His life flows on in endless song ....

PETE SEEGER TELLS US

HOW TO MOVE FORWARD

A great hero of mine died yesterday at age 94.

Pete Seeger
(May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014)

 

I’ve cited him numerous times in print and in my electronic ramblings and undoubtedly will continue to do so.

He was, and his legacy remains, a national treasure.

He felt and thought deeply, lived a caring and principled life, spoke his heart and considerable mind, and acted when he perceived injustice. 

  

•  If you do not know much about Pete, I urge you to discover more. The process will make you better for it.
• If you appreciated him at any level, you’ll follow his wisdom and join in a sing along of the songs he created and promoted, many of which you know although folks at large may not link them to Pete.

As for me: Two Pete tunes in particular will be going ‘round in my head today.

 

I think that they, as much as anything Pete wrote or popularized, embody the legacy he would have us pursue to honor and commemorate him.

 

The first one’s typical Pete who, recognizing its popular 19^th Century Russian roots, turned the “Ode to Joy” melody from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony back into a banjo tune, worked out some short lyrics, partnered with another activist/song writer Don West, and created –

RUSSIAN SONG/ODE TO JOY

Build the road of peace before us,

Build it wide and deep and long

Speed the slow, remind the eager,

Help the weak and guide the strong.

None shall push aside another

None shall let another fall

Work beside me, sisters and brothers

All for one and one for all.

Joy, Joy sisters and brothers

All for one and one for all.

 

You can listen and sing along at 1:20 here:

Pete's "Ode To Joy"

The other song I would have you know today Pete explained originated this way:

“In 1958 I sang at the funeral of John McManus, co-editor of the radical newsweekly, The Guardian, and regretted that I had no song worthy of the occasion. So this got written.” 

TO MY OLD BROWN EARTH

To my old brown earth

And to my old blue sky

I'll now give these last few molecules of "I." 

And you who sing,

Pete's Banjo

And you who stand nearby,

I do charge you not to cry.

Guard well our human chain,

Watch well you keep it strong,

As long as sun will shine.

And this our home,

Keep pure and sweet and green,

For now I'm yours

And you are also

Mine.

Listen and sing along here:

"To My Old Brown Earth"

 

Surround hate
Force it to surrender

 

Thank Goodness It's Monday #445

SUPER BOWL XLVIII:

THE REST STOP, THE TROPHY

AND THE MAN

The Vince Lombardi Trophy is awarded each year to the winning team of the National

Football League's championship game, the Super Bowl.

• The trophy is named in honor of legendary NFL coach Vince Lombardi.
• So is the rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike nearest to the stadium where (weather permitting) Super Bowl XLVIII will be played Sunday, February 2, 2014.
• And so is a bit of streetscape nearby my company’s World Headquarters in Englewood, NJ.

From our conference room windows we can gaze across our little Depot Square Park, over the tracks and past the repurposed sort-of-Victorian-looking railroad station, at the spires of St. Cecilia Catholic Church which, for years, also offered the community a parochial high school.

 

Last June it got some special signage designating it “Vince Lombardi Way.”

The Lombardi coaching legend began there. In 1939, Vince Lombardi accepted his first football-related job as an assistant coach at St. Cecilia’s.

At age 26, he also taught Latin, chemistry, and physics for an annual salary of under $1700. And, the local story goes, as a bachelor he shared a boarding house room across the street from the school with the St. Cecilia’s head coach at the time, his old college football teammate from across-the-Hudson-River Fordham University, Andy Palau.

So, although I’m only a moderately enthusiastic or knowledgeable fan of professional football –

I’m a Vince Lombardi Fan by geographic proxy.

And also – being in the thick of the self-improvement, motivation, inspiration business – I can spout any number of bits of –

Legendary Lombardi Wisdom

You probably can, too --

• “Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.”
• “Winning isn't everything, but the will to win is everything.”
• “Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all time thing. You don't win once in a while, you don't do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time.”
• “Winners never quit and quitters never win.”
• “If it doesn't matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?”
• “Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser.”
• “If you can accept losing, you can't win.”
• “We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time.”
• “It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up”
• “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
• “If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.”

Whew! Tough talk, right?

 

And while such fire-up-the-team-with-a-blowtorch locker room mentality might be effectively applied to a TGIM message in anticipation of northern climes, open stadium Super Bowl XLVIII –

 

Time has passed and attitudes have evolved in the 100+ years since Lombardi’s birth and nearly half century after his death. So I’m not so sure I’m completely comfortable in our 21^st Century with its old-school, leather-helmeted toughness.

But … But there is a perhaps-surprising Lombardi quote I’ve found insightful from the Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn-born, Jersey-boy-by proxy, Green Bay, Wisconsin tundra-tough coach. 

Lombardi also said: “Mental toughness is humility, simplicity, spartanism, and one other … love. I don’t necessarily have to like my associates but as a man, I must love them.”

And he continued –

“Love is loyalty; love is teamwork.

Love respects the dignity of the individual.

Heart and power is the strength of your cooperation.”

Interesting, right? A statement about love, obviously rooted in the man’s football coaching fundamentals, and indicative of the kind of devotion he inspired and how he made that happen.

Kinda tough love, no doubt. No pink cherubs or lovey-dovey poetic sentiments per se. But an insightful and insight-filled statement from a gruff tough guy who also never left any doubt about his intelligence, dignity and integrity.

 

The kind of guy they name trophies after.

 

TGIM SUPER BOWL XLVIII TAKEAWAY: In this season of hyped up and over-commercialized enthusiasm for an event that, when it’s over, will not likely have changed the course of our business, family or community lives, isn’t it a pleasant surprise to find a simply stated universal standard that we might all be well advised to live by.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: If we approached every day like we look forward to Super Bowl Game Day, how exciting might every day be? If we worked at our relationships with the single-mindedness that Lombardi brought to his devotion to football, perhaps we, like Lombardi, would never suffer a “losing season.”

One final note about Lombardi’s personal relationships: He was preoccupied with football and his family life in particular had exceedingly stormy passages Still, he lived his “love is loyalty” philosophy. Vince Lombardi is buried next to Marie, his wife since his St. Cecilia coaching days, in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Middletown Township, New Jersey.

 

Good luck to you and your team on Sunday. Perhaps I’ll see you in the traffic jam at the Vince Lombardi Service Area, mile marker 111 on the Eastern Spur of the NJ Turnpike near Exit 16W.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com

 

P.S. More New Jersey/Lombardi Trophy/Super Bowl connections:




The made-in-Newark-NJ
(and now on exhibition there)
original
Vince Lombardi Trophy

In 1966, during a lunch with NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, Tiffany & Co. vice president Oscar Riedner made a sketch on a cocktail napkin of what would become the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The original trophy was produced by Tiffany & Co. in Newark, New Jersey.  And it’s back here NOW – for a limited time -- at my favorite Newark Museum.

Others have since been handcrafted by the company in Parsippany, New Jersey. The trophy was first awarded to the Green Bay Packers in 1967 (Lombardi’s last year as head coach) when the Super Bowl's official designation was the AFL-NFL World Championship Game.

Initially inscribed with the words "World Professional Football Championship," it was officially renamed in 1970 in memory of Lombardi after his sudden death from cancer and to commemorate his time as a defensive coordinator with the New York (ahem, now “at  home” in New Jersey) Giants. In 1971, it was presented for the first time as the Vince Lombardi Trophy at Super Bowl V.

A new Lombardi Trophy is made every year and the winning team maintains permanent possession of that trophy, unlike many other team championship trophies. 

One notable exception: The first “Lombardi” Trophy for Super Bowl V. It was won by the then-Baltimore Colts and the city of Baltimore retained that trophy as part of the legal settlement after the Colts' move to Indianapolis, Indiana in 1984.

 

The contemporary seven-pound, 22-inch-tall trophies are cast entirely of sterling silver and have an extrinsic value of more than $25,000 each. After the on-field post-game presentation, the trophy is sent back to Tiffany & Co. to be engraved with the date and final score of the game, as well as the winning team's roster.

Thank Goodness It's Monday #444

WE ARE BOUND

AND WE ARE BOUND

 

Not so long ago I was allowed the honor of delivering the first toast at the wedding of two good friends – Julie and Gerry.

And since each was (and is) fond of both using words effectively and playing games, that gave me the opportunity to stand at the microphone with the wedding band behind me and recall a bit of verbal sparring that would occasionally take place when friends and family gathered.

For example --

 

The challenge: Think of a word that can mean the opposite of itself; a word with two generally accepted meanings that contradict each other.

 

One easy-to-think-of one comes from slang usage.

Cool – definition: Frosty.

“She was cool to the idea.”

Vs.

Cool – definition: Hot!

“Wow! She was a really, really cool chick.”

 

Or how about:

 

Fast – Moving rapidly.

“Fast track.” “You got here fast.”

Vs.

Or the opposite “fast” that is, fixed in position:

“Hold fast, help is on the way.”

 

And one more:

Original – something creative or new.

“That’s an original idea.”

Vs.

Original in the sense of plain or unchanged, as in

 “The original flavor.”

Got it?

Good. So did the wedding guests although, by this time they were wondering where this all was heading. 

You too?

Well, it actually relates to today’s Martin Luther King observance and gives us an appropriate-to-the-day TGIM Takeaway or two to consider.

 

We’ll start by defining our terms.

Contronyms: That’s what these self-contradicting words are called.

And, as I got around to making the toast, there’s one, I said, that was particularly appropriate for the couple and their wedding day:

BOUND

Bound together. Two people who have found each other, and know each other and love each other and choose to be interlocked, secure, united. Two families, joined. Bound.

And the opposite meaning.

Be in motion. Move toward something. Bound away for new, shared experiences. Bound off for a new life, together.

The Toast:

“To Julie and Gerry

– today bound and bound –

and bounded, as in ‘surrounded,’

with all the love and support of your family and friends.”

Awwww. OK. So as I stepped away from the mike the lead singer in the wedding band inquired –

“Do you know that James Taylor song?”

I do. And in retrospect it’s obvious that it influenced my thinking and toast. And it’s the glue that connects us to this Monday as Martin Luther King Jr. Day and a leads us any TGIM Takeaways.

So I’ll now inquire of you --

Do YOU know that James Taylor song? 

It’s titled Shed A Little Light. The singer/songwriter was obviously inspired by MLK Jr. and, in 1991, on the album New Moon Shine, recorded this original song that both honors and pays forward the principles that guided the hero we celebrate today.

Here’s a particularly-worth-knowing part of the lyrics:

Let us turn our thoughts today

To Martin Luther King

And recognize that there are ties between us

All men and women

Living on the earth

Ties of hope and love

Of sister and brotherhood

That we are bound together

In our desire to see the world become

A place in which our children

Can grow free and strong

We are bound together

By the task that stands before us

And the road that lies ahead

 

We are bound

And we are bound …

Listen up: That’s just part of it. You can take under 4 minutes and hear James Taylor sing one version the whole thing HERE.

TGIM Challenge: What do you think about its message?

TGIM Takeaway: On the national holiday in the United States that commemorates the birthday of the late Martin Luther King Jr., it’s tempting to let his eloquence speak for itself.

There’s a world of wisdom in Dr. King’s writings and speeches that we can apply in the pursuit of improving ourselves and others; in our business and personal relationships and our efforts on the behalf of our communities.

But it’s also useful to realize how MLK Jr. inspired others when alive and continues to influence and inspire far beyond the limited frame of the Civil Rights Movement.

And the best parts of the man and his influence also speak to our individual obligation to all in the human family.

I was pleasantly surprised to realize how, at some level, the spirit of what we as a people now honor with a national holiday moved into popular song and worked its way into a wedding toast.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: In the land of self-improvement and personal empowerment I regularly occupy, we’re strong advocates of modeling the behavior of all-time greats. We often talk about carefully selecting your heroes and mentors.

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: Choose wisely.

Once again, in 2014, we are bound and we are bound.

Sisters and brothers, I hope you are as well.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com

P.S.  “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.... The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or we will be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. MLK Jr. said that in his book Strength To Love.

Though the body sleeps the heart will never rest.

Thank Goodness It's Monday #443

HOW TO BREAK OUT OF THE BOX

 

I recently bought a major piece of equipment that came – disassembled – in a box that just barely squeezed into the vehicle I borrowed to transport it.

 

Although I’m tempted, I’m not going to recount the personal “lessons learned” from the purchase, loading, transportation, unloading, and assembly process. (It would be more like griping than finding some good universal TGIM Takeaways.) 

So let’s fast forward to the end of that part of the process and recognize –

The Great Big Empty Box

 

The 10-or-so pounds of recyclable industrial-strength cardboard I was left with brought to mind a recollection penned years ago by a friend and fellow writer/editor, Diane Cody. I remembered the item warmly and, upon rereading it for the first time in over a decade, found it was as touching and motivational as I recalled.

So, without further ado, I’m going to share the original with you now. Then let’s explore the 2014 TGIM Takeaway possibilities:

 

Here’s Diane’s original piece.

*****

When I was a kid, any neighbor who bought a new appliance became a hero for a day. Why? Because the great big empty box that appeared at the curb after the appliance was installed meant PARTY TIME!

 

Like a magnet, that box would attract kids from all over the neighborhood. We’d drag it onto someone’s lawn and pile in as many kids as the box would hold. Then we’d tip it over, spin it around, jump on top of it, or make a fort out of it.

Soon the closed end would open up, and then the real fun started. The box became a tank-like vehicle that mowed down anything in its path when powered by two kids crawling on their hands and knees. Forward we’d go, rolling over lawn, bushes, other kids, tumbling, crashing, laughing.

 

Eventually the box would tear, and we’d drag the flat pieces of cardboard back to the curb of the original owner. The fun was over for the day, but for days afterward whoever had participated in the “box day” felt a camaraderie; a closeness. We would just look at each other and giggle; no one had to say a word to start it off. The whole group would walk down the street together, in step, in harmony, as one.

 

Now I’m grown up with a home of my own. I recently purchased a new appliance. The great big empty box sits in my garage waiting to be recycled. Every morning on my way out the door, I pass the box. I pause to look at it, remembering, and I smile.

 

I’m tempted to transport the box to the office, invite my coworkers to hop inside, and see what happens. But I think I’ll just put the box to the curb and become the neighborhood hero for a day.

*****

I hope those 300 or so words leave you with the same inspired feeling I get. 

 

With them in mind, I’m motivated to invite you to -- if not literally, then at least in your imagination –

• Find a Great Big Empty Box …
• Hop inside …
• And see what happens.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: Hop in to break out of the box.

The phrase “think outside the box” slips too easily and meaninglessly from our lips these days. In many ways I suppose we have little idea how to do this; break away from the daily routine and rules and conventions that confine us and our thinking to achieve the accomplishments we’re really capable of.

 

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: Play is a great way to escape the mind-narrowing confines of daily routine.

The same intense, focused pace day after day invites burnout, not creativity. If you can’t actually find a Great Big Empty Box and “playmates” to share it with –

 

Make up your own game.

Take a major break. If your ability to reclaim a sense of I-don’t-wanna-grow-up play and wonder seems beyond  recall, one way to initiate the process is to ask: 

What do you most enjoy? Do it, with childlike abandon.

That means, unless you can really let go and enjoy every moment and every aspect of the “game,” playtime DOES NOT include a frustrating round of business-deal golf or a country club tennis match or the competitive company softball league.

However –

• If golf is your game, you might take a bunch of kids for a round of miniature golf.
• Or play some tennis with a right-minded buddy, each using your non-dominate hand. That would be interesting.
• Or get the most-easy-going members of the softball team together to play stoopball or Jersey-style stick ball with a broken broom handle and a pink spaldeen hi-bounce. (If you don’t know what a “spaldeen” is, look it up. You missed something nearly as good as The Great Big Empty Box in your childhood.)

► Or do the goofiest (legal) thing you can conceive of.

 

► Or maybe: Do nothing.

Give yourself a sabbatical. As the tongue-in-cheek observation goes, “Even God rested on the seventh day” – thus the biblical origin of the concept that in recent times has come to mean “any extended absence in the career of an individual in order to achieve something.”

 

Break out of the box to achieve your something. Don’t allow yourself to be perpetually caught up in the purchase, loading, transportation, unloading, and assembly processes of life.

TGIM Takeaway: Unload all that from your box and put it aside so you may take real advantage of the Great Big Empty Box that’s available to you if only you appreciate its power.

Celebrate its emptiness with a joyful heart. Share that delight with other right-minded “kids.” Play until you break the box or break out of the box and find camaraderie, closeness and the liberty of unbounded thinking.

 

So, now that I’ve been there in my mind --

 

I’m going to hang on to my box, intact, until the warmer weather arrives. Then I’m considering putting it at the curb the day after the weekly recycling pickup.

I’ll be interested in seeing if hero status is still achievable in a time and neighborhood of highly structured team sports, arranged playdates and after school activities, and privileged children sitting alone, head down, absorbed in some electronic gadget.

 

Embracing my inner Peter Pan in 2014.

 

You do the same. Teach the children well.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com

P.S.  “Don’t keep forever on the pubic road. Leave the beaten track occasionally or dive into the woods. You will be certain to find something that you have never seen before. One discovery will lead to another, and before you know it, you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All the really big discoveries are the results of thought.” The great discoverer, inventor, and thinker Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) said that.

Thank Goodness It's Monday #442

RESOLUTIONS ALONE ARE BUPKIS

(OH, AND WELCOME TO 2014)

“Bupkis” – if, by chance, you’re not familiar with the word – is a dictionary-accepted English language word more often spoken than written.


The etymology of "bupkis"

 -- if you care to delve deeper --

finds the origins in a Yiddish phrase

concerning goat droppings.

It’s defined as “absolutely nothing; nothing of value, significance, or substance.” 

It’s use in today’s TGIM headline is to both attract your attention and to emphasize an important idea that, I hope, will help us all better keep our newly made resolutions and achieve our 2014 goals as we perceive them in these early days of the year.

So let’s get started: Six-and-a-bit days ago on New Year’s Eve a fellow celebrator said to me –

“This year I’m not making resolutions,

but finding solutions.”

Hmmm. Interesting idea. And on reflection, I agree.

Now exactly what the shorthand “solutions/no resolutions” means for him was not revealed in our passing exchange.

But we can figure out the spirit of it.

For starters, the firmly and soberly resolved “In 2014 I’m going to …

·         Lose weight

·         Learn a new language

·         Add a customer each week

·         Get that in-ground pool

·         Have a weekly date night with my significant other

·         Coach my kids’ teams to a championship season

… is just lip service until you’ve assessed the situation, assessed your level of commitment and, with that insight, sorted out just how you will make it so.

TGIM Takeaway: As my New-Year’s-Eve reveling friend suggests, it’s the solution-creating process we devise and act on that will have the most impact on our goal-achievement outcome.

Perhaps just declaring New Year’s resolutions and goals can provide direction and even push you forward in the short-term. But when they are only stand-alone expressions of intent, the outcome’s bound to be discouraging and disappointing. 

Take that weight loss resolution. It’s #1, year-in, year-out. 

And 2014’s no different. Once again millions of folks will resolve and fret and place unnecessary stress on themselves to lose weight. 

But in our instant-gratification world, stating a goal carries some expectation that the sincere intention alone will bring results.

Of course, some may have success in the short term. 

But most will soon be setting their year-end resolve by the roadside and, in 359 days, will regretfully be making their #1 resolution their #1 resolution one more time. 

TGIM ACTION IDEA: In 2014 -- rather than fretting about big, life-changing goals -- we can keep things simple and reduce stress by focusing on the daily process and sticking to a well-thought-out schedule plotted with an honest assessment of our ability and commitment to sticking to it.

Here’s proof: Take away a stated lofty goal, while leaving in place the commitment to the process or system you envision, and what happens?

Yup. You’d still get results. Maybe even great results.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand and endorse the travel-planning metaphor that usually accompanies goal-setting discussions:

You can’t even begin to think about making a trip

until you have a destination.

Goals – like final destinations -- are for planning. And eventually a well-designed system will be the prime mover in accomplishing what you desire most fervently. 

The point is: By focusing on the practice and step-by-step performance instead of the big end result, you can enjoy the present moment and improve at the same time. It’s in the assessment and forecasting and development and scheduling and preparing and setting up and execution and adapting to change that we make progress.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: Correctly assessing your ability and commitment is the starting point. Having a system and routinely reviewing, evaluating, tweaking and finely honing that is what matters in the long run. Then committing to that process is what makes the difference.

Although we can agree you, too, are awesome --
please dig deeper than Garfield does in this 2013 year-end Jim Davis strip.

So are you buying this argument?

Are you ready for some solution-finding input?

Here’s some perhaps-fresh insight:

1. Individuals change best when the motivation comes from within rather from the outside. For example, perhaps you think, “There’s not much I can do about my career until my boss shapes up and does something.” Or you might say, “Things would be different for me if only my spouse were to behave differently.”

In these cases you are relying on an external force to make change happen. But any mentor worth his or her salt is quick to point out, “Nothing will change until you change.” The truth is, you are 100% responsible for you! Any questions?

2014 ACTION IDEA: Take responsibility. Rely on yourself. Set your own priorities. Change occurs more effectively when you say, in essence, “Things must be changed and I am the one who must initiate the change. I must, in fact, change myself first.  There are things only I can do which will have the desired payoff for me.” Motivate yourself by getting excited about your goal quest.

2. Individuals change best when their objectives are specific. Maybe this is stating the obvious but let’s be clear: We do more when we have a purposeful direction. Once we have a specific goal, we see change occurring more readily. 

Why? Because specific objectives permit us to seek specific feedback on how we’re doing. General objectives such as “I want to get ahead” or “I want to be somebody” keep you from knowing whether you’re succeeding or failing because they set no goal criterion.

2014 ACTION IDEA: Putting performance measurements, time limits, real milestones and actual rewards in each goal makes it specific and easier to determine whether it’s being achieved or not. And knowing that a desired change is taking place can feed your personal satisfaction.

3. Individuals change best when there is personal commitment. “Oh, I’m committed to making the changes necessary to reach my goals” you tell yourself. 

But face it: It’s more difficult to change in a vacuum. It helps to have feedback.

2014 ACTION IDEA: Tell others. Share your hopes, your dreams and your goals. Other people will be glad to give you feedback, support and ideas. And the more specific you are in detailing your aspirations, the more specific and informative that feedback can be. And by making the commitment “public,” you become more emotionally involved and that also helps you stick to it.

4. Individuals change best when changes are timely and gradual. While the idea that revolutionary change comes dramatically in a flash of brilliance is appealing, life seldom happens like that.

Change takes time. Individual change takes patience and time. Achieving the kind of 2014 goals I hope you’re setting these days won’t be finished tomorrow. (If it is I’d like to hear about it.)

2014 ACTION IDEA: Be patient. Most changes require a series of events to occur in some evolving way. Granted, we can help some or all of those events to occur, but even then the magnitude and complexity of great goals demand shifts in attitude, values, policies and procedures – and that takes time and careful planning.

 

There’s more … much more. Obviously. Whole books been written, entire careers have been build upon goal-setting and outcome-achieving strategies. 

But that’s plenty enough for right now. My short-term TGIM goal for today was to put in your hands some proven-in-action solutions you might implement immediately to keep your 2014 Resolution/Goals process on track. 

Hope you found them, at least, worthy of consideration

 

– NOT bupkis. 

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373

tgimguy@gmail.com

 

P.S.  “A good system shortens the road to the goal” That old-timey publisher of motivational and inspirational wisdom in his Success magazine, Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924) propounded that bit of rousing opinion.

Thank Goodness It's Monday #441

“TIME FLIES LIKE AN ARROW …”

This penultimate day of 2013, it sure seems as if “Time flies like an arrow.” 

The one, the only Groucho (Marx) made the observation that I’ve repurposed as a perhaps painfully appropriate day-before-New Year’s Eve TGIM headline.

And, being Groucho, after a pause he added:

“… Fruit flies like a banana.”

 

I’ve always liked that quip. I particularly like the wordplay. It catches you off guard.

·         The first line sets a contemplative tone then, just when you figure the funny guy’s about to wax philosophic –

·         It flips the whole thing on its head and gives you a split-second “What???” moment until you process the changed-up meaning of the words.

·         And then it makes you (or at least me) smile.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: I like to repeat it and close with it after saying a few perhaps serious, heartfelt words at someone’s birthday or anniversary celebration or such. 

TGIM END-OF-2013 ACTION IDEA: And I think it’s a useful wrap up when it comes to year-end reminiscences.

How about you? Will you be among the midnight revelers tomorrow evening who mark the passage to 2014 with a raised glass, a rendition of Auld Lang Synge, an affectionate hug and possibly kiss, and perhaps a few appropriate words?

What will you be thinking?

What will you say?

Here are some additional seasonably suitable quotable quotes – a few thoughtfully witty in the spirit of Groucho’s -- that might prove useful as idea starters or for “borrowing” as your big finish tomorrow evening:

“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in.

A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.”

Folksy columnist Bill Vaughan (1915-1977) came to that conclusion.

“New Year's Day - Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

The ever-quotable Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain (1835-1910) added his cynical twist to resolution setting.

“Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account."

Irish writer and poet Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) quipped that.

“I think in terms of the day's resolutions, not the year's.”

Sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986) shaped that not-so-abstract idea.

 “I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.

Diarist and free spirit Anaïs Nin (1903-1977) shared that personal truth, similar to Henry Moore’s.

 

“But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty? I live according to twenty-year-old habits.”

Nobel Prize winner Andre Gide (1869-1951) set forth this query and observation.

“New Year's Day is every man's birthday.”

English critic, poet and essayist, Charles Lamb (1775-1834) gave this reason to celebrate the passage of the old year.

“It wouldn't be New Year's if I didn't have regrets.”

Former pro football player William Thomas is supposed to have made that glum seasonal observation.

"We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential."

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and columnist Ellen Goodman suggested this.

"Time has no divisions to mark its passage; there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols."

Nobel laureate Thomas Mann (1875-1955) noted this phenomenon. 

“New Year's Eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights.”

Collector and re-teller of children’s stories and fairy tales, Hamilton Wright Mabie, (1846–1916) said this.

 “Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning, but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.”

Journalist and appreciative author about the outdoors, Hal Borland (1900-1978) said that. 

“Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.”

That’s courtesy of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, (1809–1892) in 1850.

“The new year begins in a snow-storm of white vows.”

Speaking of snow at about the same time as Tennyson, social reformer, author and editor, George William Curtis (1824-1892) held this view.

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.”

Poet and pacifist Edith Lovejoy Pierce (1904-1983) added that thought to one of her blank pages.

“Be at War with your Vices,

at Peace with your Neighbours,

and let every New-Year find you a better Man.”

This was the counsel in Benjamin Franklin's December 1755 Poor Richard's Almanac.

For last year's words belong to last year's language

And next year's words await another voice.

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

Poet T.S. Eliot, (1888-1965) made that clear in "Little Gidding,” the fourth and final poem of his Four Quartets.

Wishing you a peaceful finish to 2013 and thoughtful beginning to 2014.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373

tgimguy@gmail.com

P.S.  As I noted here last year about this time (TGIM#389) on New Year’s Eve I’m not so much a fan of Auld Lang Syne as I am of the Pete Seeger’s music and 1959 adaptation of the words from Ecclesiastes.

Here’s one version of the lyrics.

TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON

(TURN, TURN, TURN)

Chorus:

To everything (turn, turn, turn)

There is a season (turn, turn, turn)

And a time for every purpose under heaven.

A time to be born, a time to die

A time to plant, a time to reap

A time to kill, a time to heal

A time to laugh, a time to weep.

A time to build up, a time to break down

A time to dance, a time to mourn

A time to cast away stones

A time to gather stones together.

A time of war, a time of peace

A time of love, a time of hate

A time you may embrace

A time to refrain from embracing.

A time to gain, a time to lose

A time to rend, a time to sew

A time of love, a time of hate

A time of peace

 

… I swear it's not too late.

 

And one of my favorite versions of Pete singing, HERE.