Nails in the fence [Anonymous]

"There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.

The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.

Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper.

The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.

The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said:

'You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. But It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound will still be there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.'"


Via email from Kuyang Domzie

The last lecture by Dr Randy Pausch

Let it all be...

Sir Paul McCartney, with daughters; Mary [left] and Stella [right]. [Photo credit: Daily Mail]

The story behind the song "Let It Be" as told by Paul McCartney to Marlo Thomas.

Excerpt from the book The Right Words At The Right Time -- by Marlo Thomas [as emailed to me by Arjan].

"Let It Be is a product of a lovely dream.

"I was going through a really difficult time around autumn of 1968. It was late in the Beatles' career and we had begun making a new album, a follow-up to the White Album. As a group we were starting to have problems. I was sensing that the Beatles were breaking up, so I was staying late at night, drinking, doing drugs, clubbing, the way a lot of people were at the time. I was really living and playing hard.

The other guys were all living out in the country with their partners, but I was still a bachelor in London with my own house in St. John's Wood. And that was kind of at the back of my mind also, that maybe it was about time I found someone, because it was before I got together with Linda.

So I was exhausted! Some nights I'd go to bed and my head would just flop on the pillow; and when I'd wake up I'd have difficulty pulling it off, thinking, "Good job. I woke up just then or I might have suffocated".

Then one night, somewhere between deep sleep and insomnia, I had the most comforting dream about my mother, who died when I was only 14. She had been a nurse, my mom, and very hardworking, because she wanted the best for us.

We weren't a well-off family - we didn't have a car, we only had a television - so both of my parents went out to work, and mom contributed a good half of the family income. At night when she came home, she would cook, so we didn't have a lot of time with each other. But she was just a very comforting presence in my life. And when she died, one of the difficulties I had, as the years went by, was that I couldn't recall her face so easily.

So in this dream 12 years later, my mother appeared, and there was her face, completely clear, particularly her eyes; and she said to me very gently, very reassuringly, "Let it be."

[Courtesy of Apple Records]

It was lovely. I woke up with a great feeling. I was like she had visited me at this very difficult point in my life and gave me this message:

Be gentle, don't fight things, just try and go with the flow and it will work out.

So, being a musician, I went right over to the piano and started writing a song:"When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me" ... Mary was my mother's name...

"Speaking words of wisdom, let it be, There will be an answer, let it be"

It didn't take long. I wrote the main body of it in one go, and then the subsequent verses developed from there: "When all the broken- hearted people living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be."

So those words were really very special to me, because not only did my mom come to me and reassure me at a very difficult time in my life - and sure enough, things did get better after that - but also, in putting them into a song and recording it with the Beatles, it became a reassuring, healing statement for other people too."

------------------------

Similar post here, but longer.

Pulping the past

An excerpt from Kylie Northover's interview and subsequent article of former Pulp frontman - Jarvis Cocker; re his inner rock star and new album: Further Complications:

"The idea of a performance being a one-off appeals to Cocker.

"It gets on my nerves when people seem to be so intent on filming everything on their mobile phones. I just wish people would experience it and be in the moment," he says.

"It used to be when you went on holiday you'd see families where the father couldn't interact with anyone, so he'd stand there with the video camera filming the whole holiday and you'd think: 'What a sad character.' Now young people are doing it - it's bad. They're becoming middle-aged before their time."

"Cocker says having something that lingers only as a memory is better, as it changes over time.

"It gets altered by your brain, by your perception, whereas if you've just got a crappy, hand-held phone footage version of it, it brings it all crashing down to earth, you know what I mean?"

[My pilfered copy of Sydney Morning Herald's Spectrum, June 13-14, 2009, p 11.]

Philippians 4:13

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

The road to success is not straight.
There is a curve called Failure,
a loop called Confusion,
speed bumps called Friends,
red lights called Enemies,
caution lights called Family.

You will have flats called Jobs.
But, if you have a spare called Determination,
an engine called Perseverance,
insurance called Faith,
a driver called Jesus,
you will make it to a place called Success.

Author - Unknown

Thanks Luth for emailing it to me.

Rules for being human by Cherie Carter-Scott

I was cleaning the garage [for relaxation!] the other day and I found this piece of paper with ten rules for being human. It does not say who the author was and so I Googled and found more about the origins of this set of "rules". These "rules" first appeared from the book "If Life is a Game, These are the Rules" by Cherie Carter-Scott; and it seems there's more than ten of these "rules". I compared my written copy to what I found on the net and changed bits and pieces below:

-----------------------

When you were born, you didn't come with an owner's manual; these guidelines make life work better.

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's the only thing you are sure to keep for the rest of your life.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called "Life on Planet Earth". Every person or incident is the Universal Teacher.

3. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may not like the lessons or think of them irrelevant and stupid.

4. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiemtns that ultimately "works".["Failures" are as much a part of the process as "success."]

5. A lesson is repeated until learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you learn it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.

6. If you don't learn easy lessons, they get harder. External problems are a precise reflection of your internal state. When you clear inner obstructions, your outside world changes. Pain is how the universe gets your attention.

7. You will know you've learned a lesson when your actions change. Wisdom is practice. A little of something is better than a lot of nothing.

8. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

9. "There" is no better than "here". When your "there" becomes a "here" you will simply obtain another "there" that will, again, looks better than "here."

10. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate in yourself.

11. Your life is up to you. Life provides the canvas; you do the painting. Take charge of your life -- or someone else will.

12. To say in another sense: What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

13. You always get what you want. Your subconscious rightfully determines what energies, experiences, and people you attract -- therefore, the only foolproof way to know what you want is to see what you have. There are no victims, only students.

14. There is no right or wrong, but there are consequences. Moralizing doesn't help. Judgments only hold the patterns in place. Just do your best.

15. Your answers lie inside you. Children need guidance from others; as we mature, we trust our hearts, where the Laws of Spirit are written. You know more than you have heard or read or been told. The answers to life's questions lie inside you; all you need to do is to look, listen, and trust.

16. You will forget all this.

17. But you are allowed to remember these anytime you wish, remember life is a continous lesson!

Live a life that matters by Michael Josephson

I am a fan of Michael Josephson and his Character Counts website commentaries. A friend, Inez sent me the following article and I am reposting here to share with you. By the way, above photo was taken late last year on a holiday - Santa Monica pier in California, on a "not so sunny day" but for this one-legged seagull it doesn't seem to matter - it already made a choice.

-----------------------

WHAT WILL MATTER by Michael Josephson

Ready or not, someday it will all come to an end. There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours, or days. All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame, and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.

It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed. Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.

So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.

It won't matter where you came from, or on what side of the tracks you lived, at the end.

It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant. Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave.

What will matter is not your success, but your significance.

What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught. What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence, but your character.

What will matter is not how many people you knew, but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.

What will matter is not your memories, but the memories that live in those who loved you.

What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident. It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

Choose to live a life that matters.