Unlike from my usual posts where i used to write something on my life with all tenses ( dnt get panic , i was telling about Past, Present, Future), but as i was reading some articles, i felt i should share these article over here.
so i am posting some stories on life lessons.
So as i wrote the warning (i.e. post on life lessons), so the user who wanna stay out of this can avoid this post. :p
here i go....::
1. The Law of the Garbage Truck
One day, I hopped into a taxi and took off for the airport . We were driving in the right lane when suddenly, a black car, jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed the brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches!
The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. I mean, was really friendly.
So I asked, "Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!" This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck'
He explained, "Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. NEVER take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on with the routine life." Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home or on the streets.
The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so...... 'Love the people who treat you right.. Pray for the ones who don't.'
A very rightly said quote: Life is 10% what you make and 90% how you take!
2. Pencil and the Eraser
Pencil: I'm sorry
Eraser: For what? You didn't do anything wrong.
Pencil: I'm sorry because you get hurt because of me. Whenever I made a mistake, you're always there to erase it. But as you make my mistakes vanish, you lose a part of yourself. You get smaller and smaller each time.
Eraser: That's true. But I don't really mind. You see, I was made to do this. I was made to help you whenever you do something wrong. Even though one day, I know I'll be gone and you'll replace me with a new one, I'm actually happy with my job. So please, stop worrying. I hate seeing you sad.
I found this conversation between the pencil and the eraser very inspirational.
Parents are like the eraser whereas their children are the pencil. They're always there for their children, cleaning up their mistakes. Sometimes along the way, they get hurt, and become smaller / older, and eventually pass on. Though their children will eventually find someone new (spouse), but parents are still happy with what they do for their children, and will always hate seeing their precious ones worrying, or sad.
All my life, I've been the pencil. And it pains me to see the eraser that is my parents getting smaller and smaller each day. For I know that one day, all that I'm left with would be eraser shavings and memories of what I used to have .
3. God Help Me.
An eye witness account from New York City , on a cold day in December, some years ago:
A little boy, about 10-years-old, was standing before a shoe store on the roadway, barefooted, peering through the window, and shivering with cold.
A lady approached the young boy and said, 'My, but you're in such deep thought staring in that window!'
'I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes,' was the boy's reply.
The lady took him by the hand, went into the store, and asked the clerk to get half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy. She then asked if he could give her a basin of water and a towel. He quickly brought them to her.
She took the little fellow to the back part of the store and, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed his little feet, and dried them with the towel.
By this time, the clerk had returned with the socks. Placing a pair upon the boy's feet, she purchased him a pair of shoes.
She tied up the remaining pairs of socks and gave them to him.. She patted him on the head and said, 'No doubt, you will be more comfortable now.'
As she turned to go, the astonished kid caught her by the hand, and looking up into her face, with tears in his eyes, asked her, 'Are you God's wife?'
4. Managing Stress
A lecturer when explaining stress management to an audience, Raised a glass of water and asked "How heavy is this glass of water?"
Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.
The lecturer replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it.
If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem.
If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm.
If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance.
In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."
He continued,
"And that's the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, As the burden becomes increasingly heavy, We won't be able to carry on."
"So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down.
Don't carry it home.
You can pick it up tomorrow.
Whatever burdens you're carrying now,
Let them down for a moment if you can."
So, my friend, Put down anything that may be a burden to you right now. Don't pick it up again until after you've rested a while.
5. Azim Premji, Chairman and Managing Director of Wipro Limited, shares his perspective on success and effective living with teenagers.
The funny thing about life is that you realize the value of something only when it begins to leave you. As my hair turned from black, to salt and pepper to finally salt without pepper, I have begun to realize the importance of youth. At the same time, I have begun to truly appreciate some of the lessons I have learnt along the way. I hope you will find them useful when you plan your career and life.
The first thing I have learnt is that we must always begin with our strengths. From the earliest years of our schooling, everyone focuses on what is wrong with us. There is an imaginary story of a rabbit. The rabbit was enrolled in a rabbit school.
Like all rabbits, it could hop very well but could not swim. At the end of the year, the rabbit got high marks in hopping but failed in swimming. The parents were concerned. They said, "Forget about hopping, you are good at it anyway. Concentrate on swimming". They sent the rabbit for tuition's in swimming.
And guess what happened? The rabbit forgot how to hop. As for swimming, have you ever seen a rabbit swim? While it is important for us to know what we are not good at, we must also cherish what is good in us.
That is because; it is only our strengths that can give us the energy to correct our weaknesses. The second lesson I have learnt is that a Rupee earned is of far more value than FIVE found. My friend was sharing with me the story of his eight year old niece, she would always complain about breakfast. The cook tried everything possible, but the child remained unhappy. Finally my friend took the child to a supermarket and bought one of those ready-to-cook packets. The child had to cut the packet and pour the water in the dish. After that, it took two minutes in the microwave to be ready. The child found the food to be absolutely delicious.
The difference was that she had cooked it! In my own life, I have found that nothing gives as much satisfaction as earning our rewards. In fact, what is gifted or inherited follows the old rule of come easy, go easy. I guess we know the value of what we have if we have to struggle to earn it.
The third lesson I have learned is that no one bats a hundred every time. Life has many challenges. You win some and lose some. You must enjoy winning. But do not let it go to the head. The moment it does, you are already on your way to failure.
And if you encounter failure along the way, treat it as an equally natural phenomenon. Don't beat yourself for it or anyone for that matter! Accept it, look at your own share of the problem, learn from it and move on. The important thing is, when you lose do not lose the lesson.
The fourth lesson I have learnt is the importance of humility. Sometimes, when you get so much in life, you really start wondering whether you really deserve all of it! This brings me to the value of gratitude. We have so much to be grateful
for. Our parents, our teachers and our seniors have done so much for us that we can never repay them. Many people focus on the shortcomings, because obviously, no one can be perfect. But it is important to first acknowledge what we have received. Nothing in life is permanent but when a relationship ends, rather than becoming bitter, we must learn to savor the memory of the good things while they lasted.
The fifth lesson is that we must always strive for excellence. One way of achieving excellence is by looking at those better than ourselves. Keep learning what they do differently. Emulate it. But excellence cannot be imposed from outside. We must also feel the need from within. It must become an obsession. It must involve not only our mind but also our heart and soul.
Excellence is not an act but a habit. I remember the inspiring lines of a poem, which says that your reach must always exceed your grasp. That is heaven on earth. Ultimately, your only competition is yourself.
The sixth lesson I have learnt is never give up in adversity. It comes on you suddenly without warning. One can either succumb to self-pity, wring your hands in despair or decide to deal with the situation with courage and dignity. Always keep in mind that it is only the test of fire that makes us find steel. A friend of mine shared this incident with me.
His eight-year-old daughter was struggling away at a jigsaw puzzle. She kept at it for hours but could not succeed. Finally, it went beyond her bedtime. My friend told her, "Look, why don't you just give up? I don't think you will complete it tonight. Look at it another day."
The daughter looked with a strange look in her eyes, "But, Dad, why should I give up? All the pieces are there! I have just got to put them together!"
If we persevere long enough, we can put any problem in perspective.
The seventh lesson I have learnt is that while you must be open to change, do not compromise on your values. Mahatma Gandhi often said that you must open the windows of your mind, but you must not be swept off your feet by the breeze.
You must define what your core values are and what you stand for. And these values are not so difficult to define. Values like honesty, integrity, consideration and sensitivity have survived for generations. Values are not in the words
used to describe them, as much as in simple acts. A wise man once said, "You do not have to change the world to make a difference. If on the way to your house, you can bring a smile on the face of a crying child, you have done your bit".
At the end of the day, it is values that define a person more than the achievements. Because it is the means of achievement that decide how long the achievements will sustain. Do not be tempted by short cuts. The short cut can make
you lose your way and end up becoming the longest way to the destination.
And the final lesson I learnt is that we must have faith in our own ideas even if everyone tells us that we are wrong. There was once a newspaper vendor who had a rude customer.
Every morning, the customer would walk by, refusing to return the greeting, grab the paper off the self and throw the money at the vendor. The vendor would pick up the money, smile politely and say "Thank you, Sir." One day the Vendor's assistant asked him, "Why are you always polite with him when he is so rude to you? Why don't you throw the newspaper at him when he comes back tomorrow?" The Vendor smiled and replied, "he can't help being rude and I can't help being polite. Why should I let his rude behavior dictate my politeness?"
So it is, my young friends, with all of us. In my youth, I thought of myself as a rebel and was any times, a rebel without a cause. Today, I realize that my rebellion was another kind of conformity. We defied our elders to fall in line with our peers! Ultimately, we must learn to respond instead of reacting. When we respond, we evaluate with a calm mind and do whatever is most appropriate. We are in control of our actions. When we react, we are still doing what the other
person wants us to do.
I wish you all the best in your life and career. I hope you achieve success in whatever way you define it and what gives you the maximum in life. Remember those who win are those who believe they can.
6. Being a Human ( My fav)
A nurse took the tired, anxious serviceman to the bedside.
"Your son is here," she said to the old man.
She had to repeat the words several times before the patient's eyes opened.
"Your son is here," she said to the old man.
She had to repeat the words several times before the patient's eyes opened.
Heavily sedated because of the pain of his heart attack, he dimly saw the young uniformed
Marine standing outside the oxygen tent. He reached out his hand. The Marine wrapped his toughened fingers around the old man's limp ones, squeezing a message of love and encouragement.
The nurse brought a chair so that the Marine could sit beside the bed. All through the night the
young Marine sat there in the poorly lighted ward, holding the old man's hand and offering him words of love and strength. Occasionally, the nurse suggested that the Marine move away and rest awhile.
He refused. Whenever the nurse came into the ward, the Marine was oblivious of her and of the night noises of the hospital - the clanking of the oxygen tank, the laughter of the night staff members exchanging greetings, the cries and moans of the other patients.
Now and then she heard him say a few gentle words. The dying man said nothing, only held tightly to his son all through the night.
Along towards dawn, the old man died. The Marine released the now lifeless hand he had been holding and went to tell the nurse. While she did what she had to do, he waited.
Finally, she returned. She started to offer words of sympathy, but the Marine interrupted her.
"Who was that man?" he asked.
The nurse was startled, "He was your father," she answered.
"No, he wasn't," the Marine, replied. "I never saw him before in my life."
"Then why didn't you say something when I took you to him?"
"I knew right away there had been a mistake, but I also knew he needed his son, and his son just
wasn't here. When I realized that he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son, knowing how much he needed me, I stayed."
The next time someone needs you ... just be there. Stay.
WE ARE NOT HUMAN BEINGS GOING THROUGH A TEMPORARY SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE.
WE ARE SPIRITUAL BEINGS GOING THROUGH A TEMPORARY HUMAN EXPERIENCE.
Marine standing outside the oxygen tent. He reached out his hand. The Marine wrapped his toughened fingers around the old man's limp ones, squeezing a message of love and encouragement.
The nurse brought a chair so that the Marine could sit beside the bed. All through the night the
young Marine sat there in the poorly lighted ward, holding the old man's hand and offering him words of love and strength. Occasionally, the nurse suggested that the Marine move away and rest awhile.
He refused. Whenever the nurse came into the ward, the Marine was oblivious of her and of the night noises of the hospital - the clanking of the oxygen tank, the laughter of the night staff members exchanging greetings, the cries and moans of the other patients.
Now and then she heard him say a few gentle words. The dying man said nothing, only held tightly to his son all through the night.
Along towards dawn, the old man died. The Marine released the now lifeless hand he had been holding and went to tell the nurse. While she did what she had to do, he waited.
Finally, she returned. She started to offer words of sympathy, but the Marine interrupted her.
"Who was that man?" he asked.
The nurse was startled, "He was your father," she answered.
"No, he wasn't," the Marine, replied. "I never saw him before in my life."
"Then why didn't you say something when I took you to him?"
"I knew right away there had been a mistake, but I also knew he needed his son, and his son just
wasn't here. When I realized that he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son, knowing how much he needed me, I stayed."
The next time someone needs you ... just be there. Stay.
WE ARE NOT HUMAN BEINGS GOING THROUGH A TEMPORARY SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE.
WE ARE SPIRITUAL BEINGS GOING THROUGH A TEMPORARY HUMAN EXPERIENCE.
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