Thomas Jefferson’s Tips for Living a Practical Life

1 Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
2  Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
3 Never spend your money before you have it.
4 Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap.
5 Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.
6 We never repent of having eaten too little.
7  Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
8 How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.
9 Take things always by their smooth handle.
10  When angry, count to ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.

I was surprised that in 15 years of writing my blog I have never posted this wonderful list from Thomas Jefferson. We visited Monticello when the girls were young and I bought a variant of this list and had it on the wall in my office for many years. The photo is of the Jefferson Memorial taken when I visited with Gene and Carol during the Chesapeake Bay trip on Sweet Dreams.

There is some irony and hypocrisy in the list. Jefferson had slaves to do for him (Number 2), he died deeply in debt (number 3) and he didn’t speak to his colleague John Adams for 20 years (number 5). Knowing what you should do is different than actually doing it.