80 | FORBES INDONESIA JULY 2019
Thoughts on
EVERETT COLLECTION-NEWSCOM“My life didn’t please me,
so I created my life.”
Coco Chanel“If you can’t learn to master
your thinking, you’re in deep
trouble forever.”
Elizabeth Gilbert“Our anxiety does not come
from thinking about the future,
but from wanting to control it.”
Kahlil Gibran“Life is to be lived, not
controlled, and humanity is
won by continuing to play in
the face of certain defeat.”
Ralph Ellison“Freedom is the only worthy
goal in life. It is won by
disregarding things that lie
beyond our control.”
Epictetus“Humility means accepting
reality with no attempt to
outsmart it.”
David Richo“We are ruled by the forces of
chance and coincidence.”
Paul AusterFINAL THOUGHT“Authority is shared
only when the
sharer is sure of his.”
Malcolm ForbesCONTROL
SOURCES: INVISIBLE MAN, BY RALPH ELLISON; THE FIVE THINGS WE CANNOT CHANGE, BY
DAVID RICHO; EAT, PRAY, LOVE, BY ELIZABETH GILBERT; LORENZACCIO, BY ALFRED DE MUSSET;
DISCOURSES, BY EPICTETUS; WHY RELIGION?, BY ELAINE PAGELS.“Don’t despair. Despair
suggests you are in total
control and know what is
coming. You don’t. Surrender to
events with hope.”
Alain de Botton“If guilt is the price we pay for
the illusion that we have some
control over nature, many of
us are willing to pay it.”
Elaine Pagels“Is it true that dictators never
dream, because they can
change their smallest fantasies
into realities if they want to?”
Alfred de Musset“Men are more easily governed
through their vices than
through their virtues.”
Napoleon Bonaparte“She thought: How hard it
is to change one’s life. And
again she thought: How
terrifyingly simple it is to
change the lives of others.”
Cynthia Ozick“The greater a man’s talents,
the greater his power to
lead astray.”
Aldous Huxley“The human race divides
politically into those who want
people to be controlled and
those who have no
such desire.”
Robert A. Heinlein“Put all the things you can
control in order. Repair what
is in disorder, and make what
is already good better. It is
possible that you can manage,
if you are careful.”
Jordan Peterson“Better a patient person than
a warrior, one with self-control
than one who takes a city.”
Proverbs 16:32Two years after introducing the storied System/360 main-
frame, IBM had a hammerlock on the global computer
market, accounting for two thirds of the $8 billion industry
($62.5 billion in today’s money). The 360, the smallest
version of which cost $2,700 a month to lease ($21,100
today), was on 24-month back order.
So successful was IBM that trustbusters were a con-
stant concern. Company chairman Thomas J. Watson Jr.
noted that the firm’s market share had shrunk a bit the
previous few years: “We hope the Justice Department will
be satisfied.” IBM also engaged in “indoctrination of its
employees,” regularly screening films starring Watson, in
which he urged his workers to be “wild ducks” and take
risks. Messages from the chairman were also piped in
periodically over the office phone system. “Some
employees resent this and refer to the company as ‘Big
Brother,’ ” we wrote, “a nickname IBM detests.”
Watson bristled at any insinuation of paternalism: “We
devote more time to people than anything else.”September 15, 1966