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A man and a goose When I was younger, I read this book of fables. All of them were quite interesting, but one in particular caught my attention. Traditionally, I've been an impatient person. My mind tells me I have so many things to get accomplished and so little time. I fight to find more time, but with each minute that passes, that's 60 seconds I can't have back. Anyway, this fable was about this man and a goose. (Of course, this is my remix considering I can't remember the fable verbatim.) The man was a lucky man; his goose would lay a golden egg each morning. With the egg, he'd go downtown to the market and trade it in for some money to purchase whatever he needed. One day, though, this man thought of this ingenius idea. Using all that gray matter between his ears, he figured why only be limited to purchasing a day's worth of food and supplies, when he could just cut open the goose and get all the golden eggs now and buy what he needed to make more money. Perhaps, a G3 Macintosh computer and get into computer graphics? He waited until his faithful goose fell asleep one night and with his sharpest knife, put the goose to sleep for good. He cut open the goose and started to dig inside for the eggs, but there wasn't anything in the goose, well, except goose-living necessities like a heart, intestines and soforth. Well, as you can probably figure out, the morale of the fable is about time. If he had simply been content with what he had instead of rushing the wealth, he would be doing fine today. Now, he has to go out and milk cows and probably get a job at the local Burger King. That, and he doesn't have his faithful goose there at his side anymore.
Hmmm. What the hell is my point in writing this column? In the past two years, I've pretty much tried kamikaze-like to accomplish all my goals. My business is my obsession. In striving to achieve this goal, I've paid little attention to the amount of time that has passed. In a few months, a lot of the people I've met while at North Carolina A&T will be walking the stage, degree in hand, ready to hop on the next non-Valujet flight to their new homes, new careers and new lives. I've been here for four years, so the majority of the people I've met are graduating this year. I've been so busy trying to squeeze one more egg out my goose, I almost paid no respect to the friendships I've developed. Luckily, though, this goose is still breathing. And I'm going to take advantage of the time left to make sure when these fellow Aggie friends of mine do walk, we say our last goodbyes with another memory or two to share over the course of time.
Those who know me know I'm extremely conscience of time. I'm in a rush. I'm ready for the world and want it now. But at the same time, there's nothing more that I treasure than relationships. What is the use of riches if there is no one with whom to share it? Time is money, in a sense, and the more of it that you spend wisely, such as with your friends, the better life will be in the future. This is something I tell everyone. I stress to everyone. That is, right after I tell them the fable about a man and a goose.
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