Fortune Cookie Interpretation

I've been spending a while doing some statutory interpretation exercises in class lately, so thought I'd bring my prowess to bear on that most humble of literary forms, the fortune cookie.

Here's a question of "fortune cookie interpretation" for anyone looking for a little light relief from legal interpretation over the weekend:  Do the following two fortunes mean substantively the same thing?

"Failing to plan is planning to fail."

"Plan your work, and work your plan."

(I think they are significantly different, but a colleague argued that they are, in fact, substantively the same.)

 

Comments

[Unworthy Conversant]

If you define "substantively the same thing" as "having the same imperative objects communicated," then yes; both are commands to plan one's work - the first negative and implicit, the second positive and explicit. And while the negative/positive and implicit/explicit differences here may appear important at first glance, I submit that they are nothing more than purely cosmetic differences - just as a green Prius is as exactly as much a Prius as a red one.

Of course, with such statements I nakedly betray my personal focus on practicality. Perhaps I go too far.

[Jacqui Lipton]

I guess the reason I think they're different is that one of them suggests that you will fail if you don't plan and the other suggests (to me at least) that you should focus on your plan and not be distracted by other things. So my thinking was that the "work your plan" version could be interpreted as admitting the possibility of success, but in a tangential area to the goal whereas the "failure" one suggests that the outcome will be failure if you don't stick to your plan ie distinct from success in a peripheral area. In other words, to me the "work your plan" version is about overall focus/direction of goals whereas the "fail to plan" one is about setting yourself up for general failure if you're not organized.

[Unworthy Conversant]

I confess that I cannot detect any hint of "success in a peripheral area" in the "work your plan" formulation. It is obvious that there is, implied in the language, the promise of success; but I cannot discern an element of peripherality in the object.