Monday, March 26, 2012

Delayed Gratification and Living Well

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “The supreme lesson of life is to learn what the centuries say against the hours.”

The passing of time adds perspective, does it not?

The late Bishop Edwin Hughes once delivered a rousing sermon on "God's Ownership" that put a rich parishioner's nose out-of-joint. The wealthy man took the Bishop off for lunch, and then walked him through his elaborate gardens, woodlands, and farm. "Now are you going to tell me," he demanded when the tour was completed, "that all this land does not belong to me?" Bishop Hughes smiled and suggested, "Ask me that same question a hundred years from now."  [Bennett Cerf, Leadership, Vol. 1, no. 2.]

We do well to gain the perspective of time.

Whoever wrote the following was quite right:
   This is the age of the half-read page
   The quick hash and the mad dash,
   The bright night with the nerves tight
   The plane hop with the brief stop
   The lamp tan in a short span
   The big shot in a good spot
   The brain strain and the heart pain
   The catnaps until the spring snaps
   And the fun's gone.

Gordon Dahl put it this way:
“Most middle-class Americans tend to worship their work, to work at their play and to play at their worship.  As a result, their meanings and values are distorted.  Their relationships disintegrate faster than they can keep them in repair, and their lifestyles resemble a cast of characters in search of a plot.”

Keep the following in mind: You know not when, where, or how, but die you will.  And you can’t take it with you.  In the end, your end, when stripped of time and money, what will you have to show for your life?  So remember, it’s not how much time you had nor how much money you made; it’s what you did with your time and money that become the measure of your life’s significance.

How are you making your time and wealth count, above and beyond this life?

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