KNOWING WHAT IS NOT GUARANTEED
In business and in life in general, some situations are guaranteed and some are not. Wise is the person that understands the difference. Some of these situations involve the mundane, some involve life and death, and some fall somewhere in between those two extremes. Wise is the person that keeps the situation’s location on that continuum in proper perspective.
I think that periodic review of these truths is time well spent. Sometimes making that time is difficult, especially if you are anything like me. I have so much to keep on my mind and so little mind on which to keep it. Maybe you don’t have that problem, but I sure do.
Bernard Tyson is the CEO of Kaiser Permanente. He reflects pointedly on a rather significant item related to guarantees (“How Did I Get Here?: Bernard Tyson” Bloomberg Businessweek , 9/28/15–10/4/15, p. 96):
“ No one is promised the end of today. ”
Thinking similarly in another age, Emily Dickinson mused:
“ Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me. ”
Within the last year or so, I have endured the deaths of a significant number of friends, associates, and relatives. It simply seemed to be a season in which an unusually high number of people I know did not reach “the end of today.” We all are painfully aware that those are never easy times. Unfortunately, they are largely unavoidable times.
Because no one is promised the end of today, we should live each day in such a manner that we would have no regrets if it were our last day. That is a tall task. I suspect it is a task that if fulfilled, we would all find ourselves to be better people, our businesses to be better enterprises, and this world to be a better place.
