Jack’s Winning Words 5/19/14
“While we are postponing, life speeds by.”  (Seneca)  The problem of procrastination is not new.  Seneca wrote about it 2000 years ago.  Things need doing NOW;  you’re not going to live forever.  Many of us are motivated by “dead-lines.”  A doctor said, “I can help you, but none of us is going to live forever…not me, not you.”  Are there things that need to be done, relationships that need fixing?  Life is speeding by.    ;-)  Jack

FROM PH IN MINNESOTA:  Jack, i stayed up all night waiting for your WW and it was worth it! ====JACK:  The reward for staying up all night is the opportunity to take a longer nap this afternoon.

FROM TARMART REV:  Procrastination by forgetfulness... Dealing more with the "hereafter" in my life now than before...I find myself asking quite often on more occasions than I like admitting, "What am I hereafter, anyways?!?!"====JACK:  One of the results of aging is living the jokes that used to be told about those who are aging.

FROM LP IN PLYMOUTH:  Ha! Just started a stress management class. Hmmm... taking breaths.... too many things need doing NOW. This week's exercise is to stop being on auto-pilot. It seems that allowing life to "speed by" can be part of the problem. I'd guess that a future exercise will be about procrastination.====JACK:  It seems to me that you were writing about stress a few months ago.  If we could see a kind of "traffic cop" parked by the roadside of life, it might help us to slow down

FROM PC IN MICHIGAN:  Gosh….why do we suppose they are called “dead” lines??? Good thought for the day.====JACK:  Friends of mine who are Civil War experts say that the term, "deadlines" goes back to the Civil War.  It began as a real line, drawn in the dirt or marked by a fence or rail, restricting prisoners in Civil War camps. They were warned, "If you cross this line, you're dead." To make dead sure this important boundary was not overlooked, guards and prisoners soon were calling it by its own bluntly descriptive name, the dead line.   "A railing around the inside of the stockade, and about twenty feet from it, constitutes the 'dead line,' beyond which the prisoners are not allowed to pass." Nothing could be more emphatic than dead line to designate a limit, so we Americans happily applied the term to other situations with strict boundaries. For example, the storyteller O. Henry wrote in 1909 about crossing "the dead line of good behavior." But it was the newspaper business that made deadline more than just a historical curiosity. To have the latest news and still get a newspaper printed and distributed on time requires strict time limits for those who write it.  Our urgent twentieth century has made such deadlines essential not just for reporters and other writers but in every kind of activity; there are deadlines for finishing a job or assignment, for entering a contest, for ransoming hostages, or for buying a product at the special sale price.

FROM BLAZING OAKS:  INTERESTING EXPLANATION OF "DEADLINE"...NEVER HEARD THAT! IN TEACHING WE ALL HAD DEADLINES,   AND YOU'D BETTER BE READY! :-)  MOST OF US HAVE TO HAVE 'LAST MINUTES" HANGING OVER OUR HEADS TO REALLY GET MOVING, I'M AFRAID! I HAVE TO HAVE MY OLD REFRIGERATOR CLEANED OUT BY MID AFTERNOON FOR A NEW ONE TO BE DELIVERED, AND OF COURSE,  HAVING SPENT A DELIGHTFUL WEEKEND IN CHICAGO GOING TO A BROADWAY SHOW AND CHORALE CONCERT, AM JUST NOW GETTING TO IT! BUT IT WILL GET DONE....THESE ARE WW THAT WE ALL CAN RELATE TO. THANKS,  JACK, FOR YOUR FAITHFULNESS IN MEETING WW DEADLINES!!====JACK:  I've told this story before.  During a college class, the prof asked us to hand in the "theme" that was due.  I had forgotten the "deadline" for the work.  So, after class, I hurried home and typed out the assignment.  I went back to school and slipped it under the prof's office door with the note, "I forgot."  The next day the paper was handed back, marked with a D and the note, "I remembered."  Then, on the back page was a B and the note, "I forgave."  I never forgot that lesson of "grace."

FROM TAMPA SHIRL:  Enjoy each day and be kind and helpful one day at a time.====JACK:  Or, "Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you."====SHIRL:  Speaking of speeding, an OLLI lecturer at USF last week (a lady from Minnesota originally) rode her motorcycle from Apollo each day to USF in north Tampa on I 75 which is a major highway.  She has a lot of faith.  The speaker was a young woman from Albania whose family won the lottery to come to the US in 1996.  Her mother, father, and five children came.  She earned her BA and MA at USF and is now an assistant to the president of the university.====JACK:  Was the bike a Florida 3-wheeler?

FROM RI IN BOSTON:  When I was in college there was a poster on the design studio wall with the caption, "Next week we've got to get organized!"  Another common saying is, "Why do today what you can put off till tomorrow?"  It many sound like it will make life easier but the truth is we're running out of "tomorrows."  I'm trying to improve on doing things when the need presents itself, but truthfully, the "back burner" is on overload.====JACK:  I'm looking at a sign on my wall..."If it weren't for the last minute, a lot of things wouldn't get done."

FROM OUTHOUSE JUDY:  Life is speeding by at warp-speed!  There are so many things that need our attention, but none more important than our relationship with our Savior.  He's the One who needs the most attention.====JACK:  "Needs" or "wants?"  BTW, I've read that warp speed is faster than the speed of light.  That's fast!

FROM PLAIN FOLKS CHESTER:  During my advertising career, deadlines were a way of life. (Never missed one.) So now I'm retired and you are still pushing me? GOOD FOR YOU! I needed that.====JACK:  In my "work," the deadlines were pretty much set by  the job itself.  I was my own boss.  That continues to today.  I have a self-imposed of getting out Winning Words by 5:30 am.

FROM JM IN MICHIGAN:  Much like Martin Luther's: How soon not now becomes never.  Life goes at an increasingly higher speed the longer we live.  Maybe that is why older people appreciate "the little things" more than youth do.  Have a beautiful Spring day! Shalom.====JACK:  Luther said a lot of things.

FROM GOOD DEBT JON:  I meant to write this morning…. Somehow I procrastinated. ====JACK::   Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson once wrote that procrastination is "really sloth in five syllables."  Sloth is an onomatopoeia word.