Jack’s Winning Words 8/17/15
“It is hard to make up your mind, but sometimes you just have to do it.”  (From a review of “What Pet Should I Get?” by Dr Seuss)  A recent discovery of an unpublished Seuss manuscript tells the story of a boy and girl who go to a pet store and can’t decide what pet to get.  Do you ever have trouble with decisions?  One of my favorite jazz songs is the Ella Fitzgerald version of “Undecided”…Sitting on the fence doesn’t make much sense etc.    ;-)  Jack

FROM RI IN BOSTON:  Trouble making decisions?  You bet!  Lately it seems decision-making is getting more complicated.  Brings to mind the possible outcomes, "damned if you do and damned if you don't!"  But not to decide is to decide.  Speaking of Ella Fitzgerald, deciding to buy her Rodgers and Hart Songbook was one of my best decisions.  That's a classic.====JACK:  "What decisions?"  ...said the one with unanswered e-mail and a desk piled high with stuff.

FROM TRIHARDER:  "Never be in a hurry to make a bad decision."====JACK:  Alas...Sometimes you don't know if it's a bad decision until after you make it.  Then, again, delaying a good decision can sometimes turn it into a bad decision.  To decide, using common sense, usually works best for me.

FROM TARMART REV:  ... "sitting on a fence" only long enough to properly contemplate... most generally for me a little longer than I should, but again most generally I do move along, perhaps looking back over my shoulder one or two more times-- but moving along.====JACK:  In our "business" we are trained to see both sides of problems.  Having done that, it's not always easy to choose between black and white.  There's a lot of gray.

FROM ED:  Thanks. I needed this today!  "Indecision may or may not be my problem." - Jimmy Buffett====JACK:  If you wait to decide until you have all the answers...."stuff" happens!

FROM OUTHOUSE JUDY:  Whenever we faced with an important decision, we always say..."Did you pray about it?"  Thar has been our advice to our children and even too our little grandchildren.  Sometimes it's hard to decipher what God's plan is for us.  We can just move ahead with what we think is correct.====JACK:  I like practice of telling God of my concerns...and then praying, "Thy will, not my will, be done."

FROM BLAZING OAKS:  I THINK WE ALL SOMETIMES HAVE DIFFICULTY WITH DECISIONS...THAT'S WHY IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO ACTUALLY MAKE THE MOVE I KNEW I NEEDED TO MAKE! :-)   THEN WHERE TO GO? A SR. COMPLEX, A DUPLEX, CONDO, OR JUST SMALLER HOUSE AND YARD?  SO FAR I'M HAPPY WITH MY LITTLE BRICK BUNGALOW. JUST HOPE IT PROVES TO BE A GOOD DECISION IN THE LONG RUN!   "DID" THE ILLINOIS STATE FAIR TODAY, SUNNY AND HOT, BUT ENJOYABLE ...LOTS OF WALKING, WHICH WAS ENOUGH TO REMIND OLD GALS WE WEREN'T 25,  OR EVEN 55 ANY MORE! HA!====JACK:  Too many people wait until life circumstances make the decisions for them...and they have to go with the flow, like it or not.

FROM SBP IN FLORIDA:  Among God's gifts to one generation after another are the philosophers, artists, authors, musicians, astronomers and the like. Never having taken a course in philosophy, I have wondered how people like Plato and Socrates gained such insight into human behavior which is applicable to the present times. but , I believe since "The Beginning" human nature and growth over the generations has remained the constant. So what is true about human nature has remained in much the same pattern generation after generation. Thanks, for me, another thought-provoking WW. ====JACK:  I've read that majoring in the "arts" is a waste of a college education.  Someone that I know told her father that she wanted to major in English.  He opened the newspaper to the want ad section and asked her to point out the number of ads requesting an English major.  She persisted, and went on to become a college English professor.  I'm forever grateful for "wasting" my time as a philosophy major.  That's where I learned to be friends with Plato, Socrates and guys like that.