accomplished high school official. I did my work hard and well and worked more than my share of big games. Now, there were a billion Chinese, as the saying goes, who could not have cared less about my big games, but they were important to me. Each one was hard earned. I became the best I could and was content with what I accomplished, life’s great prize.
…it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.
Your example may be equally non-Earth shattering but equally important to you. Exactly what it is your look out. It can’t be anyone else’s. All it really has to be is a journey to the center of your being, a discovery of what you were meant to do with your life. If it is, you will be center stage in the theater of your life, letting others look on.
Some Thoughts on California’s Minimum Wage
California – a state that every generation or so elects Jerry Brown governor yet refuses to legalize pot – recently approved a raise in their minimum wage from $10 an hour to $15 an hour. Those who are paid to do so, and many who aren’t, are yapping about the pros and cons of raising the minimum wage. Neither gets around to the most salient point that the government should butt out of a free market.
Our objection to the minimum wage transcends any economic argument, so we are not going to spend an awful lot of time discussing this aspect. We will point out we don’t think mandated wages do the worker much good. Sure, it means well. Most government programs, except for perhaps genocide, do.
Consider this, though: some businesses will not be able to afford this. Either they will go out of business or they will make do with fewer workers. Those that can afford the increase will, of course, pass the cost on to their customers. This means those with government-mandated wages will face a higher cost of living, making their buying power about what it was before their raise.
But forget the money for a while. Let’s talk government philosophy. We must ask ourselves:
How much do we want our government to do for us?
and
Is it the business of government to mandate what an employer pays an employee?
No, it is not. On both counts. The only purpose for a government in this scenario is to provide a free market where employers pay and employees work for whatever wage or salary they can agree upon. That’s it.
And, let’s be honest, if you are out of high school and still earning minimum wage it would do everyone, both you and your fellow citizens, good if you upgraded both your skills and your goals. I speak with significant experience in this regard because I have spent most of my working life punching a clock. I know what it is like to not make what I felt I was worth, and to work for and find a job that did.
Every one of us has it in our power to say “This is what I am today and this is what I want to be tomorrow”. The 24-hours we have every day to make something good happen for ourselves is our most prized possession. What we get out of our lives must depend on the work we put into those 24-hours and not on a government-mandated wage.
Editor’s Note: Gaylon is Libertarian nominee for Congress from Colorado’s 3rd District. Visit his campaign site here.
The Thought for the Day – Slavery and Forward Thinking
Joseph Fossett spent ten years at his anvil and forge earning the money to buy back is wife and children. Others might be content with what was; he could think only in terms of what should be. – Henry Wiencek, Master of the Mountain
Joseph Fossett was an American slave, owned by Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. Fossett was one of five slaves freed under the terms of Jefferson’s will, however Jefferson did not see fit to free Fossett’s wife or his children, who were sold at auction after Jefferson’s death, obliging Fossett to buy his family. He did, and they later settled in Ohio.
It’s regrettable Fossett had to waste his foresight and talents to purchase his family. Free, he probably would have been a man of substantive accomplishment, however that’s the way the world was built back then – and in some places may still be.
Fossett’s story shows, in a nutshell, what is required for success: a plan, the skill to execute that plan, the determination to stick with it when the going gets tough – and if you were a freed slave trying to earn the money to purchase your family it was probably tough 24 hours a day – and hard work. Progress, whether you are purchasing your family or building a chair or revolutionizing an industry takes all these things.
Forward thinkers are found everywhere, in people of every status and station. This is also true of status quo thinkers, those who are unwilling or unable to think beyond today and are happy with what is.
Others might be content with what was; he could think only in terms of what should be…
Fossett was not content with what was: his family held in bondage while he remained free. Fossett’s only concern was what should be: his family as free as he was. He formed a plan to purchase them and for a decade made the execution of that plan his sole endeavor.
We should be the same way. We may not be obliged to purchase our family’s freedom, but if we are to have any success in this life, we must think in terms what we should be, and not of merely being what we are.