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But If You Try Sometimes, You Get What You Need

Posted on January 25, 2008
Filed Under March USA Trip 2008, Personal Posts, Quote For The Day |

Tim O’Reilly posted up some thoughts on what you want vs what you need, which rang true with myself, but what piqued my mind was a few lines at the end of the piece:

I’m reminded of a wonderful line from Garrison Keillor, which I heard years ago on A Prairie Home Companion and which has stuck with me ever since: “Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted if you didn’t have it.” (Hmm. I just looked this up, and wikiquote renders it as “Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.” Not as inspiring. I prefer my remembered version.)

I love this for two reasons. The first is in the wonderful process of the brain that has taken a perfectly good bit of advice (from Kellior) and sculpted it into something that has relevance to the owner of that brain. Taking someone else’s content and changing it for your own content? Isn’t that Web 2.0 in a Nutshell? (ahem…)

The second is that I completely agree with O’Reilly’s sentiment. I’ve a belief that the universe knows what it wants from you. All you’ve got to do is pay attention when it hands you the ‘Advance to Go’ card. I’ve had situations happen to me in life time and time again where sure, it would be nice to have something extra, but I always managed to get, find, negotiate or barter a situation that was to my benefit.

An example… while I’ve been discussing the plans for my trip in March (and other conference trips that I cover), a number of details that haven’t been publicly announced have been spoken about; the general reaction is that (a) it’s very cool (b) I wish I could do that and (c) how come you’ve managed to do that? And you know what? I haven’t got any deep answers to that one, I haven’t got an action plan, or a GTD folder put aside for it. The universe jsut puts me in the right place, next to the right people, and I play the cards I have.

While The Beatles managed to get overPresident Richard Starkey’s promise of “It’s getting better. It’s getting better every day.” Mick and Keith nailed it. You can’t always get what you want, but when you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.

Words to live by.

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