Friday, June 05, 2009

Simple yet p....

There's this forward that quite a few people like to, well, forward which contains noted comedians George Carlin's thoughts on life. Its just simple stuff but on a day when you dont have much work & the devil is toiling away in his favourite workshop, it appears to be profound.

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways ,but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

So when will any one of us really pause in our relentless quest to make it big in life & think about what it really is that will make us happy? Will sitting at home & going through work related documents on a saturday night make more sense than curling up on the couch & indulging in some good old fashioned reading with some smooth Clapton songs playing in the background? Will buying a fancy car & taking the family out for an expensive vacation once in 6 months compensate for the fact that youre not there with them almost every day of the year?
Was reading an article by Peter G. Peterson, one of the guys who founded the highly successful Blackstone Group who became a billionaire in his 80s & has donated most of his money to a worthy cause. His reaon for donating this much ? Well read it in his own words - "Kurt Vonnegut once told a story about seeing Joseph Heller at a wealthy hedge-fund manager's party at a beach house in the Hamptons. Casting his eye around the luxurious setting, Vonnegut said, "Joe, doesn't it bother you that this guy makes more in a day than you ever made from Catch-22?" "No, not really," Heller said. "I have something that he doesn't have: I know the meaning of enough." I have far more than enough." Profound.

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