The mid-80s was a particularly difficult period for me. I was then a young father of three small boys faced with problems about getting for them the best early education I could afford as a junior bank officer. The really good schools were quite far from where we lived, so we were forced by circumstances to uproot ourselves just so we could reside nearer these schools. It was a costly decision, to say the least. This was also a time when my bank was hit by financial losses big time so much so that it had to be bailed out by government. And as part of the bail-out plan, the bank implemented a retrenchment program with an attractive financial package.
I was mulling over this retrenchment package when I came upon this Og Mandino book. As you can see, the title is a teaser. I was attracted by the title and was hoping then that I could find the wisdom and inspiration here that I so badly needed at that time. Tonight, as I skimmed through the book to check the passages that I marked, I was struck by a number of interesting parallels (not really exact coincidences) between Mark Christopher's (the book's main character) personal circumstances and my recent predicament--something not obtaining at the time I bought the book. With the passage of time, life seems to have caught up with art, or so it appears to me. Maybe it's just my imagination. Maybe I'm just ...uhm...oh, forget it. Here goes my favorite passages:
On Choices:
"Every day all of us make hundreds of choices, most of them so menial and habitual that they are almost as automatic as breathing."
On Lack of Direction:
"Since so many don't know where they are, or where they're going, they are always struggling merely to survive, always on the razor's edge of disaster, forever on the defensive. When one must live that way, one's options are limited."
On Absentee Fathers:
"What they have is a money-machine that drops in now and then, change its clothes, and leaves again."
On Living Life:
"I'm going to drop this silly rat race I've managed to get myself into, count the blessings I already have, and let the rest of you keep running in your non-stop marathon to the rainbow."
On Time:
"The passing of time usually dulls the memories of our saddest moments..."
On Which Way to Go:
"...when one's avenue of retreat is cut off there is only one way to go--forward."
On New Books:
"A new book is very much like a child. Sooner or later it must go out into the world and succeed or fail on its own, leaving behind one or two loving people filled with concern and guilt and wondering if they had truly done all they could to prepare their issue for the cruel marketplace of life."
On Christopher:
"...the word Christopher means Christ-bearer."
On Road of Life:
"...all of us...start out on this uncertain road of life with a dream, an ambition, a goal. A fortunate few manage to survive all the hazards, roadblocks, and potholes along the way to reach their objectives. Most of us, however, get sidetracked on our journey and stumble through our alloted years with our hopes and dreams eventually fading from our memory."
On Legacy:
"I am convinced that the greatest legacy we can leave our children are happy memories: those precious moments so much like pebbles on the beach that are plucked from the white sand and placed in tiny boxes that lay undisturbed on tall shelves until one day they spill out and time repeats itself, with joy and sweet sadness, in the child now an adult."
On Vanity:
"Vanity is an almost incurable disease..."
On Human Race:
I don't know if the human race is worth saving, and fortunately, I don't have to make that decision."
On Man:
"Man is the only animal that blushes and laughs, and yet this creature, who can be so tender and loving , is the only living thing that constantly preyson its own species."
On Failure:
"Those who live in unhappy failure have never exercised their options for the better things of life because they have never been aware that they had any choices!"
On Work:
"So any of us count the hours of work as slavery."
--Og Mandino
