Something To Think About Archive

Productivity guru Stephen Covey reminds us that “Proactive people work on the things they can do something about.”

Albert Schweitzer said: “Truth has no special time of its own. “Its hour is now – always.”

A recent Gallup poll showed that 79% are “dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States.” And no wonder. The National Debt exceeds GDP for the first time since World War Two; parents are not being told of their children’s desire to change gender; marijuana and more dangerous drug use in public is rampant; there are no penalties for mass shoplifting; the border is as porous as it has ever been with no repercussions; and there is no indication that any current officeholder is serious about changing the decline in the social and economic fabric of America.

Coach John Wooden tells us to “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. Your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”

John Muir advised us to “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into the trees.”

Robert F. Kennedy said: “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”

TV journalist Katie Couric notes that “The sooner you learn that life is not fair, the better off you’ll be.”

Publisher Malcom Forbes once noted that “It’s so much easier to suggest solutions when you don’t know too much about the problem.”

Ahead of the various EV mandates, around 1% of the cars driven in the U.S. are electric, despite generous government handouts to those that can afford to buy one. Meanwhile, one in five non-Tesla charging stations don’t work properly so the feds now want to spend another 100million of taxpayer dollars to fix and build out the network of charging stations… that 99% of us don’t need.

In his memoir, the late Jimmy Buffet wrote: “You know Death will get you in the end. But if you are smart and have a sense of humor, you can thumb your nose at it for awhile.”

Actor Raymond Burr advised us to “Try and live your life the way you wish others would live theirs.”

Writer Nora Roberts says: “Know what you want, work to get it, then value it once you have it.”

Martin Luther King believed that “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, on a recent tour of South American countries with a Democratic delegation, claimed that “We have much to learn from our counterparts in these countries…” Really? While I realize that with the politically motivated legal goings on here we are beginning to resemble the so-called “Banana Republics” to our south, you have to wonder why, if they have so much to teach us, are their citizens flooding our southern border?

To quote a recent paraphrasing by publisher Roger Kimball of Alexis de Tocqueville’s opinion of what de Tocqueville called “democratic despotism.” He wrote: Modern despotisms tended to infantilize citizens, not terrorize them outright. They turned people into sheep with the government as the benign-seeming but implacable shepherd.”

C.S. Lewis wrote: “Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor; act as if you did… When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.”

Coach John Wooden believed that “The only thing harder to handle than winning too much is losing too much.”

Movie mogul Sam Goldwyn claimed that “I don’t want any “yes-men” around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth, even if it costs them their jobs.”

Rare kudos for President Biden’s recent summit with our Asian allies South Korea and Japan. Perhaps he’s finally recognizing that China is not a “competitor” as he claims but is, in fact, a cold war adversary. It’s too bad that he did not take the occasion to restart the negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement scuttled by Donald Trump.

Author of human development books Joseph Chilton Pierce noted that “To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”