Monday Jump Start

Monday Jump Start

My week started at 6 AM with a quick walk around the garden to take stock of things, let Bodhi out and then a dive into writing before I shift gears towards work.  It was clear that the first cup of coffee hadn’t shaken the cobwebs off yet, so I indulged in some literary caffeine to get my jump started for the work week.  It started with grabbing a few random quotes from books I own:

“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.” – Seneca

“Misspending a man’s time is a kind of self-homicide.” – George Saville

“A man is rich in the proportions of things he can let alone.” – Henry David Thoreau

“The shortest and surest way to live with honor in this world is to be in reality what we would appear to be; all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.” – Socrates

“The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

“No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated and disciplined.” – Henry Emerson Fosdick

From there I started wondering about a couple of the people who were quoted.  I know all of the names but some carry more weight today than others.  Living in the Boston area it’s easy to know about Thoreau and Holmes, but Fosdick was someone I didn’t know as much about:

Fosdick was a pastor from Buffalo who found fame as a leading voice in Modernism taking a stand against Fundamentalism (ie: taking the Bible at its literal word) with his sermons and books, in fighting racism and for co-authoring Alcoholics Anonymous.  He’s a guy that would look around today and have a few things to say about our society.  I’ll need to find his biography and read some of his sermons to really get a sense of the man.

Then I moved over to Holmes.  Supreme Court Justice.  Acquaintance of the Concord elite.  Harvard guy…  Civil War veteran?  Interesting.  Another biography I need to read.

We live our lives with history swirling all around us.  People who lived their lives with focus, dedication and discipline and changed our society in meaningful ways, and thus changed the way we live our own lives.  This ripple effect is profound, and yet we usually don’t know the source of the ripple.  I guess that’s one reason I blog; to learn about the antagonists that bounced around in this pond before me and changed the wave we’re surfing today.  Another reason is to build this writing muscle back up so it doesn’t atrophy.  Whether anyone ever reads it is beside the point, but I do appreciate you getting this far down the page.

With that it’s time to focus on my job.  The work week has begun.  I’ll try to spend my time wisely this week, move in the right direction and to be honorable.  I don’t always get it right but hopefully I’ll do more good than harm this week.