Compensation by Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is a famous essay that is repeatedly quoted in Think and Grow Rich. It is written in 19th century English, which makes it a little difficult to understand in one read through, but it is extremely powerful. I hope you enjoy.

Ever since I was a boy, I have wished to write a discourse on Compensation: for it seemed to me when very young, that on this subject life was ahead of theology, and the people knew more than the preachers taught. The documents, too, from which the doctrine is to be drawn, charmed my fancy by their endless variety, and lay always before me, even in sleep; for they are the tools in our hands, the bread in our basket, the transactions of the street, the farm, and the dwelling-house, greetings, relations, debts and credits, the influence of character, the nature and endowment of all men. It seemed to me, also, that in it might be shown men a ray of divinity, the present action of the soul of this world, clean from all vestige of tradition, and so the heart of man might be bathed by an inundation of eternal love, conversing with that which he knows was always and always must be, because it really is now. It appeared, moreover, that if this doctrine could be stated in terms with any resemblance to those bright intuitions in which this truth is sometimes revealed to us, it would be a star in many dark hours and crooked passages in our journey that would not suffer us to lose our way.

I was lately confirmed in these desires by hearing a sermon at church. The preacher, a man esteemed for his orthodoxy, unfolded in the ordinary manner the doctrine of the Last Judgment. He assumed, that judgment is not executed in this world; that the wicked are successful; that the good are miserable; and then urged from reason and from Scripture a compensation to be made to both parties in the next life. No offence appeared to be taken by the congregation at this doctrine. As far as I could observe, when the meeting broke up, they separated without remark on the sermon.

Yet what was the import of this teaching? What did the preacher mean by saying that the good are miserable in the present life? Was it that houses and lands, offices, wine, horses, dress, luxury, are had by unprincipled men, whilst the saints are poor and despised; and that a compensation is to be made to these last hereafter, by giving them the like gratifications another day,--bank-stock and doubloons, venison and champagne? This must be the compensation intended; for what else? Is it that they are to have leave to pray and praise? to love and serve men? Why, that they can do now. The legitimate inference the disciple would draw was,--'We are to have such a good time as the sinners have now';--or, to push it to its extreme import, --'You sin now; we shall sin by and by; we would sin now, if we could; not being successful, we expect our revenge to-morrow.'

The fallacy lay in the immense concession, that the bad are successful; that justice is not done now. The blindness of the preacher consisted in deferring to the base estimate of the market of what constitutes a manly success, instead of confronting and convicting the world from the truth; announcing the presence of the soul; the omnipotence of the will: and so establishing the standard of good and ill, of success and falsehood.

I find a similar base tone in the popular religious works of the day, and the same doctrines assumed by the literary men when occasionally they treat the related topics. I think that our popular theology has gained in decorum, and not in principle, over the superstitions it has displaced. But men are better than this theology. Their daily life gives it the lie. Every ingenuous and aspiring soul leaves the doctrine behind him in his own experience; and all men feel sometimes the falsehood which they cannot demonstrate. For men are wiser than they know. That which they hear in schools and pulpits without after-thought, if said in conversation, would probably be questioned in silence. If a man dogmatize in a mixed company on Providence and the divine laws, he is answered by a silence which conveys well enough to an observer the dissatisfaction of the hearer, but his incapacity to make his own statement.

I shall attempt in this and the following chapter to record some facts that indicate the path of the law of Compensation; happy beyond my expectation, if I shall truly draw the smallest arc of this circle.

POLARITY, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; in darkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; in male and female; in the inspiration and expiration of plants and animals; in the equation of quantity and quality in the fluids of the animal body; in the systole and diastole of the heart; in the undulations of fluids, and of sound; in the centrifugal and centripetal gravity; in electricity, galvanism, and chemical affinity. Superinduce magnetism at one end of a needle; the opposite magnetism takes place at the other end. If the south attracts, the north repels. To empty here, you must condense there. An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so that each thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it whole; as, spirit, matter; man, woman; odd, even; subjective, objective; in, out; upper, under; motion, rest; yea, nay.

Whilst the world is thus dual, so is every one of its parts. The entire system of things gets represented in every particle. There is somewhat that resembles the ebb and flow of the sea, day and night, man and woman, in a single needle of the pine, in a kernel of corn, in each individual of every animal tribe. The reaction, so grand in the elements, is repeated within these small boundaries. For example, in the animal kingdom the physiologist has observed that no creatures are favorites, but a certain compensation balances every gift and every defect. A surplusage given to one part is paid out of a reduction from another part of the same creature. If the head and neck are enlarged, the trunk and extremities are cut short.

The theory of the mechanic forces is another example. What we gain in power is lost in time; and the converse. The periodic or compensating errors of the planets is another instance. The influences of climate and soil in political history are another. The cold climate invigorates. The barren soil does not breed fevers, crocodiles, tigers, or scorpions.

The same dualism underlies the nature and condition of man. Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for its moderation with its life. For every grain of wit there is a grain of folly. For every thing you have missed, you have gained something else; and for every thing you gain, you lose something. If riches increase, they are increased that use them. If the gatherer gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest; swells the estate, but kills the owner. Nature hates monopolies and exceptions. The waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a level from their loftiest tossing, than the varieties of condition tend to equalize themselves. There is always some levelling circumstance that puts down the overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate, substantially on the same ground with all others. Is a man too strong and fierce for society, and by temper and position a bad citizen, — a morose ruffian, with a dash of the pirate in him;—— nature sends him a troop of pretty sons and daughters, who are getting along in the dame's classes at the village school, and love and fear for them smooths his grim scowl to courtesy. Thus she contrives to intenerate the granite and felspar, takes the boar out and puts the lamb in, and keeps her balance true.

The farmer imagines power and place are fine things. But the President has paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his peace, and the best of his manly attributes. To preserve for a short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is content to eat dust before the real masters who stand erect behind the throne. Or, do men desire the more substantial and permanent grandeur of genius? Neither has this an immunity. He who by force of will or of thought is great, and overlooks thousands, has the charges of that eminence. With every influx of light comes new danger. Has he light? he must bear witness to the light, and always outrun that sympathy which gives him such keen satisfaction, by his fidelity to new revelations of the incessant soul. He must hate father and mother, wife and child. Has he all that the world loves and admires and covets? — he must cast behind him their admiration, and afflict them by faithfulness to his truth, and become a byword and a hissing.

This law writes the laws of cities and nations. It is in vain to build or plot or combine against it. Things refuse to be mismanaged long. Res nolunt diu male administrari. Though no checks to a new evil appear, the checks exist, and will appear. If the government is cruel, the governor's life is not safe. If you tax too high, the revenue will yield nothing. If you make the criminal code sanguinary, juries will not convict. If the law is too mild, private vengeance comes in. If the government is a terrific democracy, the pressure is resisted by an overcharge of energy in the citizen, and life glows with a fiercer flame. The true life and satisfactions of man seem to elude the utmost rigors or felicities of condition, and to establish themselves with great indifferency under all varieties of circumstances. Under all governments the influence of character remains the same, — in Turkey and in New England about alike. Under the primeval despots of Egypt, history honestly confesses that man must have been as free as culture could make him.

These appearances indicate the fact that the universe is represented in every one of its particles. Every thing in nature contains all the powers of nature. Every thing is made of one hidden stuff; as the naturalist sees one type under every metamorphosis, and regards a horse as a running man, a fish as a swimming man, a bird as a flying man, a tree as a rooted man. Each new form repeats not only the main character of the type, but part for part all the details, all the aims, furtherances, hindrances, energies, and whole system of every other. Every occupation, trade, art, transaction, is a compend of the world, and a correlative of every other. Each one is an entire emblem of human life; of its good and ill, its trials, its enemies, its course and its end. And each one must somehow accommodate the whole man, and recite all his destiny.

The world globes itself in a drop of dew. The microscope cannot find the animalcule which is less perfect for being little. Eyes, ears, taste, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of reproduction that take hold on eternity, — all find room to consist in the small creature. So do we put our life into every act. The true doctrine of omnipresence is, that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb. The value of the universe contrives to throw itself into every point. If the good is there, so is the evil; if the affinity, so the repulsion; if the force, so the limitation.

Thus is the universe alive. All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength. "It is in the world, and the world was made by it." Justice is not postponed. A perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of life. {Oi chusoi Dios aei enpiptousi}, — The dice of God are always loaded. The world looks like a multiplication-table, or a mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself. Take what figure you will, its exact value, nor more nor less, still returns to you. Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty. What we call retribution is the universal necessity by which the whole appears wherever a part appears. If you see smoke, there must be fire. If you see a hand or a limb, you know that the trunk to which it belongs is there behind.

Every act rewards itself, or, in other words, integrates itself, in a twofold manner; first, in the thing, or in real nature; and secondly, in the circumstance, or in apparent nature. Men call the circumstance the retribution. The causal retribution is in the thing, and is seen by the soul. The retribution in the circumstance is seen by the understanding; it is inseparable from the thing, but is often spread over a long time, and so does not become distinct until after many years. The specific stripes may follow late after the offence, but they follow because they accompany it. Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.

Whilst thus the world will be whole, and refuses to be disparted, we seek to act partially, to sunder, to appropriate; for example, — to gratify the senses, we sever the pleasure of the senses from the needs of the character. The ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to the solution of one problem,--how to detach the sensual sweet, the sensual strong, the sensual bright, &c., from the moral sweet, the moral deep, the moral fair; that is, again, to contrive to cut clean off this upper surface so thin as to leave it bottomless; to get a one end, without an other end. The soul says, Eat; the body would feast. The soul says, The man and woman shall be one flesh and one soul; the body would join the flesh only. The soul says, Have dominion over all things to the ends of virtue; the body would have the power over things to its own ends.

The soul strives amain to live and work through all things. It would be the only fact. All things shall be added unto it power, pleasure, knowledge, beauty. The particular man aims to be somebody; to set up for himself; to truck and higgle for a private good; and, in particulars, to ride, that he may ride; to dress, that he may be dressed; to eat, that he may eat; and to govern, that he may be seen. Men seek to be great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and fame. They think that to be great is to possess one side of nature,--the sweet, without the other side,--the bitter.

This dividing and detaching is steadily counteracted. Up to this day, it must be owned, no projector has had the smallest success. The parted water reunites behind our hand. Pleasure is taken out of pleasant things, profit out of profitable things, power out of strong things, as soon as we seek to separate them from the whole. We can no more halve things and get the sensual good, by itself, than we can get an inside that shall have no outside, or a light without a shadow. "Drive out nature with a fork, she comes running back."

Life invests itself with inevitable conditions, which the unwise seek to dodge, which one and another brags that he does not know; that they do not touch him; — but the brag is on his lips, the conditions are in his soul. If he escapes them in one part, they attack him in another more vital part. If he has escaped them in form, and in the appearance, it is because he has resisted his life, and fled from himself, and the retribution is so much death. So signal is the failure of all attempts to make this separation of the good from the tax, that the experiment would not be tried,--since to try it is to be mad,--but for the circumstance, that when the disease began in the will, of rebellion and separation, the intellect is at once infected, so that the man ceases to see God whole in each object, but is able to see the sensual allurement of an object, and not see the sensual hurt; he sees the mermaid's head, but not the dragon's tail; and thinks he can cut off that which he would have, from that which he would not have. "How secret art thou who dwellest in the highest heavens in silence, O thou only great God, sprinkling with an unwearied Providence certain penal blindnesses upon such as have unbridled desires!"

The human soul is true to these facts in the painting of fable, of history, of law, of proverbs, of conversation. It finds a tongue in literature unawares. Thus the Greeks called Jupiter, Supreme Mind; but having traditionally ascribed to him many base actions, they involuntarily made amends to reason, by tying up the hands of so bad a god. He is made as helpless as a king of England. Prometheus knows one secret which Jove must bargain for; Minerva, another. He cannot get his own thunders; Minerva keeps the key of them.

"Of all the gods, I only know the keys
That ope the solid doors within whose vaults
His thunders sleep." [Aeschylus]
A plain confession of the in-working of the All, and of its moral aim. The Indian mythology ends in the same ethics; and it would seem impossible for any fable to be invented and get any currency which was not moral. Aurora forgot to ask youth for her lover, and though Tithonus is immortal, he is old. Achilles is not quite invulnerable; the sacred waters did not wash the heel by which Thetis held him. Siegfried, in the Nibelungen, is not quite immortal, for a leaf fell on his back whilst he was bathing in the dragon's blood, and that spot which it covered is mortal. And so it must be. There is a crack in every thing God has made. It would seem, there is always this vindictive circumstance stealing in at unawares, even into the wild poesy in which the human fancy attempted to make bold holiday, and to shake itself free of the old laws, — this back-stroke, this kick of the gun, certifying that the law is fatal; that in nature nothing can be given, all things are sold.

This is that ancient doctrine of Nemesis, who keeps watch in the universe, and lets no offence go unchastised. The Furies, they said, are attendants on justice, and if the sun in heaven should transgress his path, they would punish him. The poets related that stone walls, and iron swords, and leathern thongs had an occult sympathy with the wrongs of their owners; that the belt which Ajax gave Hector dragged the Trojan hero over the field at the wheels of the car of Achilles, and the sword which Hector gave Ajax was that on whose point Ajax fell. They recorded, that when the Thasians erected a statue to Theagenes, a victor in the games, one of his rivals went to it by night, and endeavoured to throw it down by repeated blows, until at last he moved it from its pedestal, and was crushed to death beneath its fall.

This voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It came from thought above the will of the writer. That is the best part of each writer, which has nothing private in it; that which he does not know; that which flowed out of his constitution, and not from his too active invention; that which in the study of a single artist you might not easily find, but in the study of many, you would abstract as the spirit of them all. Phidias it is not, but the work of man in that early Hellenic world, that I would know. The name and circumstance of Phidias, however convenient for history, embarrass when we come to the highest criticism. We are to see that which man was tending to do in a given period, and was hindered, or, if you will, modified in doing, by the interfering volitions of Phidias, of Dante, of Shakspeare, the organ whereby man at the moment wrought.

Still more striking is the expression of this fact in the proverbs of all nations, which are always the literature of reason, or the statements of an absolute truth, without qualification. Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. That which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow the realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in proverbs without contradiction. And this law of laws which the pulpit, the senate, and the college deny, is hourly preached in all markets and workshops by flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as omnipresent as that of birds and flies.

All things are double, one against another.--Tit for tat; an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; blood for blood; measure for measure; love for love.--Give and it shall be given you.--He that watereth shall be watered himself.--What will you have? quoth God; pay for it and take it.--Nothing venture, nothing have.--Thou shalt be paid exactly for what thou hast done, no more, no less.--Who doth not work shall not eat.--Harm watch, harm catch.--Curses always recoil on the head of him who imprecates them. --If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own.--Bad counsel confounds the adviser.--The Devil is an ass.

It is thus written, because it is thus in life. Our action is overmastered and characterized above our will by the law of nature. We aim at a petty end quite aside from the public good, but our act arranges itself by irresistible magnetism in a line with the poles of the world.

A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will, or against his will, he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every word. Every opinion reacts on him who utters it. It is a thread-ball thrown at a mark, but the other end remains in the thrower's bag. Or, rather, it is a harpoon hurled at the whale, unwinding, as it flies, a coil of cord in the boat, and if the harpoon is not good, or not well thrown, it will go nigh to cut the steersman in twain, or to sink the boat.

You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong. "No man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him," said Burke. The exclusive in fashionable life does not see that he excludes himself from enjoyment, in the attempt to appropriate it. The exclusionist in religion does not see that he shuts the door of heaven on himself, in striving to shut out others. Treat men as pawns and ninepins, and you shall suffer as well as they. If you leave out their heart, you shall lose your own. The senses would make things of all persons; of women, of children, of the poor. The vulgar proverb, "I will get it from his purse or get it from his skin," is sound philosophy.

All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished. They are punished by fear. Whilst I stand in simple relations to my fellow-man, I have no displeasure in meeting him. We meet as water meets water, or as two currents of air mix, with perfect diffusion and interpenetration of nature. But as soon as there is any departure from simplicity, and attempt at halfness, or good for me that is not good for him, my neighbour feels the wrong; he shrinks from me as far as I have shrunk from him; his eyes no longer seek mine; there is war between us; there is hate in him and fear in me.

All the old abuses in society, universal and particular, all unjust accumulations of property and power, are avenged in the same manner. Fear is an instructer of great sagacity, and the herald of all revolutions. One thing he teaches, that there is rottenness where he appears. He is a carrion crow, and though you see not well what he hovers for, there is death somewhere. Our property is timid, our laws are timid, our cultivated classes are timid. Fear for ages has boded and mowed and gibbered over government and property. That obscene bird is not there for nothing. He indicates great wrongs which must be revised.

Of the like nature is that expectation of change which instantly follows the suspension of our voluntary activity. The terror of cloudless noon, the emerald of Polycrates, the awe of prosperity, the instinct which leads every generous soul to impose on itself tasks of a noble asceticism and vicarious virtue, are the tremblings of the balance of justice through the heart and mind of man.

Experienced men of the world know very well that it is best to pay scot and lot as they go along, and that a man often pays dear for a small frugality. The borrower runs in his own debt. Has a man gained any thing who has received a hundred favors and rendered none? Has he gained by borrowing, through indolence or cunning, his neighbour's wares, or horses, or money? There arises on the deed the instant acknowledgment of benefit on the one part, and of debt on the other; that is, of superiority and inferiority. The transaction remains in the memory of himself and his neighbour; and every new transaction alters, according to its nature, their relation to each other. He may soon come to see that he had better have broken his own bones than to have ridden in his neighbour's coach, and that "the highest price he can pay for a thing is to ask for it."

A wise man will extend this lesson to all parts of life, and know that it is the part of prudence to face every claimant, and pay every just demand on your time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay; for, first or last, you must pay your entire debt. Persons and events may stand for a time between you and justice, but it is only a postponement. You must pay at last your own debt. If you are wise, you will dread a prosperity which only loads you with more. Benefit is the end of nature. But for every benefit which you receive, a tax is levied. He is great who confers the most benefits. He is base--and that is the one base thing in the universe--to receive favors and render none. In the order of nature we cannot render benefits to those from whom we receive them, or only seldom. But the benefit we receive must be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, cent for cent, to somebody. Beware of too much good staying in your hand. It will fast corrupt and worm worms. Pay it away quickly in some sort.

Labor is watched over by the same pitiless laws. Cheapest, say the prudent, is the dearest labor. What we buy in a broom, a mat, a wagon, a knife, is some application of good sense to a common want. It is best to pay in your land a skilful gardener, or to buy good sense applied to gardening; in your sailor, good sense applied to navigation; in the house, good sense applied to cooking, sewing, serving; in your agent, good sense applied to accounts and affairs. So do you multiply your presence, or spread yourself throughout your estate. But because of the dual constitution of things, in labor as in life there can be no cheating. The thief steals from himself. The swindler swindles himself. For the real price of labor is knowledge and virtue, whereof wealth and credit are signs. These signs, like paper money, may be counterfeited or stolen, but that which they represent, namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or stolen. These ends of labor cannot be answered but by real exertions of the mind, and in obedience to pure motives. The cheat, the defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort the knowledge of material and moral nature which his honest care and pains yield to the operative. The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power: but they who do not the thing have not the power.

Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening of a stake to the construction of a city or an epic, is one immense illustration of the perfect compensation of the universe. The absolute balance of Give and Take, the doctrine that every thing has its price,--and if that price is not paid, not that thing but something else is obtained, and that it is impossible to get any thing without its price,--is not less sublime in the columns of a leger than in the budgets of states, in the laws of light and darkness, in all the action and reaction of nature. I cannot doubt that the high laws which each man sees implicated in those processes with which he is conversant, the stern ethics which sparkle on his chisel-edge, which are measured out by his plumb and foot-rule, which stand as manifest in the footing of the shop-bill as in the history of a state, --do recommend to him his trade, and though seldom named, exalt his business to his imagination.

The league between virtue and nature engages all things to assume a hostile front to vice. The beautiful laws and substances of the world persecute and whip the traitor. He finds that things are arranged for truth and benefit, but there is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel and mole. You cannot recall the spoken word, you cannot wipe out the foot-track, you cannot draw up the ladder, so as to leave no inlet or clew. Some damning circumstance always transpires. The laws and substances of nature--water, snow, wind, gravitation--become penalties to the thief.

On the other hand, the law holds with equal sureness for all right action. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation. The good man has absolute good, which like fire turns every thing to its own nature, so that you cannot do him any harm; but as the royal armies sent against Napoleon, when he approached, cast down their colors and from enemies became friends, so disasters of all kinds, as sickness, offence, poverty, prove benefactors:--

"Winds blow and waters roll
Strength to the brave, and power and deity,
Yet in themselves are nothing."
The good are befriended even by weakness and defect. As no man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had ever a defect that was not somewhere made useful to him. The stag in the fable admired his horns and blamed his feet, but when the hunter came, his feet saved him, and afterwards, caught in the thicket, his horns destroyed him. Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults. As no man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it, so no man has a thorough acquaintance with the hindrances or talents of men, until he has suffered from the one, and seen the triumph of the other over his own want of the same. Has he a defect of temper that unfits him to live in society? Thereby he is driven to entertain himself alone, and acquire habits of self-help; and thus, like the wounded oyster, he mends his shell with pearl.

Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin, and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies. In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor. As the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

The same guards which protect us from disaster, defect, and enmity, defend us, if we will, from selfishness and fraud. Bolts and bars are not the best of our institutions, nor is shrewdness in trade a mark of wisdom. Men suffer all their life long, under the foolish superstition that they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be cheated by any one but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time. There is a third silent party to all our bargains. The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the fulfilment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss. If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is withholden, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.

The history of persecution is a history of endeavours to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand. It makes no difference whether the actors be many or one, a tyrant or a mob. A mob is a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason, and traversing its work. The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison, a more illustrious abode; every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side. Hours of sanity and consideration are always arriving to communities, as to individuals, when the truth is seen, and the martyrs are justified.

Thus do all things preach the indifferency of circumstances. The man is all. Every thing has two sides, a good and an evil. Every advantage has its tax. I learn to be content. But the doctrine of compensation is not the doctrine of indifferency. The thoughtless say, on hearing these representations,--What boots it to do well? there is one event to good and evil; if I gain any good, I must pay for it; if I lose any good, I gain some other; all actions are indifferent.

There is a deeper fact in the soul than compensation, to wit, its own nature. The soul is not a compensation, but a life. The soul is. Under all this running sea of circumstance, whose waters ebb and flow with perfect balance, lies the aboriginal abyss of real Being. Essence, or God, is not a relation, or a part, but the whole. Being is the vast affirmative, excluding negation, self-balanced, and swallowing up all relations, parts, and times within itself. Nature, truth, virtue, are the influx from thence. Vice is the absence or departure of the same. Nothing, Falsehood, may indeed stand as the great Night or shade, on which, as a background, the living universe paints itself forth; but no fact is begotten by it; it cannot work; for it is not. It cannot work any good; it cannot work any harm. It is harm inasmuch as it is worse not to be than to be.

We feel defrauded of the retribution due to evil acts, because the criminal adheres to his vice and contumacy, and does not come to a crisis or judgment anywhere in visible nature. There is no stunning confutation of his nonsense before men and angels. Has he therefore outwitted the law? Inasmuch as he carries the malignity and the lie with him, he so far deceases from nature. In some manner there will be a demonstration of the wrong to the understanding also; but should we not see it, this deadly deduction makes square the eternal account.

Neither can it be said, on the other hand, that the gain of rectitude must be bought by any loss. There is no penalty to virtue; no penalty to wisdom; they are proper additions of being. In a virtuous action, I properly am; in a virtuous act, I add to the world; I plant into deserts conquered from Chaos and Nothing, and see the darkness receding on the limits of the horizon. There can be no excess to love; none to knowledge; none to beauty, when these attributes are considered in the purest sense. The soul refuses limits, and always affirms an Optimism, never a Pessimism.

His life is a progress, and not a station. His instinct is trust. Our instinct uses "more" and "less" in application to man, of the presence of the soul, and not of its absence; the brave man is greater than the coward; the true, the benevolent, the wise, is more a man, and not less, than the fool and knave. There is no tax on the good of virtue; for that is the incoming of God himself, or absolute existence, without any comparative. Material good has its tax, and if it came without desert or sweat, has no root in me, and the next wind will blow it away. But all the good of nature is the soul's, and may be had, if paid for in nature's lawful coin, that is, by labor which the heart and the head allow. I no longer wish to meet a good I do not earn, for example, to find a pot of buried gold, knowing that it brings with it new burdens. I do not wish more external goods,--neither possessions, nor honors, nor powers, nor persons. The gain is apparent; the tax is certain. But there is no tax on the knowledge that the compensation exists, and that it is not desirable to dig up treasure. Herein I rejoice with a serene eternal peace. I contract the boundaries of possible mischief. I learn the wisdom of St. Bernard, --"Nothing can work me damage except myself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real sufferer but by my own fault."

In the nature of the soul is the compensation for the inequalities of condition. The radical tragedy of nature seems to be the distinction of More and Less. How can Less not feel the pain; how not feel indignation or malevolence towards More? Look at those who have less faculty, and one feels sad, and knows not well what to make of it. He almost shuns their eye; he fears they will upbraid God. What should they do? It seems a great injustice. But see the facts nearly, and these mountainous inequalities vanish. Love reduces them, as the sun melts the iceberg in the sea. The heart and soul of all men being one, this bitterness of His and Mine ceases. His is mine. I am my brother, and my brother is me. If I feel overshadowed and outdone by great neighbours, I can yet love; I can still receive; and he that loveth maketh his own the grandeur he loves. Thereby I make the discovery that my brother is my guardian, acting for me with the friendliest designs, and the estate I so admired and envied is my own. It is the nature of the soul to appropriate all things. Jesus and Shakspeare are fragments of the soul, and by love I conquer and incorporate them in my own conscious domain. His virtue,--is not that mine? His wit,--if it cannot be made mine, it is not wit.

Such, also, is the natural history of calamity. The changes which break up at short intervals the prosperity of men are advertisements of a nature whose law is growth. Every soul is by this intrinsic necessity quitting its whole system of things, its friends, and home, and laws, and faith, as the shell-fish crawls out of its beautiful but stony case, because it no longer admits of its growth, and slowly forms a new house. [Compare with Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem, "Nautilus."] In proportion to the vigor of the individual, these revolutions are frequent, until in some happier mind they are incessant, and all worldly relations hang very loosely about him, becoming, as it were, a transparent fluid membrane through which the living form is seen, and not, as in most men, an indurated heterogeneous fabric of many dates, and of no settled character in which the man is imprisoned. Then there can be enlargement, and the man of to-day scarcely recognizes the man of yesterday. And such should be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off of dead circumstances day by day, as he renews his raiment day by day. But to us, in our lapsed estate, resting, not advancing, resisting, not cooperating with the divine expansion, this growth comes by shocks.

We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out, that archangels may come in. We are idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the riches of the soul, in its proper eternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or recreate that beautiful yesterday. We linger in the ruins of the old tent, where once we had bread and shelter and organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and nerve us again. We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty saith, 'Up and onward for evermore!' We cannot stay amid the ruins. Neither will we rely on the new; and so we walk ever with reverted eyes, like those monsters who look backwards.

And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances, and the reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the next years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden-flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener, is made the banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighbourhoods of men.

Posted at 04:17 PM | Comments (0) | Top

May 09, 2006

IF by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

Hat Tip: Thanks to Jim Cooke, a passionate high school teacher and supporter of entrepreneurship education, for pointing me to this poem.

Posted at 05:39 PM | Comments (0) | Top

April 22, 2006

Mark Twain on Living Honestly

"“We needed three dollars and I didn’t know where to get it. While we were in a quandary I espied a valuable dog on the street. I picked up the canine and sold him to a man for three dollars. Afterward the dog owner of the dog came along and I got three dollars from him for telling where the dog was. So I went back and gave the three dollars to the man whom I sold it to, and I have lived honestly ever since.”
- Mark Twain

Hat Tip: David Askaripour. David has a great series of blog posts on how his first business, which he invested $12,000 into, was unsuccessful. I've definitely made the same mistakes and seen others do it too. Hopefully, by reading his posts you can avoid the same mistakes.

Posted at 12:43 PM | Comments (1) | Top

March 22, 2006

The High Costs of Glamour

"More people have probably become rich building such prosaic businesses as a shoe-polish or a watchmaking company than have become rich through high-tech businesses." - Peter Drucker (Innovation & Entrepreneurship, p. 125)

Over the past few years, I've become keenly aware of the high-costs of glamour. Everybody has a book or screenplay idea, wants to open a retail store, raise money for a high-tech business, etc. The only problem is just that, everybody wants to do it!

Some of the disadvantages of taking the glamour path seem to be:

1. Increased Competition. With everybody going for the same goal, people are competing for limited resources. This pushes the margins down for everyone.
   
2. Shake Outs.The success ratio is low. In their hey days, there were over a hundred railroad, automobile, and airplane companies. Now there are only a few.
   
3. Certain Costs Go Up. There may be social pressure to live a high-cost lifestyle and/or the need to work in a metropolitan area, which has a high cost of living. Take education for example. The 'bottom' schools are cheap and fighting for applicants, even ones with great educational opportunities. The high-cost schools are extremely expensive and rejecting people with perfect test scores.

Me. I'd rather find a high-potential niche that nobody knows about, live somewhere cheap, and focus on the customer. That's right. Take it from somebody who lives in New York City and is the founder of a media & education company with focuses on books, speaking, and a high-tech online community.

Posted at 11:00 AM | Comments (5) | Top

November 15, 2005

Working For Yourself vs. Working For Others

"I work 80 hours a week for myself just so I do not have to work 40 for someone else"
- Erik Kimel, President of NYU Entrepreneurial Exchange Group, Young Entrepreneur

Commentary: I do not know Erik, but this quote is my reality right now. There is something exhilirating working for yourself, even if you're getting paid less and working more than others.

Posted at 12:51 AM | Comments (1) | Top

November 13, 2005

Napoleon Bonaparte on Luck

"What the vulgar call luck is a characteristic of genius."
- Napoleon Bonaparte

My Commentary: Sheena and I are watching a great documentary on Napoleon. I believe that luck can be created by refining one's ability to recognize opportunities and one's preparedness/ability to leverage them when they arise.

Posted at 10:51 AM | Comments (0) | Top

November 10, 2005

Steve Wozniak (Apple Co-Founder) on Creativity

"The best things I've ever done happened when I lacked the resources and knowledge I needed to accomplish my goal beforehand." - Steve Wozniak, Co-Founder, Apple

Source: Keynote Address at Collegiate Entrepreneurs' Organization

Question: Have you ever put yourself in a situation where you had no other option but to produce results?

Posted at 05:41 PM | Comments (0) | Top

October 26, 2005

Sacrifice and Success

"Nothing worthwhile is gained without sacrifice (353)."
- Martin Luther King

"I have no doubt that all self-denial is good for the soul (327)."
- Gandhi

Do you agree with this? I used to believe that I could achieve all my goals without sacrificing anything. However, I have changed 360 degrees. I don't believe that one should sacrifice for the sake of sacrificing, but I think as one pursues their goals one will realize that many of their original beliefs, actions, values, etc. are not effective and will have to change. Sacrifices that I've made are:

1. Letting go of sweets and alcohol. I used to eat candy by the pound and party on the weekends.
   
2. Working 70 hours a week. I've always worked hard, but I used to work less. While some people are able to accomplish huge things while working little, I'd rather put all my resources to the attainment of what's important to me so that I know I tried my best.
   
3. No more TV. While I enjoy TV, having it in the house is too tempting as a time drain.
   
4. No more games. I used to love computer games, especially civiliization. One day I deleted every one from my computer and I haven't gone back.
   
5. Not eating meat. I don't eat meat because of health, but also because I don't agree with the way animals are treated while they're alive. Having grown up with animals, I think many animals have the ability to love life just as much as many humans. I don't think the quality of something's life should be judged by intelligence alone.
   
6. Less friendships. I've consciously made the choice to not go to many events and parties that I know could build closer friendships. This is something that I still struggle with, but I'd rather build very close relationships with people who think big and have similar values.

Obviously, there's much more stuff that I've had to sacrifice.

Moving forward, I picture the sacrifices becoming larger, not smaller. This is challenging as these sacrifices will have an effect on Sheena so I need to take this into account. I imagine potentially sacrificing the following:

1. My Life. As I get stronger in my beliefs and build more of an international platform, I know there will surely be people who disagree with me. Depending on the issues, there could be people who disagree strongly enough that they want me dead. I obviously don't want this, but I'm willing to take a path that could increase the likelihood of this.

2. Living Location. I don't want my expenses to increase with my revenue. I believe that happiness is correlated to a certain amount of financial well-being, but beyond that I think it is internal and I want to take full control of that. As such, I'm willing to live in socially undesirable places or at least in a very simple, unassuming house. I admire people like Warren Buffett. He has lived in the same house for the last few decades even as he's gone from millionaire to billionaire.

3. Shopping Decisions. I know that many of the goods I purchase now are probably made in conditions that I would consider unethical. At the same time, those conditions might be better than what the workers would have had otherwise. I want to understand this issue more and ultimately put my dollars where my mouth is.

4. Family. Although, I very much want to have children and be a great father, part of me knows that my personality and trajectory, may not make this possible to the extent I want. I don't know if having both is possible. This is difficult to think about and especially difficult to talk about with Sheena.

Posted at 05:34 PM | Comments (7) | Top

August 16, 2005

The Power of Certainty

"Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore commit yourself fully to your endeavors. Determine to construct your character through excellent action and pay the price of a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will reveal your strengths. And through it all, through it all remain steadfast. For someday you will build something that endures, something most worthy of your potential."
Epictetus(100 AD), former slave, Historian of Rome

Question: If the welfare of you, your friends, and your family depended on it, would you pursue and achieve your dreams? Isn't this already the case?

Posted at 05:49 PM | Comments (2) | Top

December 13, 2004

Andrew Carnegie Quote

"Here lies a man who knew how to bring into service men better than he was himself."
- Words Andrew Carnegie Chose for His Tombstone

How do you want to be remembered?

Posted at 02:39 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Top

October 19, 2004

Our Deepest Fear

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

- Marianne Williamson, excerpt from "A Return to Love"

There are those moments when just by thinking a thought it becomes a reality. You may have thought the same thought many times before, but with no effect. But this time something else is different and 'if' turns into 'when'. Religious people call it a conversion. Secular people call it a moment of clarity.

1. It could happen when someone sees injustice, the same type that others see, but for some reason it touches them at such a strong level that they devote their life to alleviating it.
   
2. It might be years of drunk driving, and then one serious accident where the individual knows they will never drink a drop of alcohol again.
   
3. In physically violent relationships that are held together by fear, it could be the strength to leave.
   
4. In a dead-end job one has had for years, it could be the decision to relocate and pursue one's passion.

I don't know what causes these moments exactly. Some people never have them, some people have them on a somewhat regular basis. I know for me, these moments have shaped my life. Living between these specks of time becomes the easy part when I remember the power of the commitment I made.

I believe that we all have the moments boiling up inside of us and that we probably are already aware of them on some level. Something that brings it out for me are when I fully visualize and experience the following questions:

1. If I pursued the path I'm on right now, what would my life look like in 1 year? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? On my death bed?
   
2. What opportunities will I have missed because I did not plan, prioritize, and pursue my own vision today?
   
3. How will this effect the people close to me? my unborn children? the world?
   
4. What is my ideal life in 1 year? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? On my death bed?
   
5. What do I need to change to reach that vision today? now? here?

Posted at 02:49 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Top

September 13, 2004

On Loving What Others Don't

Thank God for people who love doing what most people are afraid of, hate, or resist. These people are proof that everything in life is lovable if we let it be or make an effort for it to be. Entomologists are proof to me that I can learn to be at peace with the bugs in our apartment.

Posted at 02:49 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Top

June 23, 2004

Heads or Tails

"There's only one thing worse than a dog chasing its tail and that's a dog running away from its tail."

- Michael Simmons, author, The Student Success Manifesto

Posted at 11:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Top

June 22, 2004

Rainy Days Make Me Happy

On a rainy day in the city, there are two types of people that walk slow - those that have umbrellas and those that are at peace with the rain. There comes a point in major life storms (when your torso has 70% visibility through your rain-soaked clothes) that you must happily accept the whims of nature and offer the other 30% to the world. Then, my friend, you are free!

- Michael Simmons, author, The Student Success Manifesto

Posted at 01:26 PM | TrackBack | Top

June 07, 2004

Branding Beware

"I'm afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery."
- Aldous Huxley, prolific author, Brave New World

I have sometimes experienced this same fear in the back of my mind in my own life. Not to say that obscurity is the do all, end all, but it does provide a nice environment for:

1. Creativity - fewer critics
   
2. Freedom - fewer expectations
   
3. Focus - fewer distractions
   
4. Sincerity - few temptations

Posted at 10:17 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Top

June 03, 2004

Near-Sight and Far-Sight

"People of far-sight and near-sight both love fool?s gold, but for different reasons. The one of far-sight is a fool because he sees that today's trash could be tomorrow's treasure with action, but never takes that action. The one of near-sight is simply a fool because he doesn?t realize that the gold he is playing with, is not gold at all. It's actually garbage.

In the end, I'd rather walk the fine line of a visionary journey that is in between near-sight and far-sight. At best, the vision will be partially or fully achieved. At worst, one will be a man of far-sight and know that he tried. Or one will be a man of near-sight in the same boat as everybody else enjoying the blissful ignorance."

- Michael Simmons, author, The Student Success Manifesto

Posted at 03:00 PM | TrackBack | Top

May 18, 2004

Miracles vs. Probability

"There are only two ways to live your life: as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is a miracle." -- Einstein

It is often during the anomalous, mysterious moments in life that we make the decision above. We must choose to either connect the missing dots in our understanding of the world with myth or with causality.

For example, let's say that somebody comes into your life and helps you out of a major problem or helps you achieve a goal at just the right time. The mythical explanation could be that everything is controlled by fate and the right things always happen at the right times. The causal explanation could be that by meeting people with similar interests, you are more likely to run into people you connect with.

Or consider, "The Birthday Problem". How many people do you think must be in a room before the probability that some share a birthday, ignoring the year and ignoring leap days, becomes at least 50 percent? Conventional wisdom would say you would need a large number of people for this to happen. According to this wisdom, if you had the same birthday as somebody in your class, you might create some sort of myth to connect the dots. However, in actuality, according to the law of large numbers, it is more likely than not that in any gathering of 23 or more persons, two of them will share a birthday.

I've come to the belief that that the different ways of looking at the world are not mutually exclusive and that one way of looking at the world is not inherently better than the other. I believe and have seen both ways used in empowering ways and/or limiting ways. In the end, I think applications of ones beliefs are key.

For example, let's take the American myth that anybody can achieve their dreams. According to one of my professors 48% of people in America believe that they will be in the top 1% of the richest people in the country. So obviously, 47% of the people are wrong. However, I still believe that people need to keep up hope and reach for the stars so the belief could be used in an empowering way. Similarly, somebody with a more probabalistic view of the world might look more into how the 1% of people got where they are and then replicate important parts of the strategy thus increasing the probability they fall in the 1% category.

Posted at 07:06 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Top

November 13, 2003

On Running Backwards

"If you are facing the right direction, all you need to do is keep walking."
- Buddhist proverb

Since starting a business, I've felt a very strong desire to be successful at a young age. One of the main reasons for this is that doing entrepreneurial things is more unique when you're young and therefore receives more praise. If I were doing the same things I'm doing now and I was 10 years older or 20 years older, people might really question if I'm doing the right thing. A successful business for a college student might be a failing business for an adult.

The problem with my desire to be really successful at a young age is that I feel rushed. With this feeling, I sometimes see myself making decisions for the short-term instead of the long-term. I love everything I'm doing to death, but at the same time, I have difficulty taking breaks from it and getting perspective. Having talked with people who are in their fifties who have had this same "rushed" feeling since they were young and haven't taken a vacation in years, I'm not sure I want to continue this "rushed" feeling anymore. I once read a statistic that said the average American spends their entire career feeling like they're 40 hours behind where they'd like be in terms of work. So maybe we all feel this "rushed" feeling. Isn't it ironic that the people who live in the best economic system in the world feel like they are so far behind always?

Now that I think about it, I can remember from a very young age wanting to become very successful at a young age and then retire. This idea seems to be embedded into our culture to the point where people sacrifice decades of their life to an end that may never come. And the reason it may never come may not be because it hasn't been acheived, but because we have spent our whole developing a mindset where we sacrifice for the future and avoid the present. A person who spends their whole life worrying about money, doesn't suddenly live in peace after it is acheived (at least most of the time). Which leads me to my next conclusion...

Be careful what you choose to spend time being good at. Every second you invest in a strength, you become more invested in it and down the road it becomes that much harder to invest yourself in new areas when it makes the most sense. In this way, our greatest strength may become our greatest weakness.

What does it mean to have a great future? My professional responsibility and leadership professor made a good point the other day. He said that people who believe that they can have a better future are willing to sacrifice their present-moment to achieve it. Peole who don't have great prospects for the future tend to live more in the present-moment.

What does it mean to be a great student? This may be a generalization, but I feel like many people who get extremely high grades become defined by their grades whether they realize it or not. Even if they don't believe in high grades anymore, it is hard to stop getting them after years of hard work staying up all night or working hard on weekends. It is hard to go to a career where grades aren't valued.

What does it mean to be successful? I sometimes feel like any success I've received thus far, makes me only want it more and faster.

I believe that many of the things one could want in this life (i.e. - happiness, peace) are available to us every moment. We simply have to "be the change we want to see", no matter how hard it might be, how (un)successful we are, how good our grades are, who we know, or how caught up we are in life's little dilemmas. When interacting with young children, I often see them cry over what I think is something silly like being picked last for a team. I invariably say, "Don't cry, it's not that important." Maybe I should be saying the same thing to myself when I get worked up over things that are small in the big scheme of things.

In the end, I think the quote at the beginning of this entry has a lot of wisdom. I need to take a deep breathe, think more about where my current path is going, face in the right direction, and have the best walk ever. If I'm going in the wrong direction, my speed doesn't matter at all!

Have a great night.

Posted at 08:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Top

October 26, 2003

Stunning Startup Failure Percentage

"If you intend to start a full-time, incorporated business, the odds that the business will survive at least eight years with you as the owner are better than one in four; and the odds of its surviving at least years with a new owner are another one in four. So the eight-year survival rate for incorporated startups is about 50%."

Source: Bygrave, William D., The Portable MBA in Entrepreneurship (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997), p.10.

This statement may come as a surprise to you if you've heard the statistic that four out of five businesses fail within the first five years. The reason the failure rate is so high with that statistic is that sole propietorships are included. Including sole propietorships pushes up the failure percentage because:

1. Most businesses are sole propietorships.
   
2. Sole propietorships are very easy to form and are mostly for small businesses that don't plan to grow large. As such, many of them may be part-time and not taken as seriously.
   
3. The 80% failure rate doesn't take into account that many of the owners of sole propietorships may have left the business for one of many reasons, not including bankruptcy.

The new 50% failure rate statistic has incredible ramifications when choosing between an entrepreneurial career or a corporate one. What do you think the failure rates for a career inside of a large company are? I would be willing to wager it is pretty high because:

1. Large businesses are laying off more people than they are hiring.
   
2. A business hierarchy is structured as a pyramid. Therefore, as you get closer to the top, competition is more fierce.
   
3. You take the risk of the company going bankrupt, the company being restructured, your division being discontinued, or you being fired for something you did or did not do (politics).
   
4. If you leave a company, you get severance based on how long you've been working there. If you start a company and leave it, you either profit from its sale or you own a percentage of it that you can later sell.

Posted at 05:04 PM | TrackBack | Top

October 23, 2003

Funny, But True Quote About Entrepreneurs

"I learned that sometimes when a lot of people say you're wrong, you may actually be wrong."

- John Katzman, Founder, The Princeton Review (In response to a question about a major lesson he had learned from his career at a Center for Communication event.

Side note: I thought that this quote was funny and that it shows that the "break all the rules" mentality is not always right.

Posted at 12:13 AM | TrackBack | Top

October 21, 2003

Confucious Quote

"A gentleman worries whether he will find the Way, he does not worry that he may remain poor."

Although most people will argue that money is the not the most important thing in their life, many people treat it like it is. Some thoughts on why I think this happens are below:

1. People have a belief that if they worry about money now, then they won't have to worry about it in the future. On the one hand this makes sense, but on the other hand I think that worrying about money leads to more worrying about money.

   For example, last week was mid-term week at NYU, and students were very stressed out. However, in the midst of this, one student I spoke with made the statement that if she wasn't worrying about her mid-terms, she would be worried about something else. I think that this is very true. We all look forward to the weekends, winter breaks, and summers of life, but are those times completely worry-free? Are they what we expect? For me and most people I know, something else seems to always come up. Yet, like a donkey following a carrot, we seem to believe that a change in our external environment (ie - school, work) is more important than a change in our mindset.

   I would argue that one of the best ways to learn how not to be stressed is to learn how to be calm in the most difficult situations right now, in the present-moment. If we can accomplish this, then we can be calm anytime. Similarly, if we can learn to not worry about money even though we may have little at a given time, we can tear apart the invisible shackles that stop us from focusing on what's most important in life, whatever that may be for each of us.
   

2. Most people raise their costs lock-step with their rise of income. In other words, people buy more stuff when they make more money and still end up worrying about money. Why is this? Is this because of 'culture', advertisements, or something else?

   In the city, when I have the opportunity to speak with somebody who immigrated from another country (usually a poorer one), they talk about how Americans focus too much on money and not enough on family or community, like people in their own country do. Even though we're the richest country, we seem to worry about money the most.

In the end, I think the easiest way to stop worrying about money is not to make it conditional. Don't say, "If I make $'x', then I can be 'y'". Instead ask, "What can I do right now to be 'y'?" If we shift the conversation to thinking about what's important in life and going after it, perhaps we could find our Way.

Posted at 11:18 AM | TrackBack | Top

September 28, 2003

Hindsight's Power

"Let hindsight's keen eyes make "mistakes" into successes, not fears.
To fear dreams is to throw away belief in yourself.
To welcome them is to make the impossible, possible."

- Michael Simmons, author, The Student Success Manifesto

Posted at 02:43 AM | Top

September 01, 2003

Individual Potential

"Too often we disassociate ourselves from people who achieve greatness. We forget that everything that lies within them lies within us."

- Michael Simmons, author, The Student Success Manifesto

Posted at 01:33 PM | Top