Rule #23: You Don’t Get Something for Nothing

Here’s another one of those adages that rolls off the tongue so often that we don’t think about it, much less really ponder its wisdom.

I get three things from it:

1. Work hard and you just might get something.
2. Don’t work and you should expect to get nothing.
3. When it appears that you have gotten something for nothing, be suspicious.

In Hyde’s early days, a young Vermont farm boy captured the essence of Rule #23 in his application essay:

“Even nature teaches us that you don’t get something for nothing. Why else would she surround honey with bees and roses with thorns?”

‘Nuff said.

Onward,  Malcolm Gauld