" gdbutler at bellsouth.net wrote in message
.. .
I say we worry about the future in the future and worry about today today

Unfortunately, in spite of the incredibly obvious problems with such a
short-sighted attitude, there are many people who, amazingly enough, agree
with that sentiment.

In truth, you can avoid major problems in the future by worrying a little
today about the problems. If you wait until the future, tiny problems turn
into incredibly large problems.

There are countless examples in history of this, but a recent example would
be the whole "Year 2000" computer software issue. According to your
philosophy, we should have waited until all the software broke, and then fix
it rather than going through all the software ahead of time and making sure
things work when the date rolls over. Furthermore, that example shows very
clearly that the long-term cost is much higher when one doesn't plan ahead;
it would have been minimally expensive to have written the software in the
first place without that limitation, and it cost billions of dollars to fix
it after the fact.

In aviation, one need only look at the benefits of keeping an airplane
properly maintained, rather than waiting for things to break. It is much
more costly to fix things after they break, even if you suffer no greater
indignity than to have to cancel a flight. Heaven forbid something should
break in flight...the costs are guaranteed to be even higher, and could even
involve injury or death.

So, you can go around being ignorant about the concept of planning for the
future if you like, but anyone with any common sense understands what an
idiotic attitude that is.

Pete