![]() ![]() Why? Because your perspective has changed. I feel reasonably safe in saying that you no longer want to be a fireman. When you were young, let us say that you wanted to be a fireman. We adjust to the demands of a concept which CANNOT be valid. We set up a goal which demands of us certain things: and we do these things. The answer- and, in a sense, the tragedy of life- is that we seek to understand the goal and not the man. How can a man be sure he’s not after the “big rock candy mountain,” the enticing sugar-candy goal that has little taste and no substance? So how does a man find a goal? Not a castle in the stars, but a real and tangible thing. It is unquestionably better to enjoy the floating than to swim in uncertainty. So few people understand this! Think of any decision you’ve ever made which had a bearing on your future: I may be wrong, but I don’t see how it could have been anything but a choice however indirect- between the two things I’ve mentioned: the floating or the swimming.īut why not float if you have no goal? That is another question. It is a choice we must all make consciously or unconsciously at one time in our lives. “To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles … ” (Shakespeare)Īnd indeed, that IS the question: whether to float with the tide, or to swim for a goal. If I were to attempt to give you specific advice, it would be too much like the blind leading the blind. I do not see life through your eyes, nor you through mine. What is truth to one may be disaster to another. I ask you though, in listening to what I say, to remember that all advice can only be a product of the man who gives it. ![]() ![]() I am not a fool, but I respect your sincerity in asking my advice. To presume to point a man to the right and ultimate goal- to point with a trembling finger in the RIGHT direction is something only a fool would take upon himself. You ask advice: ah, what a very human and very dangerous thing to do! For to give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close to egomania. Thompson’s letter, found in Letters of Note, offers some of the most thoughtful and profound advice I’ve ever come across. Thompson was 22 years old when he wrote this letter to his friend Hume Logan in response to a request for life advice. ![]()
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