@sfreader1: As a retired teacher, I would find if very difficult to be busier than I was every day of those years, but I manage to be satisfied with most days. AAlso gave away hundreds of books back then and wish I had not, since almost all of those I most appreciated and would like to read again are no longer in print or available elsewhere. A sigh for their passing. As to the library, I visited mine every couple of weeks since I retired, but find it harder to find ‘interesting’ material in the fiction genres I prefer.
There’s planning for success, hoping for success, wishing for success… but if you line up excuses in advance, you’re at least planning for failure. As an engineer, I’m good with planning how to handle failure (several kinds), but it’s a bad policy for humans in general.
It’s the key maxim for pilots: Plan the flight and fly the plan. It’s a good one, too. Failing to plan is planning to fail, right? And a plan not followed is no more a plan than a song never performed is music.
Of course, while failing to plan is planning to fail, it’s interesting that you can, in fact, plan to fail without at all failing to plan. People make such plans all the time — I can’t do this, this will never work, maybe this isn’t as big a thing as I thought it was — and they almost always adhere to those plans, right into the ground. In a case of truth over semantic logic, failure has an ironclad success rate.
Then again, there’s this: To paraphrase the Prussian field marshal Moltke the Elder, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. If you can’t abandon Plan A and change up and formulate a new plan, then you’re the second and likely final casualty.
Thus the closest I’ve seen to the ideal version, courtesy of Laurence Gonzales in Deep Survival, the only self-help book I’ve ever found to be worth much, probably because it was never intended to be a self-help book:
Plan the flight and fly the plan, but don’t fall in love with the plan.
Although for the love of God, do the first two first and second.
Old Girl over 5 years ago
Yaaawwn!
Doctor Toon over 5 years ago
I’ll be 57 in a week, but with mortgage and all it will be another 10 years or more before I can quit working
Been working since I started part time for my Dad at 13, it would be nice to stop at some point
I am afraid I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t have to work
Might still need a part time job just to afford all the books I would want to read
cervelo over 5 years ago
Happy Canada Day!
rugeirn over 5 years ago
sandpiper over 5 years ago
@sfreader1: As a retired teacher, I would find if very difficult to be busier than I was every day of those years, but I manage to be satisfied with most days. AAlso gave away hundreds of books back then and wish I had not, since almost all of those I most appreciated and would like to read again are no longer in print or available elsewhere. A sigh for their passing. As to the library, I visited mine every couple of weeks since I retired, but find it harder to find ‘interesting’ material in the fiction genres I prefer.
asrialfeeple over 5 years ago
In certain jobs it seems a prerequisite.
thedogesl Premium Member over 5 years ago
Or you can volunteer for something you’re passionate about and travel.
whelan_jj over 5 years ago
My retirement goal was to not have to go to work each morning and I have succeeded!
Concretionist over 5 years ago
There’s planning for success, hoping for success, wishing for success… but if you line up excuses in advance, you’re at least planning for failure. As an engineer, I’m good with planning how to handle failure (several kinds), but it’s a bad policy for humans in general.
Night-Gaunt49[Bozo is Boffo] over 5 years ago
Blog Posts Frazz15 hrs ·
It’s the key maxim for pilots: Plan the flight and fly the plan. It’s a good one, too. Failing to plan is planning to fail, right? And a plan not followed is no more a plan than a song never performed is music.
Of course, while failing to plan is planning to fail, it’s interesting that you can, in fact, plan to fail without at all failing to plan. People make such plans all the time — I can’t do this, this will never work, maybe this isn’t as big a thing as I thought it was — and they almost always adhere to those plans, right into the ground. In a case of truth over semantic logic, failure has an ironclad success rate.
Then again, there’s this: To paraphrase the Prussian field marshal Moltke the Elder, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. If you can’t abandon Plan A and change up and formulate a new plan, then you’re the second and likely final casualty.
Thus the closest I’ve seen to the ideal version, courtesy of Laurence Gonzales in Deep Survival, the only self-help book I’ve ever found to be worth much, probably because it was never intended to be a self-help book:
Plan the flight and fly the plan, but don’t fall in love with the plan.
Although for the love of God, do the first two first and second.