About 7-8 years ago, I got myself a new laptop. A friend, who was a whiz at computers, saw it and remarked, “Wow! Harmon Kardon speakers!” I hadn’t really noticed that and so looked at the laptop with renewed interest. I began to enjoy the sound that came out of the laptop because of the Harmon Kardon speakers.
Last week I was reading the Bloomberg Business Week and they had an obituary for Sidney Harmon (1918-2011). It said, “In an ideal life, one wouldn’t have to choose between the pursuit of wealth and the pursuit of knowledge. By that standard and many others, Sidney Harmon – the scientist, stereo mogul, Under Secretary of Commerce, professor, philanthropist and magazine publisher, who died on April 14 – lived ideally.”
What a breath to life! They went on to say, “After making his fortune in hi-fi, Harmon worked for civil rights, served in the Carter administration, studied almost everything and took on a failing Newsweek.”
I was reminded about how I enjoyed hearing the Harmon Kardon amplifier and JBL speakers. I looked at his life and was amazed at the way his life had progressed. Graduating from City College, New York in 1939, he found an engineering job at a loudspeaker company where his boss was a man named Bernard Kardon. 14 years later in 1953, he and his boss put in $5000 to make the first integrated hi-fi receiver and they did that by combining the amplifier and tuner into one visually appealing machine.
Harmon wasn’t content with that; he had a passion for labor relations. In the early 70’s, he went to work with United Auto workers, a factory in Tennessee. He introduced the so-called Bolivar experiment which gave workers the power to make improvements in procedures and to go home when their production quotas were filled, a system called “earned idle time”. Although it had its pros and cons, it caught the eye of President Jimmy Carter, who named him Under Secretary of Commerce, a position which he held from 1977 to 1978.
Then in 1973, at the age of 55, 34 years after getting his undergrad degree, he got his PhD in Social Psychology. Here was a man into engineering, who decides to go into Social Psychology. From there he went into philanthropy and then got involved in all kinds of things worldwide until buying up Newsweek just before he died. What an amazing life!
The Daily Beast posted a statement from Harmon’s family and they said this, “Sidney Harmon died last night of complications from acute myeloid leukemia at the young age of 93. What a life! So well spent, he left his mark on the sands of time.
Sometimes we tend to be so myopic, have tunneled vision in our life. We do the things that we need to do and then, nothing at all. If we look at a life like this, we see how he touched different aspects of society. I was challenged by that, thinking, “Am I making my life count for something> can I say that ‘my life is a life well-lived?’” 92 years young and just a year and a half ago got into publishing by picking up Newsweek which was going down the tube, with a commitment to lose almost 40 million a year, to get it up.
Is my life; is your life worth our living? That was a question which challenger me. Between the ages of 10-15, I had the privilege of having a wonderful man speak into my life and challenge me. This was in Chennai and I still remember his piercing eyes looking into me, saying, “What are you doing with your life? Are you making right life choices?” I have never forgotten him.
Today I got a letter from him, the kind that’s sent to everyone he’s connected with, letting him know their itinerary and how people can pray for him. I was amazed. He is around 80 and his 2011 itinerary blew my mind. He starts out in California and from there he moves to San Diego. Then flies to Chennai, India, on to Pune, back to Chennai, then Trichy. Then he flies out to Budapest in Hungary. Then back to the US, North Carolina, then out to Canada, Cleveland, Indiana, San Jose, Philadelphia, you name it. Then he’s off to Australia, then back to India, West Bengal, Chennai, Bangalore; all this at the age of 80; still moving around and impacting different kinds of people.
I am touched that I have had the opportunity that I have had people like that touch my life. Yet, I wondered about myself and all of us on this call. Are we doing what needs to be done to touch people around us? Are we being encouragers? Are we building up our colleagues, encouraging our co-workers, giving someone a break, touching their lives, thinking outside the box, using our peripheral vision, thinking large, thinking global and just making every day count? That was the challenge for me this morning.
I was reminded of a verse in our Holy Book that says; “Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)
Or put in other words, “Teach us to use wisely all the time that we have.”
What about you, my friends? Is that something that you can say, “Yes, that’s my life!”?
We talked about conforming the last 2 weeks, from without and from within. This week I think the thought for us is not having to conform to people around or to the thoughts that we have within, that limit us. Can we live life to its fullest extent? That when we have finished with our life, people will look at our lives and say, “That was a life well lived,” or “These were giants of our time; they left footsteps on the sands of time.”
Teach us O God, to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.
That’s the thought for today, my friends.
God Bless You All.
Last week I was reading the Bloomberg Business Week and they had an obituary for Sidney Harmon (1918-2011). It said, “In an ideal life, one wouldn’t have to choose between the pursuit of wealth and the pursuit of knowledge. By that standard and many others, Sidney Harmon – the scientist, stereo mogul, Under Secretary of Commerce, professor, philanthropist and magazine publisher, who died on April 14 – lived ideally.”
What a breath to life! They went on to say, “After making his fortune in hi-fi, Harmon worked for civil rights, served in the Carter administration, studied almost everything and took on a failing Newsweek.”
I was reminded about how I enjoyed hearing the Harmon Kardon amplifier and JBL speakers. I looked at his life and was amazed at the way his life had progressed. Graduating from City College, New York in 1939, he found an engineering job at a loudspeaker company where his boss was a man named Bernard Kardon. 14 years later in 1953, he and his boss put in $5000 to make the first integrated hi-fi receiver and they did that by combining the amplifier and tuner into one visually appealing machine.
Harmon wasn’t content with that; he had a passion for labor relations. In the early 70’s, he went to work with United Auto workers, a factory in Tennessee. He introduced the so-called Bolivar experiment which gave workers the power to make improvements in procedures and to go home when their production quotas were filled, a system called “earned idle time”. Although it had its pros and cons, it caught the eye of President Jimmy Carter, who named him Under Secretary of Commerce, a position which he held from 1977 to 1978.
Then in 1973, at the age of 55, 34 years after getting his undergrad degree, he got his PhD in Social Psychology. Here was a man into engineering, who decides to go into Social Psychology. From there he went into philanthropy and then got involved in all kinds of things worldwide until buying up Newsweek just before he died. What an amazing life!
The Daily Beast posted a statement from Harmon’s family and they said this, “Sidney Harmon died last night of complications from acute myeloid leukemia at the young age of 93. What a life! So well spent, he left his mark on the sands of time.
Sometimes we tend to be so myopic, have tunneled vision in our life. We do the things that we need to do and then, nothing at all. If we look at a life like this, we see how he touched different aspects of society. I was challenged by that, thinking, “Am I making my life count for something> can I say that ‘my life is a life well-lived?’” 92 years young and just a year and a half ago got into publishing by picking up Newsweek which was going down the tube, with a commitment to lose almost 40 million a year, to get it up.
Is my life; is your life worth our living? That was a question which challenger me. Between the ages of 10-15, I had the privilege of having a wonderful man speak into my life and challenge me. This was in Chennai and I still remember his piercing eyes looking into me, saying, “What are you doing with your life? Are you making right life choices?” I have never forgotten him.
Today I got a letter from him, the kind that’s sent to everyone he’s connected with, letting him know their itinerary and how people can pray for him. I was amazed. He is around 80 and his 2011 itinerary blew my mind. He starts out in California and from there he moves to San Diego. Then flies to Chennai, India, on to Pune, back to Chennai, then Trichy. Then he flies out to Budapest in Hungary. Then back to the US, North Carolina, then out to Canada, Cleveland, Indiana, San Jose, Philadelphia, you name it. Then he’s off to Australia, then back to India, West Bengal, Chennai, Bangalore; all this at the age of 80; still moving around and impacting different kinds of people.
I am touched that I have had the opportunity that I have had people like that touch my life. Yet, I wondered about myself and all of us on this call. Are we doing what needs to be done to touch people around us? Are we being encouragers? Are we building up our colleagues, encouraging our co-workers, giving someone a break, touching their lives, thinking outside the box, using our peripheral vision, thinking large, thinking global and just making every day count? That was the challenge for me this morning.
I was reminded of a verse in our Holy Book that says; “Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)
Or put in other words, “Teach us to use wisely all the time that we have.”
What about you, my friends? Is that something that you can say, “Yes, that’s my life!”?
We talked about conforming the last 2 weeks, from without and from within. This week I think the thought for us is not having to conform to people around or to the thoughts that we have within, that limit us. Can we live life to its fullest extent? That when we have finished with our life, people will look at our lives and say, “That was a life well lived,” or “These were giants of our time; they left footsteps on the sands of time.”
Teach us O God, to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.
That’s the thought for today, my friends.
God Bless You All.
No comments:
Post a Comment