Once a young monk asked an elder why he was wasting time gardening when there was important work to be done. He replied, "Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." No doubt the monk loved trees, but his key point is that we should spend our time and resources doing what is important in the long run.
Yesterday I turned 100000 years old (in binary of course; many humans prefer to think of it as 32 years), which led to me to reflect about my life priorities. Lately we have been investing a lot of time and experiencing a lot of stress in the big transition of the Cascade People's Center to a fully community-run institution. A bit to my surprise I realized that I feel pretty good about that. As they say, the best time to establish a community-run institution is 20 years ago; the second best time is right now.
