For years I delegated work to Mindy, who was very competent, productive, generous, and warm.
I never knew when I walked into Mindy’s office to ask her to do something whether she would be her usual lovable self or would bite my head off.
I stopped reading the news this week. It has been affecting my mental health. No more scrolling from CNN to Associated Press to Apple News to Google News to National Post, to Jerusalem Post. I am even trying to scroll past posts on Facebook and LinkedIn which address hate around the world.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Later he kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden and decreed that from that date forward, people would have to work very, very hard, just to survive.
From then until recently, if you chose Law as your profession, you did not have to read much further into the Bible to understand what was expected of you.
The other day my wife, Maureen, told me about a friend who was complaining that his busy adult children do not call him very often. Her friend asked Maureen, “Don’t they care about their dad?” To which Maureen replied, “they care… in their spare time.”
Maureen had it exactly right. Busy people tend to focus on the issues in their life that require their immediate attention. They put the things that they can take for granted aside to worry about when they can find the time.
“It just doesn’t matter.”
Bill Murray in Meatballs
I am a Boomer who never owned a Beemer. The best that I ever did was a Honda Accord and I had to make my way through a Chevy Citation, Dodge Aries, and a couple of Pontiacs to get that far.
I had a few partners who owned Beemers. They all said that they bought them because they liked how they drove, but we all knew the truth. What they really liked was how they looked in them. Successful and well-off.
If any among you have not yet happened upon the writings of H.L. Mencken, you should correct that. Among his many pithy quotes are the following gems:
One of H.L. Mencken’s quotes that seems particularly apt for law firm management is this one: “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”