Thursday, August 7, 2014

knowing the future

One of the most humane things the designer of this world did was to plan his system so that we are ignorant of the future. If we knew exactly what would happen to us a year from today, two years or ten years from. today, many of us would quit right where we stand. When the stock market crashed some years ago, we who had been playing a game we knew nothing about lost money. If we had known a year before that all our life's savings would -be swept away some day, many of us would have found no incentive to keep on. There is a story told about a man who had been worrying over heavy losses that had reduced his millions to a bare pittance.
One day a fairy came to this man and told him she would grant him anyone wish he might make. The man thought a few minutes, and then said, "My wish is to see a newspaper published one year from today." Immediately the fairy handed him the newspaper published exactly a year in advance. He turned quickly to' the financial page, ran his fingers nervously up and down the list of stocks, and leaping from his chair shouted, "Hurrah! I'm worth fifteen million dollars. Isn't that wonderful?" Then carelessly turning over to the obituary page his glance fell on a report that made him gasp, "Great Heavens! I died two days ago!"

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