Nothing is ridiculous if you set your expectations low enough.
From The Things We Pursue, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
Switch spent the better part of the afternoon trying to carry a whole dinner roll up the maple, and he got it about four feet before it came down on the roots, and then he did it again. Twice more. I used to think the trouble with him was ambition, that he wanted more than a squirrel could hold. Watching him I understood I had it backwards; he was not expecting to get the roll up the tree at all, he was expecting to get it four feet up the tree, and he managed that every single time. Nothing is ridiculous if you set your expectations low enough. By evening the roll was in pieces and he had every piece in the crook of the branch, which I suppose was the plan, though I would not swear he knew that in the morning.
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
- We worry about what people will think of us, though they hardly ever do.
- I’m surprised when nothing surprising happens.
- The universe whispers its deepest secrets when the air turns thin and cold.
- There is much to be undone.
- Changing yourself is easier than changing the world and has the same effect.
- We have enough oars, if we can find enough rowers.