“Aegean islanders like to tell a joke about a prosperous Greek American who visits one of the islands on vacation. Out on a walk, the affluent Greek American comes upon an old Greek man sitting on a rock, sipping a glass of ouzo, and lazily staring at the sun setting into the sea. The American notices there are olive trees growing on the hills behind the old Greek but that they are untended, with olives just dropping here and there onto the ground. He asks the old man who the trees belong to. “They’re mine,” the Greek replies. “Don’t you gather the olives?” the American asks. “I just pick one when I want one,” the old man says. “But don’t you realize that if you pruned the trees and picked the olives at their peak, you could sell them? In America everybody is crazy about virgin olive oil, and they pay a damned good price for it.” “What would I do with the money?” the old Greek asks. “Why, you could build yourself a big house and hire servants to do everything for you.” “And then what would I do?” “You could do anything you want!” “You mean, like sit outside and sip ouzo at sunset?””
– Daniel Klein, Travels With Epicurus
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“What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance”
– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (translated by Stephen Mitchell)
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Arrive at what?
Ambition?
Goals?
Competition?
More?
Might it not be better to have the balance of enough?
Where we stand right now is where we should be.
Be wary of following the heard around the ways, only to discover you end up where you started.
Incomparable to others.
Only with what we want to do.
Who we want to be.
Conversations With Quotations 