PETTY ANNOYANCES

Sunday, October 23, 2005

PETTY ANNOYANCES

Much time is wasted agitating over petty annoyances. Getting caught intraffic, someone saying an unkind word or two or a sale falling throughcan send some people into a tizzy where they sacrifice their productivepotential by focusing on their petty annoyances.The survivors of Hurricane Katrina long for the day of just dealing withpetty annoyances.“I cried because I had no shoes until I met the man who had no feet.”No day is worth wasting over petty annoyances.

Blogged on 1:43 AM by Upay

|

~~~

Letting Go Of Wooden Apples

The Monkey with the Wooden ApplesThere once was a happy monkey wandering the jungle, eating delicious fruit when hungry, and resting when tired. One day he came upon a house, where he saw a bowl of the most beautiful apples. He took one in each hand and ran back into the forest.He sniffed the apples and smelled nothing. He tried to eat them, but hurt his teeth. They were made of wood, but they were beautiful, and when the other monkeys saw them, he held onto them even tighter.

He admired his new possessions proudly as he wandered the jungle. They glistened red in the sun, and seemed perfect to him. He became so attached to them, that he didn't even notice his hunger at first.

A fruit tree reminded him, but he felt the apples in his hands. He couldn't bear to set them down to reach for the fruit. In fact, he couldn't relax, either, if he was to defend his apples. A proud, but less happy monkey continued to walk along the forest trails.The apples became heavier, and the poor little monkey thought about leaving them behind. He was tired, hungry, and he couldn't climb trees or collect fruit with his hands full.

What if he just let go?Letting go of such valuable things seemed crazy, but what else could he do? He was so tired. Seeing the next fruit tree, and smelling it's fruit was enough. He dropped the wooden apples and reached up for his meal. He was happy again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~Letting Go Of Wooden Apples~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Like that little monkey, we sometimes carry things that seem too valuable to let go. A man carries an image of himself as "productive" - carries it like a shiny wooden apple. But in reality, his busyness leaves him tired, and hungry for a better life. Still, letting go seems crazy. Even his worries are sacred apples - they prove he's "doing everything he can." He holds onto them compulsively.

This is a hard thing to see. We identify so strongly with our things even, feeling pain when our cars are dented. How much more powerfully do we identify with our beliefs and self-ideas? Yet they don't always feed our souls, do they? And we become tired of defending them.How else could the story end?

The monkey might be found dead of hunger, under a beautiful tree, with fruit within reach, but still grasping his wooden apples.I chose to end it with him letting go, because only with open hands can we receive.

Blogged on 1:22 AM by Upay

|

~~~

The blue ribbon's story......

A professor was in the habit of giving his students a little gift at the end of the school year - a blue ribbon with the words "Who I Am Makes A difference" printed in gold letters on the ribbon.

As she gave each student their ribbon she explained why he had appreciated teaching them, and why his course had been different because that particular student had been present.

One day it occurred to her to see what effect this little custom would have on the community. She gave each student 3 blue ribbons instead of one, and told each of them to give one ribbon to someone they knew who, in their opinion "made a difference."She also told them to give the 2 other ribbons to that same person, with instructions to hand them out to others who had made a difference.

After that the students were to come back and report what happened.One student who had a part-time job gave his ribbon to his boss, a grumpy fellow who nevertheless appreciated the honor."I admire everything you've done," the student said to his boss. "I think you're a creative genius and a real fair guy. Will you allow me to pin this blue ribbon on your jacket as a sign of my appreciation?"The boy's boss was surprised but also pleased. "Yeah, sure, why not?" he said."And will you take these 2 other ribbons," the student continued,” and give them to someone you think makes a difference, like I did for you? It's for a project we're doing at school.""All right," the boss replied.

That night the boss returned home wearing the blue ribbon on his jacket. He greeted his 14 year old son and said,” Something strange happened to me today. One of my employees gave me this ribbon. See what's written on it? 'Because you make a difference.’ He gave me another ribbon just like it and told me to give it to someone who's made a difference for me, someone who is very special and means a lot to me."I had a pretty hard day, but on the way home I said to myself,' There's only one person I want to give this ribbon to.' I know I tell you off a lot because you don't work hard enough at school, because all you think about is going out and having fun with your friends, because your room's always a mess... But tonight I want to tell you that you are very very important to me. You and your mother make all the difference in my life, and I'd like you to accept this blue ribbon as a sign of my love. I don't tell you I love you very often, not nearly enough, I know. But I do love you, and I think you're a wonderful kid!"

As soon as he stopped talking his son burst into tears. His whole body shook with sobs. His father took him in his arms and held him close, saying, "That's okay, it's all right. Did I say something wrong?""No Dad." his son replied, "It's just that... I decided I was going to kill myself. I was going to do it tomorrow. I had it all planned out. I wanted to kill myself because I was sure you didn't like me, even though I tried hard to be good. Now that's all changed..."

Blogged on 12:01 AM by Upay

|

~~~

THE WISE WOMAN

Thursday, October 20, 2005

THE WISE WOMAN

Author Unknown

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream.

The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation.
The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime.

But, a few days later, he came back to return the stone to the wise woman. "I've been thinking," he said. "I know how valuable this stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me this stone."

Blogged on 8:11 AM by Upay

|

~~~

Sand and Stone

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Sand and Stone

Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand: "TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE."

They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one, who had been slapped, got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After the friend recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone: "TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE."

The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?"

The other friend replied: "When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."

LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND, AND TO CARVE YOUR BENEFITS IN STONE

Blogged on 3:36 PM by Upay

|

~~~

Big John

One fine day, a bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus, and drove off along his route. No problems for the first few stops -- a few people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well.

At the next stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on. Six feet eight, built like a wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground. He glared at the driver and said, "Big John doesn't pay!" And he sat down at the back.

Did I mention that the driver was five feet three, thin, and basically meek? Well, he was. Naturally, he didn't argue with Big John, but he wasn't happy about it.

The next day the same thing happened -- Big John got on again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down. And he did the same thing the next day, and the one after that, and so forth.

This grated on the bus driver, who started losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him. Finally he could stand it no longer. He signed up for body building courses, karate, judo, and all that good stuff. By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong -- what's more, he felt really good about himself.

So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus and said, "Big John doesn't pay!," the driver stood up, glared back at the passenger, and screamed, "Oh yeah…and why not?"

With a surprised look on his face, Big John replied, "Big John has a bus pass."

Moral of the story:

Be sure there really is a problem before working hard to solve it.

Blogged on 3:28 PM by Upay

|

~~~

My mom only had one eye.

I hated her... she was such an embarrassment...She cooked for students & teachers...to support the family. There was this one day during elementary school and my mom came. I was so embarrassed. How could she do this to me? I threw her a hateful look and ran out.

The next day at school... Your mom only has one eye?!?!"...eeeee said a friend. I wished my mom would just disappear from this world. So I said to my mom, "Mom... Why don't you have the other eye?! If you're only gonna make me a laughing stock, why don't you just die?!!!"

My mom did not respond... I guess I felt a little bad, but at the same time, it felt good to think that I had said what I'd wanted to say all this time... Maybe it was because my mom hadn't punished me, but I didn't think that I had hurt her feelings very badly.

That night... I woke up, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. My mom was crying there, so quietly, as if she was afraid that she might wake me. I took a look at her, and then turned away. Because of the thing I had said to her earlier, there was something pinching at me in the corner of my heart. Even so, I hated my mother who was crying out of her one eye. So I told myself that I would grow up and become successful.

Then I studied real hard. I left my mother and went to Singapore to study. Then, I got married. I bought a house of my own. Then I had kids, too... Now I'm living happily as a successful man. I like it here because it's a place that doesn’t remind me of my mom.

This happiness was getting bigger and bigger, when...

What?! Who's this? It was my mother...Still with her one eye. I felt as if the whole sky was falling apart on me. Even my children ran away, scared of my mom's eye. And I asked her, "Who are you?!" "I don't know you!" (As if I was trying to make that real. I screamed at her, "How dare you come to my house and scare my children!"

GET OUT OF HERE, NOW!"

And to this, my mother quietly answered, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I may have gotten the wrong address," and she disappeared out of sight.

Thank good ness... She doesn't recognize me. I was quite relieved. I told myself that I wasn't going to care, or think about this for the rest of my life. Then a wave of relief came upon me...

One day, a letter regarding a school reunion came to my house in Singapore. So, lying to my wife that I was going on a business trip, I went. After the reunion, I went down to the old shack, which I used to call a house... Just out of curiosity. There, I found my mother fallen on the cold ground. But I did not shed a single tear. She had a piece of paper in her hand.... It was a letter to me.

"My son... I think my life has been long enough now...and...I won’t visit Singapore anymore... But would it be too much to ask if I wanted you to come visit me once in a while? I miss you so much. And I was so glad when I heard you were coming for the reunion. But I decided not to go to the school. For you...and I'm sorry that I only have one eye, and I was an embarrassment for you.

You see, when you were very little, you got into an accident, and lost your eye. As a mom, I couldn't stand watching you having to grow up with only one eye... So I gave you mine... I was so proud of my son that was seeing a whole new world for me, in my place, with that eye. I was never upset at you for anything you did... The couple times that you were angry with me... I thought to myself, 'It's because he loves me...'

"My son... Oh, my son..."

This message has a very deep meaning and is passed to remind people of the goodness they have enjoy was because of others directly or indirectly. Pause a moment and consider your life! Be thankful of what you have today compared to many millions who do not live lives as you do!

Blogged on 3:17 PM by Upay

|

~~~

How Companies Got their Name !


Apple Computers

It was the favourite fruit of founder Steve Jobs. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computers if the other colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 O'clock.

CISCO

It is not an acronym as popularly believed. It is short for San Francisco.

Compaq

This name was formed by using COMp, for computer, and PAQ to denote a small
integral object.

Corel

The name was derived from the founder's name Dr.Michael Cowpland. It stands for COwpland REsearch Laboratory.

Google

The name started as a joke boasting about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named 'Googol', a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros.After founders -Stanford graduate students Sergey Brin and Larry Page presented their project to an angel investor, they received a cheque made out to 'Google'

Hotmail

Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world.When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for hotmail as it included the letters "html" - the programming language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective uppercasing.

Hewlett Packard

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.

Intel

Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company 'Moore Noyce' but that was already trademarked by a hotel chain so they had to settle for an acronym of INTegrated ELectronics.

Lotus (Notes)

Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from 'The Lotus Position' or 'Padmasana'. Kapor used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Microsoft

Coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' was removed later on.

Motorola

Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company started manufacturing radios for cars. The popular radio company at the time was called Victrola.

ORACLE

Larry Ellison and Bob Oats were working on a consulting project for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The code name for the project was called Oracle (the CIA saw this as the system to give answers to all questions or something such). The project was designed to help use the newly written SQL code by IBM. The project eventually was terminated but Larry and Bob decided to finish what they started and bring it to the world. They kept the name Oracle and created the RDBMS engine. Later they kept the same name for the company.

Sony

It originated from the Latin word 'sonus' meaning sound, and 'sonny' a slang used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster.

SUN

Founded by 4 Stanford University buddies, SUN is the acronym for Stanford University Network. Andreas Bechtolsheim built a microcomputer; Vinod Khosla recruited him and Scott McNealy to manufacture computers based on it, and Bill Joy to develop a UNIX-based OS for the computer.

Yahoo!

The word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book 'Gulliver's Travels'. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! Founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos

Blogged on 2:31 PM by Upay

|

~~~