For most of us, the thing we’ll do most in our adult lifetime is to work. It’s part of the deal about being alive: it is incumbent upon you to obtain what you need.

A few get lucky: Born rich, inheritance, trust funds. Some are smart early: Wise choice of occupation, diligently applied, with talent, and retire early [*1]. Some become thieves: Living off mommy, divorce settlements, sponging off friends, scam artists.

For most of us, work is the lifelong price for existance. That being the case, there is a wise way to handle it …

Do this: Find something you enjoy doing, then figure a way to get people to pay you for doing just that thing.

Is this a better solution than being lucky, or smart early? Probably not. Is this a better solution than ripping somebody off? Sure, you still get what you want, and you feel good about it.

So if you’re going to need to work, this is the way to do it. This way you’ll earn your living, and you’ll be doing what you like to do. Humans are generally happy when pursuing a target; the mind is just made that way[*2]. Let it function as designed, and it is happy[*3]. You’ll be happy, too.

How do you find something you enjoy doing? Well, now, that’s another story[*4].

(Learn more: [*1] The Millionaire Next Door, [*2] Psychocybernetics , [*3] LogoTherapy, [*4] What Color is Your Parachute?)

Henrietta, Texas: When I was a teen, I worked at the A&P grocery store on Monday mornings and on Saturdays. Monday mornings because the weekly truck came from Dallas, and we had to unload endless boxes of canned peas. Saturdays because, in our farming community, the folks living out in the county came to town to buy groceries on Saturdays.

I served my apprenticeship at the A&P. The butcher came to me one day and told me that his bacon-stretchers had broken and he sent me to Garrison’s grocery to borrow theirs. The Garrison’s butcher said his were in the shop and sent me to Nolen’s Grocery. Nolen’s butcher sent me to Harry Harder’s store, and Harry swore that our butcher already had his.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

On Saturdays, most of the day was bagging groceries and carrying them to people’s cars. However, there was a lady, call her Madame X, who came walking to the store. She had a little cart, and her groceries went into the cart.

Her life had stopped one day, though she went on.

She was elderly, and wore a black dress, and a long black coat from the 30s. Her hat was large, with a veil, from the same era. She was the owner of a clothing store that, fully stocked and doing business, had been closed one day in the 30’s. The window displays remained exactly as they were, the counters inside displaying the same stylish fashions of the 30’s. Just no people, after that particular day.

As far as I know, she left her house, a once-grand two-story home on a quarter-block, only on Saturday. Summer, Winter made no difference in her clothing. Once a week to buy groceries.

She could have driven instead of walked, but the new Packard locked in her garage — you could see it through the dusty window — had not been moved since that day.

The house had seen no paint nor maintenance. The grasses were never cut.

One day, the store was opened up, and townfolk went in and purchased things. From whom, I now wonder. I bought a pair of those pants that end beneath your knees. I had the oportunity to wear them years later when I drove a Morgan Motor Car. These pants, aside from being thirty years dusty, were new.

The woman eventually died. I was grown and lived far away. A friend still living near, hearing the news, spoke to the attorney in charge, claiming that he had an interest in purchasing the property. He smooth-talked his way to see the inside of that house. We knew of no person who had set foot inside during all those years.

He said that the kitchen, the bath, and the woman’s bedroom were the only rooms showing habitation. All others had a thick coating of dust, and nothing in those rooms had been touched for many years. A single trail ran between the bedroom, kitchen, and bath.

Meals had been made from cans, apparently. The bathroom, dishevelled. In her bedroom, everything was spotless. There was her bed, there was a radio. The clothes in the closet, all from the 30’s, were identical, black. On a bureau of drawers, there was a japanese doll in a glass case.

Here’s what happened:

Once upon the time, this woman was young. She had inherited the store and the house, but she herself was interested in society, in going to dances and parties. She often drove the Packard to Wichita Falls, and even to Dallas. She had met a nice boy, a society boy, and it was announced that they would marry.

But something went wrong. The marriage was called off.

She put on black. She garaged the Packard. She laid-off all the store employees, and closed the doors. She went into her house, and, in one sense, she never came out again.

One Fall day, a Saturday — I no longer worked at the grocery store — I loitered in our back yard. I saw her walking on the next street over, in her long black coat and hat, with her cart. That day I had been reading the book ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker; it was spooky.

I thought, as I watched her walking, how like a ghost she seemed.

Tomorrow I will go to San Francisco to arrange an equipment rack in San Jose. A new home for all our voicemail lines.

Although my appointment is for lunch at noon, I had a vision, in which I see Jon E. slipping away for a ball game. In this vision, I will catch him at a bus stop at the last minute.

I also imagine that I will arrive early, and will by accident meet the last actual web designer in San Francisco, standing in a hallway.

This is all just a premonition, of course. Let’s see how it turns out.

Ever get kind of goofy, because it’s late?

Maybe you’re reading a story, and you’re sleepy but it pulls you onward. Your eyes ache, still you are reading on and on?

Why do we do that?

Henrietta, Texas: When I reached high school, studying a language was optional. We had a choice of Latin.

Our school was small, and the reason we had Latin offered, instead of French or Spanish or German, was because of Ms. Edwina Nutter. A teacher of English, she also knew Latin.

Ergo, Latin.

(J’regrette! Lo siento mucho! Gotdammenstein!)

Ms. Nutter was no nutter; shrewd and humorous she was. She liked to travel, and since a nine-month teaching job paid frugally, every other year she’d promote a grand tour of Europe, with herself as the guide, travelling free. An educated woman in a small Texas town.

Latin not useful, you say? Ha! I beg to differ …

To this day, I still recall these five handy phrases …

• Semper Fidelis. (Always Faithful.)
• Agricolae puellae sunt. (The girls are farmers.)
• Pax vobiscum. (Peace go with you.)
• Vini, Vidi, Vici. (I came, I saw, I conquered.)
• Est ne puella? (Are you a girl?)

As you can see, these five phrases will cover almost any situation. At least, they have for me. Highly recommended!

As expected, I met Tim W., the last known paid web designer in San Francisco, in Townsend Center hallway. I carried a blogging book; still studying, you see. He suggested to search out favorite blauthors. Good idea.

Sure enough, Jon E. almost escaped. Due to the enslaving nature of the cell phone, however, he was impelled to return, and I signed paperwork on May Day. New home for voicemail numbers coming soon. This will make me mobile. Or, as we say in our slogan from the Abe’s SuperBudget VoiceMail brochures, “Freedom to Move!”

Today I found Adrienne laughing in the kitchen. “We’re out of sacks for the trash,” she said. I should add that we normally put the trash into large brown grocery-store bags.

“I got this one,” she said, holding up a white plastic sack with a cute pink drawcord. “It’s silly, though, because I saw one of these over at [somebody’s] house, and looked all over to find one.” She looked at me expectantly.

“So I see you found one?” I said.

“Well, duh, yeah,” she said, “but the point is that they have rows and rows of brown grocery-store bags, and I was hunting all over for this kind, because I saw this kind.”

We all do this. We overlook a solution to our problem, because we’re holding some other picture in the mind. The mind is a targeting device. It gets a picture and then searches to find it. Picturing a white bag, we’ll overlook hundreds of brown bags.

Is that really … seeing?

People say, “Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.” I think, rather, we should be very careful about what we picture, as we’ll probably spend lots of time seeking it.

Maybe we’re seeking after what seems urgent. Because it looks urgent. Maybe we overlook what’s actually important.

Now and then, for a fresh view of what’s important, visit Jim Sloman’s site at May You Be Happy.com. Always a new view. See for yourself.

That is the lesson of the paper bag.

Marines sweep title. Scoreboard Marines 150,000, Iraq 200. Recently Saddam Hussein forgot to Beware the Ides of March, and … Whoops! At first, I was thinking …

It was an anxious, tense feeling, reminding me of a day in October of 1962, standing on the lawn of Midwestern University, looking up into the huge trees before the vast Admin Building. Listening to the radio, hearing how our navy was moving into position to block the Soviet ships approaching Cuba.

War hovered; it was scary. It was a fall day. The sky was grey, the branches of the trees were mostly bare, and a light, breeze spun across the lawn and through the trees. It was very quiet, except for the tinny sound of the radio.

Then, I went to lunch. It was fried chicken, at some place across the street. Why do we remember these things?

No matter. Saddam has fallen. And the current feeling is well expressed in this swell little ditty ‘Bomb Iraq‘, by Vince Vance and the Valiants. See and here it is now, hear, hear! — Bomb Iraq Music Video

Sounds good to me.