Spring is upon us and I thought it was time to sow some words of wisdom for the remainder of the year. In my many readings I find neat little tidbits of information that can help us all get along better.
The first hour of the day is the rudder of the day. How we act when we rise in the morning largely determines the character of our day. Those fateful 60 minutes shape the course our daily routine shall take, whether under sunny skies to pleasant ports of call, or through horrid gales, storm-tossed on a rockbound coast.
If we greet the morning with a smile on our face and sunshine in our heart, if we joke and laugh, and perhaps whistle and sing a bit, and rejoice that we’re still alive, our voyage that day is pretty sure to be a pleasant one.
On the contrary, if we wake with a deep sigh, if we grumble and groan and whimper and scowl, if we mutter and moan and drag our complaining, unwilling frame through the routine of dressing, eating, and going to work, only a fool’s luck can save us from a tempestuous voyage between sunrise and sunset. The shortest distance between two people is a smile.
Now that we have the first hour of the day covered there are a couple of days in the week we need to focus on.
There are two days in every week about which we should not worry , two days that should be kept free from any fear and apprehension. One of these days is Yesterday, with its mistakes and cares, it aches and pains, its faults and blunders. Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control.
All the money in the world cannot bring back Yesterday. We cannot undo a single act we performed; we cannot erase a single word we said; we cannot rectify a single mistake. Let it go.
The other day we should not worry about is Tomorrow, with its possible adversities, its burdens, its large promise and poor performance. Tomorrow also is beyond our immediate control. Tomorrow’s sun will rise either in splendor or behind a mass of clouds , but it will rise. And until it does, we have no stake in Tomorrow, because it is as yet unborn.
That leaves us but one day , Today! And a person can fight the battles of just one day.
Yesterday and Tomorrow are futile worries. Let us therefore resolve to journey no more than one day at a time. Those thoughts were from Robert J. Burdette.
My last words on the subject of time are from McGraw Hill’s “Leadership When the Heat’s On.”
If you had a bank that credited your account each morning with $86,400, carried over no balance from day to day, allowing you to keep no cash in your account, canceling all unused funds at the end of each day, what would you do?
You have such a bank. It’s called time.
Every morning, each person’s account is credited with 86,400 seconds. Every night, each second not put toward a good purpose is canceled. Time carries no balance forward. Nor does time allow us to borrow against future allocations.
We can only live on today’s deposit and invest our time toward the utmost health, happiness and success.
That’s enough seeds of thought for your spring planting. The time you just spent reading this column could help you have a better running company, because it was definitely time well spent.
To the balance sheet.
Credit: To the Harvey and Francis White Foundation for their generous gift of more than $400,000 to two new Scripps programs on the Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas campus. The money will be spent to study the detection, education and treatment of programs for men suffering from urological conditions. What makes this gift and others like it great is that it comes from the heart. Harvey and his wife have a wonderful life in San Diego and they, like many others, are willing to give back to causes in need of support. I salute Harvey and Francis for being here when the community needed them.
Credit: To Bob Bingham, one of the young millionaires coming out of the E-commerce arena, for establishing last week’s iLounge conference. Bob, a college dropout, sold his Internet company last year for $20.7 million in stock to Broadcast.com. A few months later it was sold to Yahoo for $6 billion. Bob, who turned 31 last week, has become an investor in new E-commerce companies and the iLounge conference is one of his ways to bring financing to the hundreds of entrepreneurs, who like him, are based here. The conference showcased young firms and their products to financial backers and venture capitalists. More than 500 people attended the two-day event at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines Hotel. Thanks Bob, for helping the up-and-coming to get to where you are.
