Outside In Print weekly sheet
Bob's Almanack
A weekly note from Robert V. Ussley with new essays, cartoons, and brief notes from Outside In Print.
Read the small words. They decide who works and who pays.
A Note from Robert V. Ussley
Four ordinary words carry this week's work: target, default, yes, minimum. Each assigns a duty. A target should leave room for the first safe step. A task needs an owner before the person who notices becomes one by default. A yes can help the person asking or feed the pride of the person answering. A minimum payment buys time, and time charges interest. Brief labels can govern a long stretch of work, promise, or debt. Ask what happens next, who must act, and who pays when nobody does.
New from Outside In Print
First Step
The CDC's 150-minute target should point ahead without turning a safe five-minute walk into failure.
ReadDefault Owner
A task without an owner rolls toward the person who worries first, turning attention and memory into household duty.
ReadWhose Yes
A quick yes can serve love, pride, or fear of disappointing someone. The honest pause asks whom the promise is for and whether it can be kept.
ReadMinimum Due
The minimum payment is a floor: it can keep an account current while interest carries the balance forward.
ReadThis Week's Virtue
Resolution
Resolution gives a duty a name, an owner, and a first move. Walk five safe minutes. Answer no when yes would be dishonest. Pay above the minimum when the budget allows. Divide the household work before one person has to notice it all. Resolution begins when someone can say what happens next and who will do it.
Dost thou love Life, then do not squander Time, for that's the Stuff Life is made of.
Worth Reprinting
Borrowed Hour
Borrowed Hour shows the same ledger at bedtime: when morning stays fixed, the phone spends tomorrow's sleep.
ReadA duty undefined becomes someone else's.