Complex problems do have a solution

Many years ago in a small Indian village, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the farmer’s beautiful daughter. So he proposed a bargain. He said he would forgo the farmer’s debt if he could marry his daughter. Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal. So the cunning money-lender suggested that they let providence decide the matter.

He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag. Then the girl would have to pick one pebble from the bag. If she picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father’s debt would be forgiven. If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father’s debt would still be forgiven. But if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.

They were standing on a pebble strewn path in the farmer’s field. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick a pebble from the bag.

Now, imagine you were standing in the field. What would you have done if you were the girl? If you had to advise her, what would you have told her?

Careful analysis would produce three possibilities:

1. The girl should refuse to take a pebble.
2. The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the money-lender as a cheat.
3. The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment.

Take a moment to ponder over the story. The above story is used with the hope that it will make us appreciate the difference between lateral and logical thinking. The girl’s dilemma cannot be solved with traditional logical thinking. Think of the consequences if she chooses the above logical answers.
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What would you recommend to the Girl to do?
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The girl put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles.

“Oh, how clumsy of me,” she said. “But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked.”

Since the remaining pebble is black, it must be assumed that she had picked the white one. And since the money-lender dared not admit his dishonesty, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Most complex problems do have a solution. It is only that we don’t attempt to think in that direction.

“Excellence” is a drive from inside, not outside.

A German once visited a temple under construction where he saw a sculptor making an idol of God. Suddenly he noticed a similar idol lying nearby. Surprised, he asked the sculptor, “Do you need two statues of the same idol?” “No,” said the sculptor without looking up, “We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage.” The gentleman examined the idol and found no apparent damage. “Where is the damage?” he asked. “There is a scratch on the nose of the idol.” said the sculptor, still busy with his work. “Where are you going to install the idol?”

The sculptor replied that it would be installed on a pillar twenty feet high. “If the idol is that far, who is going to know that there is a scratch on the nose?” the gentleman asked. The sculptor stopped his work, looked up at the gentleman, smiled and said, “I will know it..”

The desire to excel is exclusive of the fact whether someone else appreciates it or not. “Excellence” is a drive from inside, not outside. Excellence is not for someone else to notice but for your own satisfaction and efficiency…

Why Dogs Don’t Live As Long As People

:-| Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound named Belker. The dog’s owner, his wife, and their little boy were all very attached to Belker and they were hoping for a miracle. I examined Belker and found he was dying of cancer. I told the family there were no miracles left for Belker, and offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home. 

As we made arrangements, the owners told me they thought it would be good for the four-year-old boy to observe the procedure. They felt he could learn something from the experience. 

The next day, I felt the familiar catch in my throat as Belker’s family surrounded him. The little boy seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understood what was going on. 

Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away. The little boy seemed to accept Belker’s transition without any difficulty or confusion. 

We sat together for a while after Belker’s death, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are shorter than human lives. 

The little boy, who had been listening quietly, piped up, “I know why.” 

Startled, we all turned to him. What came out of his mouth next stunned me. I’d never heard a more comforting explanation. He said, “Everybody is born so that they can learn how to live a good life – like loving everybody and being nice, right?” The four-year- old continued, “Well, animals already know how to do that, so they don’t have to stay as long.”

KNOW Your Value….!

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a Rupee 500 note.
 
In the room of 200, he asked, “Who would like this Rupee 500 note?”

Hands started going up. He said, “I am going to give this note to one of you
but first let me do this.” He proceeded to crumple the note up.
He then asked, “Who still wants it?”

Still the hands were up in the air.

“Well,” he replied, “What if I do this?” And he dropped it on the ground and
started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now all
crumpled and dirty. “Now who still wants it?”
Still the hands went into the air.

“My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson.
No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not
decrease in value. It was still worth Rupee 500/-.

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt
by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as
though we are worthless.

But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose
your value.

You are special. Don’t ever forget it! Never let yesterday’s disappointments overshadow tomorrow’s dreams.

” VALUE HAS A VALUE ONLY IF ITS VALUE IS VALUED”

Various Thoughts On Love

Interesting outlook!!

Once there was loving couple travelling in a
 bus in a mountainous area.
 They decided to get down at some place. After the
 couple got down at some place the bus moved on. As the
 bus moved on, a huge rock fell on the bus from the
 mountain and crushed the bus to crumbs. Everybody on
 board was killed.

 The couple upon seeing that, said, “We wish we
 were on that bus” Why do u think they said that?

“ If they had remained on the bus instead of deciding to
 get down, the resulting time delay could have been
 avoided and the rock would have fallen after the bus
 had passed …!!!

 Think positive in life always and look for
 opportunities when u can help Others.”

A blind boy

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: ‘I am blind, please help.’ There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, ‘Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?’

The man said, ‘I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.’
What he had written was: ‘Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it.’

Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?

Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.

Invite others towards good with wisdom. Live life with no excuse and love with no regrets. When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile. Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear.

Great men say, ‘Life has to be an incessant process of repair and reconstruction, of discarding evil and developing goodness…. In the journey of life, if you want to travel without fear, you must have the ticket of a good conscience.’

The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling…
And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!

 

Lessons from Tiny Creatures

Lessons from Tiny CreaturesThe ants teach us the wisdom of preparation. “Better to be prepared and not called, than to be called and not prepared,” is a wise principle to adhere to. For instance, if I want a good job in the future, I need to prepare today. If I want a healthy marriage, I need to work on my growth and maturity today, for only mature people have mature relationships. And if I want God to use me, I need to develop the gifts and talents he has given me.

The coneys or rock badgers teach us the wisdom of precaution. How true is the old saying, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” If you want to avoid temptation, don’t go where you know you’ll be tempted. If you don’t want to get into debt over your head, don’t borrow what you can’t pay. And if you can’t swim, don’t go into the deep end of the pool. God is faithful, but if we jump off a building, he won’t catch us on the way down, as he doesn’t go against his own rules! He won’t change the universal law of gravity because of my foolishness and irresponsibility. He won’t change the moral law either. If I try to break it, it will break me.

The locusts teach us the wisdom of unity. Have you ever tried to row a boat with a friend? If you don’t pull together in harmony, you’ll get nowhere fast, go in circles, or run into the bank. To keep moving forward, you don’t have to over-exert yourself, just keep pulling together. And if we don’t pull together as a family, a church, or a nation, working in harmony with the principles of life as found in God’s Word, we will end up on the rocks!

The lizards teach us the wisdom of perseverance. “If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done … Keep on sowing your seed, for you never know which will grow—perhaps it all will,” As the saying goes, “Quitters never win and winners never quit

Laughter the best Cure

Many years ago, Norman Cousins was diagnosed as terminally ill. He was given six months to live. His chance for recovery was one 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.

Laughing 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 laughing for his recovery.

Some people think laughing 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. Laughing is essential to our equilibrium, to our well-being, to our aliveness. If we’re not well, laughing helps us get well; if we are well, laughing 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 laughing, 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.

What A Friend Is….

Friendships come
and Friendships go
Like wave upon the sand
Like day and night
Like birds in flight
Like snowflakes when they land

But you and I are something else
Our friendship’s here to stay
Like weeds and rocks and dirty socks
It never goes away!

A friend is a person
to laugh and cry with,
An inspiration,

Someone who lends a helping hand,
though friends may not be forever,
And they may not end up together,
the memories of a true friendship will
last forever.

A friend is not a shadow
nor a servant
But someone who holds
a piece of a person in his heart.

Someone who shares a smile,
Someone who brightens up your day
What makes a person a friend?
Is by saying your Love
will stay.