A favorite poem of mine by:
Robert Frost (1874–1963).
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Some more ideas for young people on life
There are a few more basic rules of life that young people seem to need to learn.
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 7: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 8: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 9: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 10: The Government can not give you anything. Food, health care, or housing. Because the government doesn't produce anything, then the only way they can provide something for you is by taking it away from someone else. If they "give" one person money, they took that money from someone else.
Rule 11: Saving whales or protesting for world peace is very nice. But it won't pay the electric bill.
Rule 10: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 7: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 8: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 9: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 10: The Government can not give you anything. Food, health care, or housing. Because the government doesn't produce anything, then the only way they can provide something for you is by taking it away from someone else. If they "give" one person money, they took that money from someone else.
Rule 11: Saving whales or protesting for world peace is very nice. But it won't pay the electric bill.
Rule 10: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Am I going to finish Strong?
Life is always challenging. But I have never been faced with challenges as hard as many others.
I try to watch this video every week to keep my feet planted firmly on the ground. (and fortunately I have two feet). I remember my mother telling me as a child when I complained about not having new shoes, that I should be grateful for the shoes that I had because some people had no feet to wear even old shoes.
I try to watch this video every week to keep my feet planted firmly on the ground. (and fortunately I have two feet). I remember my mother telling me as a child when I complained about not having new shoes, that I should be grateful for the shoes that I had because some people had no feet to wear even old shoes.
The world is a very rapidly changing place
The momentum of the changes in the world is mind-staggering to me. I have sent this link to my children and told them to take this into consideration in raising my grandchildren. A majority of the jobs that children should be preparing for the future don't even exist today. China will soon be the largest English speaking population in the world. The status-quo is disappearing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY We will be eclipsed by the rest of the world in technology and achievement unless we learn to adapt to the ever-changing environment. Those who believe that they can just grow up and do what their parents did, and save and invest and that the world will reward them are mistaken. Success in the future and financial prosperity will go to those who have a keener sense of how to use the changes in the world-to-come, to their own benefit.
Free Markets are a joke?
In a speech to a trade union group, President Obama's manufacturing Czar was quoted as saying they (the administration) agree with Mao? Do you want a glimpse into where this administration is heading us as an economy? Click the link below and see a clip from his speech. It's frightening, to say the least. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27cXXirAIw4
This morning the administration also announced that companies which took bailout money last year will be forced to cut executive compensation up to 90%. What is happening here is a rapid dismantling of the American institution of free markets into a system driven by Washington (state-owned-and-controlled) authority.
I would be one of the first to say that there have been many failures during the past ten years in the free market system to regulate itself. And there have been abuses. Primarily caused by individual greed. But the miracle of the free market system itself is that eventually abuses are punished and penalized by the system itself when certain parts of the system die or disintegrate (via Bankruptcy). But the system itself is still good. No where else in the world, does a system allow a "no-body" to rise up from poverty and through individual self achievement accumulate wealth to their own limits and ability. This Obama administration seeks though, to overturn this system we have and give us a system of government owned and government control industry and manufacturing and health care. That system did not work in the Soviet Union or in Communist China. This philosophy does sound good to the "have-nots" because it promises to "take from the rich" and "give to the poor". But if you remove the potential of reward for individual self-achievement you remove the potential for greatness that this country has always given each working American. I want to eliminate poverty as much as the next person. But you do that by giving people an opportunity to rise above their economic circumstances and achieve their own future greatness. You do not do it by redistributing wealth and taking from those who have earned their money and give it to those who have not. What will happen . . . and in fact is already happening . . .is that those individuals who have accumulated wealth of any amount will begin to flee this country with their money and capital and seek to deposit it and store it in off-shore locations that are outside the reach of Washington. It is a financial disease that feeds on itself. As the capital begins to leave this country, then so does manufacturing and other economic opportunity. I . . .for one . . . have already begun a systematic relocation of my own financial assets to non-American depositories. And I'm really just a small fish in the sea. But I will not sit by and have Washington take away from me what I've worked my entire life to accumulate . . .starting with nothing . . . .and give it to the poor and homeless until we all have the same. When that day comes, we will all have nothing. That's my opinion.
Mao said . . .as the video quoted . . .that power comes from the barrel of a gun. He was . . ultimately . . proven wrong. Power comes from an individuals desire to overcome their own present situation and rise above the circumstances they find themselves in. All the gun barrel does is impede or advance that destiny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27cXXirAIw4
This morning the administration also announced that companies which took bailout money last year will be forced to cut executive compensation up to 90%. What is happening here is a rapid dismantling of the American institution of free markets into a system driven by Washington (state-owned-and-controlled) authority.
I would be one of the first to say that there have been many failures during the past ten years in the free market system to regulate itself. And there have been abuses. Primarily caused by individual greed. But the miracle of the free market system itself is that eventually abuses are punished and penalized by the system itself when certain parts of the system die or disintegrate (via Bankruptcy). But the system itself is still good. No where else in the world, does a system allow a "no-body" to rise up from poverty and through individual self achievement accumulate wealth to their own limits and ability. This Obama administration seeks though, to overturn this system we have and give us a system of government owned and government control industry and manufacturing and health care. That system did not work in the Soviet Union or in Communist China. This philosophy does sound good to the "have-nots" because it promises to "take from the rich" and "give to the poor". But if you remove the potential of reward for individual self-achievement you remove the potential for greatness that this country has always given each working American. I want to eliminate poverty as much as the next person. But you do that by giving people an opportunity to rise above their economic circumstances and achieve their own future greatness. You do not do it by redistributing wealth and taking from those who have earned their money and give it to those who have not. What will happen . . . and in fact is already happening . . .is that those individuals who have accumulated wealth of any amount will begin to flee this country with their money and capital and seek to deposit it and store it in off-shore locations that are outside the reach of Washington. It is a financial disease that feeds on itself. As the capital begins to leave this country, then so does manufacturing and other economic opportunity. I . . .for one . . . have already begun a systematic relocation of my own financial assets to non-American depositories. And I'm really just a small fish in the sea. But I will not sit by and have Washington take away from me what I've worked my entire life to accumulate . . .starting with nothing . . . .and give it to the poor and homeless until we all have the same. When that day comes, we will all have nothing. That's my opinion.
Mao said . . .as the video quoted . . .that power comes from the barrel of a gun. He was . . ultimately . . proven wrong. Power comes from an individuals desire to overcome their own present situation and rise above the circumstances they find themselves in. All the gun barrel does is impede or advance that destiny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27cXXirAIw4
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Grandparents can be so retarded
After Christmas, a teacher asked her young pupils how they spent their holiday away from school. One child wrote the following:
We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live in a big brick house but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Florida ...Now they live in a tin box and have rocks painted green to look like grass.
They ride around on their bicycles and wear name tags because they don't know who they are anymore. They go to a building called a wreck center, but they must have got it fixed because it is all okay now, they do exercises there, but they don't do them very well. There is a swimming pool too, but all they do is jump up and down in it...with hats on.
At their gate, there is a doll house with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out, and go cruising in their golf carts.
Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And, they eat the same thing every night -- early birds. Some of the people can't get out past the man in the doll house. The ones who do get out, bring food back to the wrecked center for pot luck.
My Grandma says that Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and says I should work hard so I can be retarded someday too. When I earn my retardment, I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will let people out, so they can visit their grandchildren.
We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live in a big brick house but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Florida ...Now they live in a tin box and have rocks painted green to look like grass.
They ride around on their bicycles and wear name tags because they don't know who they are anymore. They go to a building called a wreck center, but they must have got it fixed because it is all okay now, they do exercises there, but they don't do them very well. There is a swimming pool too, but all they do is jump up and down in it...with hats on.
At their gate, there is a doll house with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out, and go cruising in their golf carts.
Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And, they eat the same thing every night -- early birds. Some of the people can't get out past the man in the doll house. The ones who do get out, bring food back to the wrecked center for pot luck.
My Grandma says that Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and says I should work hard so I can be retarded someday too. When I earn my retardment, I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will let people out, so they can visit their grandchildren.
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