{"id":14596,"date":"2012-12-17T23:12:16","date_gmt":"2012-12-17T23:12:16","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-12-31T18:01:25","modified_gmt":"2012-12-31T18:01:25","slug":"-Provide-Provide-","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=14596","title":{"rendered":"“Provide, Provide”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cProvide, Provide\u201d is the title of a somber little poem by the great Robert Frost.<\/strong> It has a message quite appropriate for the start of a new year, when we are making our resolutions to do well or to do better.<\/p>\n

The central figure in the poem, once a famous actress, \u201cthe picture pride of Hollywood,\u201d has been reduced to \u201cwash the steps with pad and rag,\u201d as a cleaning lady.
\n<\/strong>
\nFrost counsels us to die early or, if dying late, to make sure we have money or lasting fame\u2026or someone who still cares: <\/p>\n

\u201cSome have relied on what they knew,
\nOthers on being simply true.
\nWhat worked for them might work for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being smart or loyal might not suffice.
\n<\/strong>
\nFrost advises us to have enough money saved up so that, at the end, we would have, at least, \u201cboughten friendship\u201d at our side.<\/p>\n

What does the future hold for a reader of www.asiancemagazine.com<\/a><\/em>? <\/strong>She will likely earn one or more college degrees and bring home an above-average income. She will have several jobs and perhaps two or three different careers. She will probably marry once, maybe twice, have a child or two or three and outlive her marriages, surviving into her eighties or nineties. If she is wise, she will have saved for retirement, will have preserved friendships and familial ties, and will have kept herself fit and trim.<\/p>\n

Stephen R. Covey, in his now-classic book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, <\/em><\/strong>writes that we must set aside time, effort, money to \u201csharpen the saw\u201d<\/strong>\u2013to continue to improve ourselves and not let our talents waste away or grow stale. In a rapidly changing world, we must not cease to enhance our skills.
\n<\/strong>
\nCovey recommends we \u201cbegin with the end in mind.\u201d<\/strong> Frost calls our attention to the very end, our last years. My 95-year-old mother is here with us, having fallen and hurt herself at her home two years ago. She would like still to be in her own home, but that would be too expensive. She has saved, but not enough for the care she now needs. My beloved wife, Tina Su Cooper, is receiving around-the-clock care in our home because we have had insurance sufficient to cover it, first through long-term-care insurance and second through IBM retiree medical benefits\u2026due to choices we made decades ago.<\/p>\n

Choices, choices\u2026whether to spend now or save for later.<\/strong> We must balance. Either spending or saving can be overdone. Keeping fit, limiting risks, remaining engaged socially, balancing work and \u201cplay\u201d make sense for a long and happy life. <\/p>\n

Being alive in twenty-first century America means we are more fortunate than many others.<\/strong> We can hope to have even better futures if we pay attention to what we will need, for our health, our finances, our inter-personal relationships. We know what to do. We must \u201cjust do it.\u201d
\n<\/strong>
\nI recently co-authored a book partly about the once-famous movie actress Ava Gardner<\/strong>. This part of Frost\u2019s poem could have been written about her:<\/p>\n

\u201cNo memory of having starred
\nAtones for later disregard
\nOr keeps the end from being hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Provide, provide!
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph.D., is a retired scientist, now an author [douglas@tingandi.com<\/em>] who now helps others to write their own books. He wrote Ting and I: A Memoir\u2026 <\/em><\/strong> and co-authored Ava Gardner\u2019s Daughter?<\/em><\/strong> and The Shield of Gold<\/em><\/strong>, all three published by Outskirts Press [outskirtspress.com<\/em>] and available through Outskirts and amazon.com<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cProvide, Provide\u201d is the title of a somber little poem by the great Robert Frost. It has a message quite<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2663,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"michaelly","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/957a72dc0c08f14979f0d258f5a5d70644519bea0e589bfbc83999b24053b763?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"\u201cProvide, Provide\u201d is the title of a somber little poem by the great Robert Frost. It has a message quite","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":143,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":3,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"michaelly","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=2663"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/957a72dc0c08f14979f0d258f5a5d70644519bea0e589bfbc83999b24053b763?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"News<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}