Each time I meet with a person whose business is in trouble, most of the session focuses on what my hero thinks he has done wrong. Or what he thinks other people have done wrong. Or what he thinks the government has done wrong. Or what the banks have done wrong.
Then, having blamed all the guilty parties, most of whom have never heard of my hero, he takes a dark look at the future and frets over what may happen, and how, and by whom.
After all of this, there is almost no time to think about the most crucial facet: What to do NOW. (Most of the time there’s not much that can be done because my hero had no time to do what should have been done 6 months ago.)
I think that one of the reasons we have so little time to do stuff today is because we spend so much of our time mulling over what happened in our past, and fearing what might happen in the future.
None of us can change what happened yesterday. It’s happened. That’s history. Trusting that presidents son in Nigeria, expecting the government to pay on time, arriving home with lipstick marks on your skants, whatever. We can’t change it. We can only change the way we feel about it. So time to let it go, and take control of all that wasted time and emotion.
Most of us spend an immense amount of our time worrying about what might happen next week, or next year. That’s a great reason not to take action today. And that lack of action ensures that what does go wrong will happen even more excitingly. Or not.
In 1926, the treatment for my kind of diabetes was simple because there was just one: Put the kid in a hospice and keep him alive as long as possible by starving him slowly. Most kids lasted about 8 months and died weighing as much as a duvet. By 1929, Best and Banting had discovered Insulin, and that’s kept me alive 40 years longer than if I’d been born in 1918 instead of 1958.
That kind of gives one a gentle approach to life. It allows you to relish each day. And it lets you take other folks issues with a pinch of salt. Mostly though, it lets you get some perspective on the problems others try and foist on you.
I have done some very stupid things in the past. But that was not the person I am now. And, thank heavens, that fellow that will today do something moronic, will not be the fellow that looks back at me from my mirror tomorrow.
I think the essence of life is to make as many mistakes as you can and learn from each. But not fret over them. There’s not enough time.
Although that’s definitely the last time I let anyone tie me to a chair onstage at a bachelor’s party dressed only in my underwear.