I've been so busy changing the scenery, I forgot to change the story.
From The Sum of All One's Mistakes, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
Third nest this year, and this one is in the big maple by the yellow house, which I had been telling myself all spring was the good tree. Switch came by to admire it and asked, not unkindly, whether I liked it better than the elm. I said yes. Then I sat in it until dusk and found I was fretting about exactly the same four things, in the same order, with a better view. For years I thought a move was a kind of argument you win against your own head. I've been so busy changing the scenery, I forgot to change the story. The wind came through differently here, I will give the maple that much.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
Have it on something
More like it
- Before you start pushing a rock up a hill, make sure it’s a hill you want to climb.
- Ride the current from within if you want to make it all the way to the sea.
- Measure success by how well you have used what you were given and how much you have given back.
- We resolve to do what we lack commitment to do.
- Is there a measure of success that does not include a measure of happiness?
- It's not how far the tree bends in the wind but whether it's uprooted.