TUESDAY, 29 DECEMBER 2015
Paul Eddington of Yes, Minister fame said the following a few days before his death in 1995: “A journalist once asked me what I would like my epitaph to be and I said I think I would like it to be ‘He did very little harm’. And that’s not easy. Most people seem to me to do a great deal of harm. If I could be remembered as having done very little, that would suit me.”
THURSDAY, 31 DECEMBER 2015
If you ask me on any day what I would like to do the next day, I’ll be able to mention a few things. What I will not say is that I am just going to wake up and wait and see what happens, because I don’t want to plan anything and then it doesn’t work out.
The same thing applies to the last day of an “old” year and the first day of a “new” year. Some people are of the opinion that you shouldn’t have too many plans, or set too many goals or recite too many fixed dates. This is what I think: I am grateful that I am still here, and if I am still here tomorrow, I am not going to waste my time. I will get busy with things that I want to do, and if things don’t work out as I hope between Friday, 1 January 2016 and Saturday, 31 December 2016, I will accept that.
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