“Whether it’s the best of times or the worst of times…” (Great Work quote)
Whether it’s the best of times
or the worst of times,
it’s the only time we’ve got.
~ Art Buchwald
I like the bluntness of this. I had been toying with putting in the lovely lines from the Renaissance poet Andrew Marvell:
At my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity
(“deserts of vast eternity”. Is that not an amazing turn of phrase?”)
But Buchwald’s quote gets to a different point, and somewhat faster.
It’s not about time ticking away, it’s about Now being the only time there is.
Whether it’s good times, whether it’s bad times – if you want to do more Great Work, now is the time to do it.
- “A lot of times you’re going to get worse before you do get better” (Great Work quote)
- “timidity will do a thousand times more damage…” (Great Work quote)
- “Map out your future – but do it in pencil…” (Great Work quote)
- “Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great – well, that’s torturous” (Great Work quote)
- “Specialization is for insects” (Great Work quote)
Posted in self-management
Tagged Andrew Marvell, Art Buchwald, Great Work, quotes, time management
I loved the quote and the poetry. They both speak to different parts of the same thing – TIME. It is such a universal concept and it is amazing to think that it’s an invention of man. I like this from Pink Floyd
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun
And you run and you run
To catch up with the sun
But it’s sinking
Racing around
To come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way
But you’re older
Shorter of breath
And one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter
Never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught
Or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English wah
The time is gone
The song is over
Thought I’d something more to say