By now it seems obvious that timing IS everything. We all want to be in the right place at the right time. None of us wants, when it rains soup, to show up with a fork.
How many ways can one say that timing is everything? Shakespeare’s Brutus was eloquent: “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” Brutus was right in general, but he ended up losing the battle to Marc Antony.
I like even better the words of W.C. Fields, who said he had an uncle who jumped out of a hot air balloon betting he’d land on a load of hay. “He didn’t make it,” added Fields, “but if he’d been a younger man, he might have made it. Don’t wait too long in life.”
And then there was the former governor of Illinois, who, cherishing a U.S. senatorial appointment, said, “This thing is expletive deleted golden.” He decided to put it up for sale. This landed him in prison for a long while. Timing isn’t always everything after all.
This is Tom McBride, and that’s my Perspective.
