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May 22, 2011

Always Count Your Money Before Leaving Window


The title is a sign that you will find by a betting window. I have occasionally gone to the horse races and when I saw this sign, I took it at face value. It means that if you win, you should count the money handed to you by the clerk before you leave the window. Once you leave, if you find you were shorted, it is too late in most cases to do anything about it. Later, I learned it teaches a valuable lesson about other things in life too. It is important to trust, other yourself. It is also important to make sure. Often we may take for granted things only to find out later they were not what we thought they were. There was an error, a slip-up, a mistake perhaps on our part in presuming something. The Tao is a sure thing, we can count on it. However, where human beings are involved, there are no sure things. There are mistakes, deceptions, illusions. Always be sure. It is better to find out now than be sorry later.