Skip to main content

KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid



I have been elected to the post of treasurer of the Residents’ Council at Luther Acres. It will be my job to keep track of the receipts and disbursements of the council’s funds. Each month I will also be expected to report to the council on the financial activities for the prior period.
I have already received some feedback on the format of the monthly report; the gist of it is that it is too complicated. The residents say they are old people, inexperienced in financial terminology, and as a result I need to keep it simple.
What complicates matters is that the Executive Committee of the Council needs to see where they are in relation to the budget which is set up at the beginning of the year. And it seems to be the budget that is confusing the main council.
I have some ideas about what to do, and I shall try them out, first at the Executive Committee meeting, and if approved there, at the general council meeting.
As so many things seem to do lately, this situation appears, at least to me, to be a metaphor and a prescription for a productive life. Although we need to be aware of the underlying detail of a given situation, we need to try to simplify it. Use only the tools you need for the job at hand.
I direct this conclusion to those, and I know several, who can take any situation and reduce it to its most complicated form. It’s a waste of time and resources, and can lead to frustration, disappointment, and a host of other psychological effects that are extremely unpleasant.
There is no need to buy a Cadillac if you are only driving around the block.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

There Are Only Seven Jokes - Introduction

      The statement “There are only seven jokes – all the rest are variations,” has been around for a long time, but no one ever seems to know what the original seven are. I think I have found the solution to the mystery.       The answer is to be found in an article published in the New York Times on May 2, 1909. Entitled “New Jokes? There Are No New Jokes, There Is Only One Joke,” it goes on to say that all jokes are a distortion, and lists seven categories of distortion. Supposedly every joke will fit into one of the categories. I believe that repetition changed the seven categories into the seven jokes.       Each of my next seven blogs will be devoted to exploring one of the categories. In addition, I shall attempt to give an example or two of jokes which I think fit the category.       You must realize that this article appeared over one hundred years ago, so most of the jokes appearing therein are so out-of-date that modern readers wouldn’t even understand them. For example,
Post a Comment
Read more

By Today’s Standards Many of my Teachers Would be in Jail

I started school in a two-room building: grades 1 to 4 in one room; grades 5 to 8 in the other. One teacher in each room taught all four grades. I don’t remember first grade very well – the teacher left at the end of the year. I am pretty sure it was not my fault. Now keep in mind that reading the Bible every morning was the standard for all grades at that time. But my teacher in grades two to four went a little above and beyond the normal practice. As a member of a “plain” sect, she considered it her duty to lead the little heathens to Christianity. She offered a free Bible to all students who managed to memorize 20 verses. I memorized my verses – “Jesus saves” was my favorite because it was the shortest – and got my Bible with my twenty underlined in red. That would be illegal today (not the underlining), and rightly so. Teachers may not teach religion, although contrary to what many folks seem to think, students may bring their Bibles to school, read them, and pray their
Post a Comment
Read more
The National Anthem I have a somewhat minor pet peeve. I say minor because in the grand scheme of things neither I nor society will do anything substantive about it, so my best bet is probably to suck it up and move on. Perhaps after writing about it I can lay it to rest. It came up recently while I was working out at our Wellness Center. A program on television was playing America The Beautiful , and I remarked to a lady I have known for 40 years that I thought that should be the National Anthem instead of The Star Spangled Banner. She replied, rather huffily, I thought, “Some people think God Bless America should be the national anthem.” At that point I decided, wisely, I think, to back off before an argument sprang up. Now I realize that The Star Spangled Banner is a very nice, patriotic song, but an anthem it is not. According to Wikipedia, “ An anthem is a  musical composition  of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the  nationa
Post a Comment
Read more