Ray’s Daily
February 8, 2019
“Happiness equals reality minus expectations”
Tom Magliozzi
I had a full day yesterday and still have a few things to do, so I am sending you the Daily I wrote eleven years ago.
Ray’s Daily first published on February 8, 2008
I think far too many of us get trapped by actions that don’t meet the expectations of others. I know many people find it too easy to say yes and then turn their hope into a commitment others expect to happen. The quickest way to dissatisfaction is for others to expect something to happen because of what we said we would do only to find out we can’t deliver. It is not that our motives are wrong; more often than not we say we will do something because it needs to be done and then fail because we did not realistically review our capabilities.
In my experience I have found that a good rule is to offer less and then do your best to deliver more. I was fortunate to have spent most of my life working with people who established realistic goals and then proceeded to do extraordinary things to exceed those goals. If the team had to install a major computer system we would provide a promised date and then set our target deadline for a week earlier.
It seems to me that cost overruns, missed deadlines, meeting no shows, and broken promises have almost become the norm. When we promise more and deliver less, we lose the confidence of others and create ill will.
So I promise you I will always do my best to be early for our appointments, keep my promises, and do my best to exceed your expectations. I hope that you will understand when I don’t promise you something it is probably because I doubt that I will able to deliver.
So like Magliozzi says when reality is better than what you expected you will have discovered happiness. And do you know what? When you exceed someone else’s expectations your happiness is often greater than theirs.
~~~
“Time is swift, it races by;
Opportunities are born and die…
Still you wait and will not try –
A bird with wings who dares not rise and fly.”
A. Milne
~~~
A first grade teacher collected well known proverbs. She gave each child in her class the first half of a proverb and asked them to come up with the remainder of the proverb.
* Better to be safe than…punch a 5th grader
* Strike while the …bug is close
* It’s always darkest before…Daylight Savings Time
* Never underestimate the power of…termites
* You can lead a horse to water but…how?
* Don’t bite the hand that…looks dirty
* No news is…impossible
* A miss is as good as a…Mr.
*You can’t teach an old dog new…………math
* If you lie down with dogs, you’ll…stink in the morning
* Love all, trust…me
* The pen is mightier than the…pigs
* An idle mind is…The best way to relax
* Where there’s smoke there’s…pollution
* Happy the bride who…gets all the presents
* A penny saved is…not much
* Two’s company, three’s…the Musketeers
* Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and you have to blow your nose
* None are so blind as…Helen Keller
* Children should be seen and not…spanked or grounded
* You get out of something what you…see pictured on the box
* When the blind leadeth the blind…get out of the way
~~~
“Men who never get carried away should be.”
Malcolm Forbes
~~~
A husband and wife went for counseling after 25 years of marriage. When asked what the problem was, the wife went into an angry tirade, listing each and every problem they had ever had in the 25 years they had been married.
She went on and on. Neglect, lack of intimacy, emptiness, loneliness, feeling unloved and unlovable, a long list of unmet needs she had endured over the course of their quarter century of marriage.
Finally, after allowing this to go on for a sufficient length of time, the therapist stood up, walked around his desk and, asking the wife to stand, embraced her and kissed her passionately on the mouth.
The woman shut up and, in a daze, quietly sat down. The therapist turned to the husband and said, “This is what your wife needs at least seven times a week. Do you think you can do this”?
The husband thought for a moment and replied, “Well, doc, I can drop her off here on Mondays and Wednesdays, but on the other days, I play golf.”
~~~
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
William Shakespeare
~~~
This blonde goes into a restaurant and notices there’s a peel and win sticker on her coffee cup. So, she peels it off and starts screaming, “I’ve won a motor home! I’ve won a motor home!”
The waitress says, “That’s impossible. The biggest prize is a mini-van.”
But the blonde keeps screaming, “I’ve won a motor home! I’ve won a motor home. ”
Finally, the manager comes over and says, “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken. You couldn’t possibly have won a motor home, because we didn’t have that as a prize!”
The blonde says, “No, it’s not a mistake. I’ve won a motor home!”
So, she hands the ticket to the manager and he reads… ……..WIN A BAGEL!
~~~
Our goal is to establish language that is gender-neutral, ethnic-neutral, and age neutral while celebrating our spirit of diversity.
~~~
He said: My father is a skilled CPA who is not great at self-promotion. So, when an advertising company offered to put my father’s business placard in the shopping carts of a supermarket, my dad jumped at the chance. A full year went by before he got a call that could be traced to those placards.
“Richard Larson, CPA”? the caller asked.
“That’s right,” my father answered. “May I help you”?
“Yes,” the voice said. “One of your shopping carts is in my yard and I want you to come and get it.”
~~~
“Everybody keeps saying that women are smarter than men, but did you ever see a man wearing a shirt that buttons down the back?”
~~~
“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
~~~
Ray Mitchell
Indianapolis, Indiana
Management is not responsible for duplicates from previous dailies. The editor is somewhat senile.
Ray’s Daily has been sent for more than fifteen years to people who want to start their day on an upbeat. If you have system overload because of our daily clutter, let me know and I will send you the information via mental telepathy. If you have not been getting our daily you can request to be added by e-mailing me at raykiwsp@gmail.com. Back issues are posted at http://rays-daily,com/ currently there are more than 2000 readers from around the world.
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