DO YOU SAW SAWDUST?



The only way the past can be constructive is by calmly analyzing our past mistakes and profiting by them and forgetting them. Don’t cry over spilt milk; don’t cross your bridges until you come to them. You must have heard these proverbs a thousand times, but they contain the very essence of the distilled wisdom of all ages. But knowledge isn’t power until it is applied.
Fred Fuller Shedd while addressing a College graduating class asked, “How many of you have ever sawed wood? Let’s see your hands.” Most of them had. Then he asked, “How many of you have ever sawed sawdust?” No hand went up. “Of course, you can’t saw sawdust!” Mr. Shedd exclaimed. “It’s already sawed! And it’s the same with the past. When you start worrying about things that are over and done with, you are merely trying to saw sawdust.”
You can’t grind any grain with water that has already gone down the creek. Wise men never sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms. In the face of defeat, accept it and write it off. Then concentrate on plans for the future.
“The moving finger writes; and having written, moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your Tears wash out a word of it.”
So why waste the tears? Of course, we have been guilty of blunders and absurdities! And so what? Who hasn’t? Even Napoleon lost one third of all important battles he fought. Perhaps our battling average is no worse than Napoleon’s. Who knows? And, anyhow, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put the past together again.

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