Take TimeTake time to laugh Take time to think Take time to play Take time to read Take time to pray Take time to love and be loved Take time to be friendly Take time to give Take time to work Promise Yourself
(C.D. Larson, Your Forces and How to Use Them) Just For TodayDecide to be happy today, to live with what is yours - your family, your business, your job, your luck. If you can't have what you like, maybe you can like what you have. Just for today, be kind, cheerful, agreeable, responsive, caring, and understanding. Be your best, dress your best, talk softly, and look for the bright side of things. Praise people for what they do and do not criticize them for what they cannot do. If someone does something stupid, forgive and forget. After all, it's just for one day. Who knows, it might turn out to be a nice day. The World Is A PuzzleThere was a man who had a little boy that he loved very much. Everyday after work the man would come home and play with the little boy. He would always spend all of his extra time playing with the little boy. One night, while the man was at work, he realized that he had extra work to do for the evening, and that he wouldn't be able to play with his little boy. But, he wanted to be able to give the boy something to keep him busy. So, looking around his office, he saw a magazine with a large map of the world on the cover. He got an idea. He removed the map, and then patiently tore it up into small pieces. Then he put all the pieces in his coat pocket. When he got home, the little boy came running to him and was ready to play. The man explained that he had extra work to do and couldn't play just now, but he led the little boy into the dining room, and taking out all the pieces of the map, he spread them on the table. He explained that it was a map of the world, and that by the time he could put it back together, his extra work would be finished, and they could both play. Surely this would keep the child busy for hours, he thought. About half an hour later the boy came to the man and said, "Okay, it's finished. Can we play now.?" The man was surprised, saying, "That's impossible. Let's go see." And sure enough, there was the picture of the world, all put together, every piece in it's place. The man said, "That's amazing ! How did you do that ?" The boy said, "It was simple. On the back of the page was a picture of a man. When I put the man together the whole world fell into place." A Tale of TraditionA hard working Chinise rice farmer was supporting his children, wife, and his aging father. He worked long and hard each day, and still, he was barely making enough to feed his children and wife. One day, he stopped working for the entire day. Instead he built a small cart out of wood he had. The next day he went to his aging father, and insisted that the old man was no longer able to help the family. He was only eating and taking up precious resources. So, he loaded him into the newly built cart, and headed up a nearby mountain. When he got to the top, he stopped, and aimed the cart facing down the mountain, but before he could roll the cart, his father stopped him saying, "wait, son, I can understand what you are doing, and even why you are doing it, but please save the cart, your son will need it." A Special Teacher Years ago a John Hopkin's professor gave a group of graduate students this assignment: Go to the slums. Take 200 boys, between the ages of 12 and 16, and investigate their background and environment. Then predict their chances for the future. The students, after consulting social statistics, talking to the boys, and compiling much data, concluded that 90 percent of the boys would spend some time in jail. Twenty-five years later another group of graduate students was given the job of testing the prediction. They went back to the same area. Some of the boys - by then men - were still there, a few had died, some had moved away, but they got in touch with 180 of the original 200. They found that only four of the group had ever been sent to jail. Why was it that these men, who had lived in a breeding place of crime, had such a surprisingly good record? The researchers were continually told: "Well, there was a teacher..." They pressed further, and found that in 75 percent of the cases it was the same woman. The researchers went to this teacher, now living in a home for retired teachers. How had she exerted this remarkable influence over that group of children? Could she give them any reason why these boys should have remembered her? "No," she said, "no I really couldn't." And then, thinking back over the years, she said musingly, more to herself than to her questioners: "I loved those boys...." Listening When a man whose marriage was in trouble sought his advice, the Master said, "You must learn to listen to your wife." The man took this advice to heart and returned after a month to say he had learned to listen to every word his wife was saying. Said the Master with a smile, "Now go home and listen to every word she isn't saying." The Mountain There were two warring tribes in the Andes, one that lived in the lowlands and the other high in the mountains. The mountain people invaded the lowlanders one day, and as part of their plundering of the people, they kidnapped a baby of one of the lowlander families and took the infant with them back up into the mountains. The lowlanders didn't know how to climb the mountain. They didn't know any of the trails that the mountain people used, and they didn't know where to find the mountain people or how to track them in the steep terrain. Even so, they sent out their best party of fighting men to climb the mountain and bring the baby home. The men tried first one method of climbing and then another. They tried one trail and then another. After several days of effort, however, they had climbed only several hundred feet. Feeling hopeless and helpless, the lowlander men decided that the cause was lost, and they prepared to return to their village below. As they were packing their gear for the descent, they saw the baby's mother walking toward them. They realized that she was coming down the mountain that they hadn't figured out how to climb. And then they saw that she had the baby strapped to her back. How could that be? One man greeted her and said, "We couldn't climb this mountain. How did you do this when we, the strongest and most able men in the village, couldn't do it?" She shrugged her shoulders and said, "It wasn't your baby." (Jim Stovall, You Don't Have to Be Blind to See) |
A lesson from a Mad Hatter One of the first steps to accomplishing great things in your life is to cease dwelling on the negative things in your past. Carefully assess your present strengths, successes, and achievements. Dwell on those positive events in your life, and quit limiting your potential by constantly thinking about what you have done poorly. Alice and the Mad Hatter in Wonderland had a conversation that illustrates this concept: Alice: Where I come from, people study what they are not good at in order to be able to do what they are good at. Mad Hatter: Mad Hatter: We only go around in circles in Wonderland, but we always end up where we started. Would you mind explaining yourself? Alice: Alice: Well, grown-ups tell us to find out what we did wrong, and never do it again Mad Hatter: Mad Hatter: That's odd! It seems to me that in order to find out about something, you have to study it. And when you study it, you should become better at it. Why should you want to become better at something and then never do it again? But please continue. Alice: Alice: Nobody ever tells us to study the right things we do. We're only supposed to learn from the wrong things. But we are permitted to study the right things other people do. And sometimes we're even told to copy them. Mad Hatter: Mad Hatter: That's cheating! Alice: Alice: You're quite right, Mr. Hatter. I do live in a topsy-turvy world. It seems like I have to do something wrong first, in order to learn from what not to do. And then, by not doing what I'm not supposed to do, perhaps I'll be right. But I'd rather be right the first time, wouldn't you? PositioningHeron stands in the blue
estuary, People always ask how to follow Tao. It is as easy and natural as the heron standing in the water. The bird moves when it must; it does not move when stillness is appropriate. The secret of its serenity is a type of vigilance, a contemplative state. The heron is not in mere dumbness or sleep. It knows a lucid stillness. It stands unmoving in the flow of the water. It gazes unperturbed and is aware. When Tao brings it something that it needs, it seizes the opportunity without hesitation or deliberation. Then it goes back to its quiescence without disturbing itself or its surroundings. Unless it found the right position in the water's flow and remained patient, it would not have succeeded. Actions in life can be reduced to two factors; positioning and timing. If we are not in the right place at the right time, we cannot possibly take advantage of what life has to offer us. Almost anything is appropriate if an action is in accord with the time and place. But we must be vigilant and prepared. Even if the time and the place are right, we can still miss our chance if we do not notice the moment, if we act inadequately, or if we hamper ourselves with doubts and second thoughts. When life presents an opportunity, we must be ready to seize it without hesitation or inhibition. Position is useless without awareness. If we have both, we make no mistakes. (Deng Ming-Dao) Weakness or Strength ?Sometimes your biggest weakness can become your biggest strength. Take, for example, the story of one 10-year-old boy who decided to study judo despite the fact that he had lost his left arm in a devastating car accident. The boy began lessons with an old Japanese judo master. The boy was doing well, so he couldn't understand why, after three months of training the master had taught him only one move. "Sensei," the boy finally said, "Shouldn't I be learning more moves?" "This is the only move you know, but this is the only move you'll ever need to know," the sensei replied. Not quite understanding, but believing in his teacher, the boy kept training. Several months later, the sensei took the boy to his first tournament. Surprising himself, the boy easily won his first two matches. The third match proved to be more difficult, but after some time, his opponent became impatient and charged; the boy deftly used his one move to win the match. Still amazed by his success, the boy was now in the finals. This time, his opponent was bigger, stronger, and more experienced. For a while, the boy appeared to be overmatched. Concerned that the boy might get hurt, the referee called a time-out. He was about to stop the match when the sensei intervened. "No," the sensei insisted, "Let him continue." Soon after the match resumed, his opponent made a critical mistake: he dropped his guard. Instantly, the boy used his move to pin him. The boy had won the match and the tournament. He was the champion. On the way home, the boy and sensei reviewed every move in each and every match. Then the boy summoned the courage to ask what was really on his mind. "Sensei, how did I win the tournament with only one move?" "You won for two reasons," the sensei answered. "First, you've almost mastered one of the most difficult throws in all of judo. And second, the only known defense for that move is for your opponent to grip your left arm." The boy's biggest weakness had become his biggest strength. WHAT IS MATURITY Maturity is the growing awareness that you are neither wonderful nor worthless. It has been said to be the making of place between what is. and what might be. It isn't a destination. It is a road. It is the moment you wake up after some grief or staggering blow and think, 'I'm going to live after all.' It is the moment when you find out something you have long believed in isn't so, and parting with the old conviction, find that you're still you; The moment you discover somebody can do your job as well as you can, and you go on doing it anyway; The moment you do the thing you have always been afraid of; the moment you realize you are forever alone--but so is everybody else, and so in some ways you are more together than ever, and a hundred other moments when you find out who you are. It is letting life happen in its own good order, and making the most of what there is. Choices There comes a time in your life, when you must decide, No help from anyone, on which you've always relied. Between right and wrong, between black and white, Between good and bad, to walk away or fight. To be honest and true. to be open with your heart, Or to hide your feelings, play it safe from the start. To sit back and watch, to
listen and learn, To stay. to move. to not care, or always prove. To be strong, to be weak, to be aggressive, to be meek. To laugh out loud with all your might, or smile a little just to be polite. To stay together. to live apart. to think with your mind, or trust your with heart. To live in the past. to always look back, to look ahead to the future, with ambition you won't lack. Begun at the front. or start at the end, believe in your own self, or follow the trend. To dream. to hope, to quit, to cope. To be a lover, to be a friend to be real, or just pretend. Choices we make can make or break, to have to decide at all could be our worst fall. Choices are sometimes deceiving, you can be lured by the sweetest bait. So make your decision wisely, because to change your mind could be too late. Life is about choices, for
however we decide, Let Go...The following is a very meaningful story which is called "Let Go", and written by Dr. Billy Graham. A little child was playing one day with a very valuable vase. He put his hand into it and could not withdraw it. His father too, tried his best, but all in vain. They were thinking of breaking the vase when the father said, "Now, my son, make one more try. Open your hand and hold your fingers out straight as you see me doing, and then pull." To their astonishment the little fellow said, "O no, father. I couldn't put my fingers out like that, because if I did I would drop my penny." Smile, if you will--but thousands of us are
like that little boy, so busy holding on to the world's worthless penny that we cannot
accept liberation. I beg you to drop the trifle in your heart. Surrender! Let go, and let
God have His way in your life. |