Friday, December 31, 2004

Happy New Year

Spring 05 Classes



It is New Year's Eve, a night when we celebrate the end of 2004 and the beginning of 2005. Instead of writing about resolutions I have decided to reprint a poem, which I came across while cleaning the garage today, by Dr. Heartsil Wilson that Michael T. Crowley Sr. published in his Chairman's Message column of the quarterly newsletter of Mutual Savings Bank at the end of 1994. I had the pleasure of starting my mortgage lending career at the then Mutual Savings and Loan Association in Milwaukee, Wisconsin under Mr. Michael Crowley who was President and Chairman of the Board. While I did not work directly for him, he had a practice of taking young managers to lunch periodically and sharing the wisdom he had acquired over many years in the industry. It is a tribute to his leadership that Mutual Savings and Loan was one of the few S&Ls that not only surrived but thrived during the Savings and Loan crisis in the late 1980s.

The poem below describes time as a resource that should be used wisely. As I have mentioned in other articles, time is a scarce economic resource. The last line ... in order that I shall not regret the price I have paid for it, is a good example of opportunity cost – refering to the things we chose not to do in a day in order to do the things that we did.

Have a Happy and Safe New Year's Eve and Best Wishes for a Healthy and Prosperous New Year?

A NEW DAY
by Dr. Heartsil Wilson

This the the beginning of a new
day. God has given me this day
to use as I will. I can waste it -
or use it for good. But what I do
is important, because I am
exchanging a day of my life for
it. When tomorrow comes, this
day will be gone forever leaving
in its place something I traded
for it. I want it to be a gain not
a loss, good not evil, success
and not failure, in order that I
shall not regret the price I have
paid for it.

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