apk warez

Life is short and often stingy; feast the heart with what it craves, short of cruelty, and let the world wonder.
Reynolds Price

Words to live by...

"I will never turn down my ambition because someone else is uncomfortable with the volume."
Unknown

Yup. Sounds about right. I was never much of an apologist, anyway.

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."
John Quincy Adams

All this Rob Ford drama - and, to be fair, the ridiculousness surrounding London's own indicted-for-fraud Mayor Joe Fontana - has gotten me thinking about who leads, why, and why we look up to them. As I write this, Mr. Ford refuses to resign amid a growing movement to either convince him to quit or force him from office.

The rules, such as they are, do not include provisions for removing a sitting mayor, but the rules are painfully inadequate here. We're long beyond the point at which process and procedure are the only things that matter. Rather, we're well into the zone of what this says about us as a society, and what kinds of messages we want to send to our kids. They are, after all, watching and learning. And the complete absence of inspirational leadership sets a tone for the rest of us that almost begs for perpetual acceptance of mediocrity in the way we live.

Leaders must inspire. And if they don't, or won't, or can't, they should leave the stage and make room for others who will. Too many so-called leaders seem to forget this very simple fact. Pity that. Maybe that's why the planet is so mired in chaos these days.

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new."
Socrates

Humans are essentially packrats. We seem to be most comfortable when we're surrounded by stuff - people, things, figurative structures - that are familiar to us.

Sometimes all that legacy comes with a cost. Like when it pulls you back, keeps you from seeing things from new perspectives, limits your willingness to take the unknown path.

I've spent too much of my time on this planet hanging around folks who seem intent on looking back. So I hope you won't mind if I yank the rearview mirror down and surround myself, instead, with folks who aren't so afraid to leave it all behind and trade it all for something truly impactful.

Please forgive me if I'd rather spend my future days striving for something better instead of settling for what once was.

Thoughts?

"If you are what you should be, then you will set the world on fire."
St. Catherine of Siena

I'm not usually a TGIF kind of person. I don't loathe the workweek for five days as I count the hours until the weekend arrives.

To be fair, I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking back to times in my life when I drove a cubicle for a living and may have, ahem, seen things a little differently than I do now. But that was then and I can't very well go back and change it. What matters is today. And today I was lucky to do the kind of work that feeds my soul. I researched stuff. I wrote stuff. I interviewed some really smart people. I did some radio. I wrote some more. I planned for next week.

It was a non-stop day, yet luckily amid the chaos I was able to drive our son to school and, later, our daughter to a program. I hugged the dog while waiting for my tea to steep, and I sat on the front porch for a few minutes to feel the approaching-winter's wind on my face.

And then I went back inside, settled back into my office, put my fingers on the keys and let them fly. I've got to admit it felt good. Better than good. Indeed, it's the place where I probably feel most alive, where I have absolute control over this unpredictable thing called life. Where I feel if I keep at it long enough, I will indeed set the world on fire.

If only I didn't have to stop when Friday turns to Saturday.

So maybe I just won't.

Your turn: How do you set the world on fire?