Continuing in the vein of my last column, as Old Father Time has crept up on me I have had to slow down considerably. My thoughts and actions do not dart about as they did in my younger days.

But then, we are not truly in a race with anyone on our journey through this world. Our only competition is really ourselves.

But even when my goal was a matter of trying to stay on top in business, a task which I took very seriously, I had to learn the lesson of the old saying, “slow and steady wins the race.”

So many of these ancient proverbs predate the development of the English language. This one means working at a slower pace will enable a person to continue making progress when others wear out from fast-paced overworking. It comes from the ancient fable of the tortoise and the hare. It is number 226 in the fables attributed to Aesop, who was a slave said to live in Greece between 620 and 560 BC. The earliest citation available of the proverb in English is found at the end of the fable in "Select British Classics, Volume 29," page 101, 1803:

“You may deride my awkward pace,                                                                            But slow and steady wins the race.”

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