A Message to Garcia

Quoting from "The Richest Man in Babylon":

"Work was my grandfather's secret key to the golden shekels? "

"It was the only key he had when I first knew him. Thy grandfather enjoyed working, and the Gods appreciated his efforts and rewarded him liberally."

If you appreciate that logic, you'll appreciate "A Letter to Garcia"

loving it over and over again. I've owned the hard back for fifteen years and now this gift to myself has changed my life.

A very short but to the point message to anyone who wants to know what Excellence looks like. There is some who make excuses to not be excellent and you will see them or rather hear them rant and cry "it is impossible" or "there is no point to Excellence" but the proof is that no such person you will find at the top, at the command of anything, neither in charge or trusted upon to do what is necessary.

Unless you are 18 years old, plus or minus two or three years, you likely find the world a complicated place. People like you one day and hate you the next, you know not why. A machine works fine one day and dies the next for no apparent reason. And getting a thing done is rarely as easy as you imagine it to be.

It's also a scary place at times. Folks pose threats for no good reason. Sometimes they are family or neighbours. Sometimes they live half way around the world. What's with that?

It's also a disappointing place. People you thought you could trust and rely on, let you down for no apparent reason. They do the wrong thing - the opposite of the thing you'd have done in their shoes. They do it even if doing the right thing would not have been too hard. Why? That's too complicated a question to answer because human beings are quite complex creatures with infinitely varying motivations and all kinds of baggage. Ten people can look at one object and see eleven different things.

Sounds bleak, eh? Wouldn't it be nice if the world were simpler? Like if folks did what they were supposed to do, for what you believe are the right reasons. Wouldn't it be great if some folks were always motivated and diligent and loyal and acted with perfect integrity? Sure. But the world isn't like that. Sorry. Some folks are generally better due to good parenting, learning tough lessons, good dispositions, or what have you. But NO ONE is perfect.

Elbert Hubbard would like to see the world as a simple, black and white proposition. I wish he were correct, but he's not. He's oversimplifying up a storm in this book. The world isn't made up of good and bad people. You know intuitively it's not like that. Some people may fairly consistently be good in my eyes, but in another's eyes they may be bad. Or they may be good one day, but change later. Life's kooky like that.

Mr. Hubbard's vision is a nice pipe dream. But, unfortunately, that's all it is.

You probably do not need to fret. Just work at learning how to get by in our complicated world. Try reading lots of good books, but give this one a pass unless you just happen to be curious.

..of taking initiative and pride in what you do, no matter what line of work. Something we see a little less of with each passing day in the United States. We're seeing a more greedy, narcissistic and nasty culture starting to rear it's ugly head. "A Message to Garcia" re-minds us of the "can do" spirit that made, and can continue to make, this country the greatest the world has ever known. It's worth 10 minutes of your life.