To affect the quality of the days, that is the highest of the arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

Our life is frittered away by detail….Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail.

–Henry David Thoreau, February 19, 1857

I think of this as I look out on the fall colors and think of my wildly hectic life… . Two or three affairs (i.e.agendas)? Wow, in 2009 there are about 30 a day!