READY-FIRE-AIM
Monday Jan. 5, 2015
Starting Monday, aim for highest possible level of positive, giving, caring – you have better chances at success than everyone else.
Than everyone …
Robert Frost said: “The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.”
I’ve been up a while.
You know, early bird, not because I’m feeling sleep deprived.
I’m not.
I had a restful weekend.
I’ve been work deprived. Like myself as a kid on summer holidays, anxious to get back to school.
Monday, this Monday, finally arrived.
I’m anxious to resume work. My day, my week, schedule-chocked with so much January-do.
This day, for so many of us, first real day of work, first real work day back in our offices or factories, first day applying our shoulders to that proverbial wheel.
There is a line I remember but can’t recall the source – about some kid in a boat going after a whale with a fork and a jar of tartar sauce …
Scary, dangerous – ridiculous, impossible. Eating an elephant, landing a whale, capturing big prizes … goals, whatever is on our lists, when we consider those really big obstacles our friends, family and neighbours encounter – dealing with real-life challenges in real-time, that kid in the boat might just have an easy time of it.
We aren’t dead, we aren’t sick, we aren’t disabled, we aren’t marginalized or traumatized – we just go to work. We get to do, give of ourselves to causes and efforts when so many are unable or unwilling.
How very lucky we are.
Get to work then.
Mark Kolke
column written/ published from Calgary, AB
morning walk: -19C(wind-chill is -31C)/-3F, more snow and some drifting, very windy and dark (thoughts of wind + the heat of north Maui running through my mind), Gusta loving her fur coat!
Reader feedback:
Happy New Year Mark. Wishing you a healthy, happy and productive New Year. I look forward to having/taking more time in 2015 to stay current with your Musings as I head out to meet the day, read through your short stories, anticipate the new website ("One of These Days") and share your postings with more friends. As one New Year's greeting card said, "Bring it on!" Best regards, BV, Marina Del Rey, CA … P.S. Hope you are OK with this comparison: I just watched the movie "Saving Mr. Banks" (depicting how Walt Disney had to court author P.L. Travers to get her to sign-off on script approval of her Mary Poppins books) and with that movie on my mind, and Mary Poppins on the brain, I am thinking that my morning dose of Mark Musing is often the equivalent of "a spoonful of sugar (that) helps the medicine go down."
Want it, read it, like it. Thanks, Mark. Your writing is often the only sanity in my day, ED, East Hanover, NJ
Thanks for igniting remarkable memories. 1973 a bunch of surfing buddies and I took a backpacking trip to Lake Louise and Banff. Enraptured by the beauty and awe of it all we made the mistake of staying too long in the mountains and ran out of food. Learned the hard lesson that grizzlies, humongous brown bears, could swim far longer than I cared to tread water. Never so glad to see civilization before the long hike or after as I was when we arrived to eat for the first time in three days. Haven't been back since. Not because of harsh memories-just life gets in the way. Envy you to be so close that a day trip gets you there. GW, Bon Wier, Tx.
