December Meditations

Brief thoughts to ponder this month

Photo by Holly Stratton on Unsplash

1. Plans and strategies need time to work. The faster you begin, the more time yours will have. The opposite is true for lateness and unnecessary disruptions.

2. Not all people who make excuses are lazy, but all lazy people make excuses. But they do a lot more: they believe these excuses, want those they tell to believe them too, and are genuinely surprised when they (hearers) don’t.

3. People, even those who feign ignorance, are aware of their privileges, down to the detail of who has to be extracted and exploited to sustain them. Don’t ask questions you cannot get answers for; everyone knows what side their bread is buttered on.

4. Most people mean well, but that does not mean you should listen to all advice. We offer counsel based on what we know. Sometimes this isn’t enough to mean much, even when we mean well. Listen to everybody, but implement what is sourced from those who are where you want to go.

5. Some people always have good intentions, but somehow end up hurting or harming those they are dealing with. If I care about you, I’ll care about what outcomes are good for you. Otherwise, I don’t have good intentions, I only have generalized self-interest.

6. In most things, we will have to do more before we can do less; we will have to walk fast before we can walk slowly. This order cannot be reversed, for things must be learned before they are mastered. The master was once a student, and intensity is the nature of pupilage.

7. It’s important to know the character of people. Sometimes we have to deal with people who aren’t good; it’s simply the nature of things. However, we must never come to see these as good simply because we’ve dealt with them for long. There’s a difference between good and bad people, and one who cannot tell isn’t good.

8. If you are focusing on what people are doing, you are missing the point. What matters is what they are becoming.