Thursday, February 28, 2008

Thought for today

This is from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I think it is a good way to look at life, to try and make it more fun!!!
Tom convinced the boys of the town that white washing a fence was something to be coveted, just to get out of doing it himself and this is what Mark Twain has to say about it,

"Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action--without knowing it--namely that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artifical flowers or performing on a treadmill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mount Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerably money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work and then they would resign."

We do this with so many things in our lives. For example I love to go to school, I love to learn and study. I don't so much like to do other things. Other people don't like to go to school they would rather have a job... Funny how that is, isn't it?

- Natalie

2 comments:

Toni said...

Natalie!
Holy cow, I don't even know if you remember me. Toni, Leslie's cousin. I went to school with you for a year. I am so excited. I have been finding so many of my old Show low friends today. Anyways, check out our blog at ntgsoutham.blogspot.com. I'm going to add you as a friend! Hope all is well!
Toni

Mindy said...

Cool quote! That is totally true. The things we love to do we don't have to but the things we have to we hate doing. just imagine if we didn't have to do anything then life would be great right? =)