If someone is trying to sell you something you don’t need, you can always count on them to hide the truth. For example, if you’re getting plastic surgery for a purely optional procedure, the song playing in the clinic lobby will be Forever Young and not Highway To Hell. But this doesn’t apply to the kick-butt philosopher Lao Zee, pictured above. I just finished his book, and it’s even more enlightening than Colin Powell’s book It Worked For Me ( But Not So Well For The Iraqis).
A few glorious tidbits of Lao’s insight:
On Self-Awareness:
There are two types of people in the world – (1) losers and (2) me.
On Work:
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Fine, but if you teach a man to shoplift you get the exact same result. And only a fool would eat something from the ocean these days.
On Self Reliance:
Rich guys who hate paying taxes often claim that they lifted themselves “by their bootstraps.” But who bought them their first pair of boots?
On Risk:
They say that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Not true if that bird is about to take a crap.
On Change:
Technological change should be embraced without reservation. Why? Because it’s never been easier for so many people to see a picture of a male politician’s genitals.
On Perseverance:
Say you submit ten pieces of writing to a hip literary journal and get ten rejections. So you send in an angry, childish letter of protest. That last submission will get accepted and published, so you can add that journal to your resume. Never give up.
Great stuff.
I would be a big advocate of Lao Zee’s Self-Awareness philosophy. There really are two types of people in the world – (1) losers and (2) me. I can’t believe I didn’t write that. It wreaks of me!
It also sounds a lot like Charlie Sheen!
You are both correct.