Life Is Not Perfect

No matter how much planning and preparation you do, something will not turn out the way you wanted it to be. Yet even when those inevitable disappointments do indeed come, you can adapt and make the very most of them.

Life is not perfect and yet it can be perfectly wonderful. It’s great to aim for perfection, and even better to achieve excellence in spite of the imperfections you encounter. When people and situations refuse to cooperate, you can be amazingly adaptable. You can move toward excellence even in the most distressing, imperfect scenarios.

Though what you have is not perfect, you can work with it. Accept what you have, imperfections and all, with gratitude and enthusiasm. Don’t spend your time waiting for the perfect situation, something which is not very likely to come. Go ahead with life as it is, with the bumps and the pitfalls, and give your best to every moment.

The Five Finger Prayer

The Five Finger Prayer

Use Your Fingers when you Pray

1. Thumb (people who are close to you)

Your thumb is nearest to you. So begin your prayers by praying for those closest to you. They are the easiest to remember. To pray for our loved ones is, as C.S. Lewis once said, a “sweet duty”.



2. Pointer (people who point the way)

The next finger is the pointing finger. Pray for those who teach, instruct and heal. This includes teachers, doctors, and ministers. They need support and wisdom in pointing others in the right direction. Keep them in your prayers.



3. Tall Finger (people in authority)

The next finger is the tallest finger. It reminds us of our leaders. Pray for the president, leaders in business and industry, and administrators. These people shape our nation and guide public opinion. They need God’s guidance.



4. Ring Finger (people who are weak)

The fourth finger is our ring finger. Surprising to many is the fact that this is our weakest finger; as any piano teacher will testify. It should remind us to pray for those who are weak, in trouble or in pain. They need your prayers day and night. You cannot pray too much for them.




5. Little Finger (your own needs)

And lastly comes our little finger; the smallest finger of all. Which is where we should place ourselves in relation to God and others. As the Bible says, “the least shall be the greatest among you.” Your pinky should remind you to pray for yourself. By the time you have prayed for the other four groups, your own needs will be put into proper perspective and you will be able to pray for yourself more effectively.

Use your daily routine of life to reinforce your prayer life:

When you first wake up – Praise your Creator

When you shower or bathe – Ask for cleansing of your soul; confess, repent & receive forgiveness.

When you eat – Give thanks not only for the food, but for your family, home, life, etc.

When you go to work or school – Pray for those with whom you come into contact

Hard Work Bring Success

There once lived a rich businessman who had a lazy and fun loving son. The businessman wanted his son to be hard-working and responsible. He wanted him to realize the value of labor. One day he summoned his son and said: “Today, I want you to go out and earn something, failing which you won’t have your meals tonight.”

The boy was callous and not used to any kind of work. This demand by his father scared him and he went crying straight to his mother. Her heart melted at the sight of tears in her son’s eyes. She grew restless. In a bid to help him she gave him a gold coin. In the evening when the father asked his son what he had earned, the son promptly presented him the gold coin. The father then asked him to throw it into a well. The son did as he was told.

The father was a man of wisdom and experience and guessed that the source of the gold coin was the boy’s mother. The next day he sent his wife to her parent’s town and asked his son to go and earn something with the threat of being denied the night meals if he failed. This time he went crying to his sister who sympathized with him and gave him a rupee coin out of her own savings. When his father asked him what he had earned the boy tossed the rupee coin at him. The father again asked him to throw it in a well. The son did it quite readily. Again the father’s wisdom told him that the rupee coin was not earned by his son. He then sent his daughter to her in-laws’ house. He again asked his son to go out and earn with the threat that he shall not have anything for dinner that night.

This time since there was no one to help him out; the son was forced to go to the market in search of work. One of the shopkeepers there told him that he would pay him two rupees if he carried his trunk to his house. The rich man’s son could not refuse and was drenched in sweat by the time he finished the job. His feet were trembling and his neck and back were aching. There were rashes on his back. As he returned home and produced the two rupee note before his father and was asked to throw it into the well, the horrified son almost cried out. He could not imagine throwing his hard-earned money like this. He said amid sobbing: “Father! My entire body is aching. My back has rashes and you are asking me to throw the money into the well.”

At this the businessman smiled. He told him that one feels the pain only when the fruits of hard labor are wasted. On earlier two occasions he was helped by his mother and sister and therefore had no pain in throwing the coins into the well. The son had now realized the value of hard work. He vowed never to be lazy and safe keep the father’s wealth. The father handed over the keys of his shop to the son and promised to guide him through the rest of the life.

Moral of the Story: Some of the life’s best lessons come from the hardest situations.

Hare And Tortoise – The Story Doesn’t End Here

Once upon a time a tortoise and a hare had an argument about who was faster. They decided to settle the argument with a race. They agreed on a route and started off the race. The hare shot ahead and ran briskly for some time. Then seeing that he was far ahead of the tortoise, he thought he’d sit under a tree for some time and relax before continuing the race. He sat under the tree and soon fell asleep. The tortoise plodding on overtook him and soon finished the race, emerging as the undisputed champ. The hare woke up and realized that he’d lost the race.

The moral- Slow and steady wins the race. This is the version of the story that we’ve all grown up with.

THE STORY DOESN’T END HERE, there are few more interesting things…..it continues as follows……

The hare was disappointed at losing the race and he did some soul-searching. He realized that he’d lost the race only because he had been overconfident, careless and lax. If he had not taken things for granted, there’s no way the tortoise could have beaten him. So he challenged the tortoise to another race. The tortoise agreed. This time, the hare went all out and ran without stopping from start to finish. He won by several miles.

The moral – Fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady. It’s good to be slow and steady; but it’s better to be fast and reliable.

THE STORY DOESN’T END HERE

The tortoise did some thinking this time, and realized that there’s no way it can beat the hare in a race the way it was currently formatted. It thought for a while, and then challenged the hare to another race, but on a slightly different route. The hare agreed. They started off. In keeping with his self-made commitment to be consistently fast, the hare took off and ran at top speed until he came to a broad river. The finishing line was a couple of kilometers on the other side of the river. The hare sat there wondering what to do. In the meantime the tortoise trundled along, got into the river, swam to the opposite bank, continued walking and finished the race.

The moral – First identify your core competency and then change the playing field to suit your core competency.

THE STORY STILL HASN’T ENDED.

The hare and the tortoise, by this time, had become pretty good friends and they did some thinking together. Both realized that the last race could have been run much better. So they decided to do the last race again, but to run as a team this time. They started off, and this time the hare carried the tortoise till the riverbank. There, the tortoise took over and swam across with the hare on his back. On the opposite bank, the hare again carried the tortoise and they reached the finishing line together. They both felt a greater sense of satisfaction than they’d felt earlier.

The moral – It’s good to be individually brilliant and to have strong core competencies; but unless you’re able to work in a team and harness each other’s core competencies, you’ll always perform below par because there will always be situations at which you’ll do poorly and someone else does well.

Teamwork is mainly about situational leadership, letting the person with the relevant core competency for a situation take leadership.

Note that neither the hare nor the tortoise gave up after failures. The hare decided to work harder and put in more effort after his failure. The tortoise changed his strategy because he was already working as hard as he could.

In life, when faced with failure, sometimes it is appropriate to work harder and put in more effort. Sometimes it is appropriate to change strategy and try something different. And sometimes it is appropriate to do both. The hare and the tortoise also learnt another vital lesson. When we stop competing against a rival and instead start competing against the situation, we perform far better.

To sum up, the story of the hare and tortoise has much to say:

• Chief among them are that fast and consistent will always beat slow and steady;
• Work to your competencies;
• Pooling resources and working as a team will always beat individual performers;
• Never give up when faced with failure;
• Finally, compete against the situation – not against a rival.

Happiness is A Direction, Not A Destination

Happiness is a direction, not a destination

Love yourself

Where there is love There is life – Gandhi

Decide that you want it you are afraid of it – Bill Cosby

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. –

The difference between ordinary is that little extra – Jimmy Johnson

Happiness depends upon ourselves.- Aristotle

If you’re doing your best, you won’t have any time to worry about failure. – H. Jackson Brown,Jc

An eye for an eye, only makes the whole world blind. – Gandhi

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. – Lao Tzu

The Purpose of life is a purpose. – Robert Byrne

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used to create them. – Albert Einstein

The World Is A Big Mirror

A long time ago there was a great Shah. He ordered to build a beautiful palace which had many wonderful things in it. Among other curiosities in the palace there was a hall, where all the walls, the sealing, the door and even the floor were made of mirror. The mirrors were so clear and smooth that visitors didn’t understand at once that there was a mirror in front of them so accurately the mirrors would reflect the objects. Moreover, the walls of this hall were made in a way that they created an extraordinary increased echo.

Once, a dog ran into the hall and froze in surprise in the middle of the hall, a whole pack of dogs surrounded it from all sides, from above and below. Just in case, the dog bared his teeth and all the reflections responded to it in the same way. Frightened, the dog frantically barked the echo imitated the bark and increased it many times. The dog barked even harder and the echo was keeping up. The dog tossed from one side to another, biting the air- his reflections also tossed around snapping their teeth.

In the morning, the guards found the miserable dog, lifeless and surrounded by a million reflections of lifeless dogs. There was nobody, who would make any harm to the dog. The dog died by fighting with his own reflections.

The world doesn’t bring good or evil on its own. Everything that is happening around us is the reflection of our own thoughts, feelings, wishes and actions. The world is a big mirror.

Laughter The Best Medicine

Many years ago, Norman Cousins was diagnosed as “terminally ill”. He was given six months to live. His chance for recovery was 1 in 500. He could see the worry, depression and anger in his life contributed to, and perhaps helped cause, his disease. He wondered, “If illness can be caused by negativity, can wellness be created by positivity?”

He decided to make an experiment of himself. Laughter was one of the most positive activities he knew. He rented all the funny movies he could find – Keaton, Chaplin, Fields, the Marx Brothers. (This was before VCRs, so he had to rent the actual films.) He read funny stories. He asked his friends to call him whenever they said, heard or did something funny. His pain was so great he could not sleep. Laughing for 10 solid minutes, he found, relieved the pain for several hours so he could sleep.

He fully recovered from his illness and lived another 20 happy, healthy and productive years. (His journey is detailed in his book, Anatomy of an Illness.) He credits visualization, the love of his family and friends, and laughter for his recovery. Some people think laughter is a waste of time. It is a luxury, they say, a frivolity, something to indulge in only every so often. Nothing could be further from the truth. Laughter is essential to our equilibrium, to our well-being, to our aliveness. If we’re not well, laughter helps us get well; if we are well, laughter helps us stay that way. Since Cousins’ ground-breaking subjective work, scientific studies have shown that laughter has a curative effect on the body, the mind and the emotions.

So, if you like laughter, consider it sound medical advice to indulge in it as often as you can. If you don’t like laughter, then take your medicine – laugh anyway. Use whatever makes you laugh – movies, sitcoms, Monty Python, records, books, New Yorker cartoons, jokes, friends.

Give yourself permission to laugh – long and loud and out loud – whenever anything strikes you as funny. The people around you may think you’re strange, but sooner or later they’ll join in even if they don’t know what you’re laughing about.

Some diseases may be contagious, but none is as contagious as the cure. . . laughter.

– “Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul”