����It's Pop Quiz Day. You remembered to bring several sharpened pencils and an eraser, right?

    Sheesh, what kind of people are you?

����Okay, here's the quiz, it's in two parts which oddly enough fit together.

����Question 1. Does he/she who dies with the most toys really win?

����Question 2. Should we put a dollar sign on everything we do?

����And while you mull that over, you might find that Joni Mitchell's "Real Good For Free" from the Miles of Aisles album makes great background music.

����The Olympics have got me thinking about these two questions big time. See, there are lots of folks competing there who have the proverbial snowball's chance in hell of actually winning anything.

����These folks knew that fact from the get-go, but devoted years of their lives to a sport because they simply wanted to achieve a personal best in something that mattered to them.

����In a sense, they are competing against themselves, trying to expand their limits.

����And, in all but the most high profile sports, even winning an Olympic gold medal will not win you fame and fortune. All it gives you is a moment in time when your personal best was the best in the world. To achieve that personal best often involves great emotional and financial sacrifice--to do it, you're limiting the odds that you'll top the most toys list.

����Then four years down the road, the odds are also good that your personal best will be erased by someone else's effort ...

����So I guess that feeds into question #2--should we discard everything from our lives that will not make us money? If we can't put a price tag on something we do, does that make it worthless?

����Is the music in a public concert, or the writing open to us here at Diaryland worthless because we get to experience it for free?

����Is it foolish to indulge in a love of words or music for the sheer pleasure of it?

����Is it enough to do it for yourself, to see if you can achieve your own personal best in something that matters to you, even if you know you're never going to be a Winton Marsalis or a John Irving?

����Questions, all I seem to have is questions.

����Hmmmm, what kind of person gives a pop quiz when they don't know the answers themself?