You don’t get extra credit for the life you meant to live.
From The Sum of All One's Mistakes, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
A man on the bench by the library spent the better part of an hour telling his friend about the boat he was going to buy in 1994. He had the slip picked out. He knew the make. The friend nodded the way you nod at weather. I used to think intention counted for something on its own, that wanting a thing well was a kind of partial payment on it, and I kept a private ledger of my own meant-to-haves for years before I noticed nobody else was keeping it. You don't get extra credit for the life you meant to live. The two of them got up and went for sandwiches, and I sat there wondering whether the boat was the point or the telling was.
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
- If we refuse to shake things up now and then, life will do it for us.
- Nothing is worth getting done that isn't worth doing.
- Walking is for walking, not for going.
- After all is said and done, there is more to say and do.
- Doing something halfway does not get you halfway there.
- After you ask how much you want something, ask how wise you are to want it.