A Place To Stand by : Dr. Charles Garfield

If you have ever gone through a toll booth, you know that your relationship to the person in the booth is not the most intimate you'll ever have. It is one of life's frequent nonencounters: You hand over some money; you might get change; you drive off.

Late one morning in 1984, headed for lunch in San Francisco, I drove toward a booth. I heard loud music. It sounded like a party. I looked around. No other cars with their windows open. No sound trucks. I looked at the toll booth. Inside it, the man was dancing.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm having a party," he said.

"What about the rest of the people?" I looked at the other toll booths.

He said, "What do those look like to you?" He pointed down the row of toll booths.

"They look like...toll booths. What do they look like to you?"

He said, "Vertical coffins. At 8:30 every morning, live people get in. Then they die for eight hours. At 4:30, like Lazarus from the dead, they reemerge and go home. For eight hours, brain is on hold, dead on the job. Going through the motions."

I was amazed. This guy had developed a philosophy, a mythology about his job. Sixteen people dead on the job, and the seventeenth, in precisely the same situation, figures out a way to live. I could not help asking the next question: "Why is it different for you? You're having a good time."

He looked at me. "I knew you were going to ask that. I don't understand why anybody would think my job is boring. I have a corner office, glass on all sides. I can see the Golden Gate, San Francisco, and the Berkeley hills. Half the Western world vacations here...and I just stroll in every day and practice dancing."

Adrift by : Adam Khan

In 1982 Steven Callahan was crossing the Atlantic alone in his sailboat when it struck something and sank. He was out of the shipping lanes and floating in a life raft, alone. His supplies were few. His chances were small. Yet when three fishermen found him seventy-six days later (the longest anyone has survived a shipwreck on a life raft alone), he was alive -- much skinnier than he was when he started, but alive.

His account of how he survived is fascinating. His ingenuity -- how he managed to catch fish, how he fixed his solar still (evaporates sea water to make fresh) -- is very interesting.

But the thing that caught my eye was how he managed to keep himself going when all hope seemed lost, when there seemed no point in continuing the struggle, when he was suffering greatly, when his life raft was punctured and after more than a week struggling with his weak body to fix it, it was still leaking air and wearing him out to keep pumping it up. He was starved. He was desperately dehydrated. He was thoroughly exhausted. Giving up would have seemed the only sane option.

When people survive these kinds of circumstances, they do something with their minds that gives them the courage to keep going. Many people in similarly desperate circumstances give in or go mad. Something the survivors do with their thoughts helps them find the guts to carry on in spite of overwhelming odds.

"I tell myself I can handle it," wrote Callahan in his narrative. "Compared to what others have been through, I'm fortunate. I tell myself these things over and over, building up fortitude...."

I wrote that down after I read it. It struck me as something important. And I've told myself the same thing when my own goals seemed far off or when my problems seemed too overwhelming. And every time I've said it, I have always come back to my senses.

The truth is, our circumstances are only bad compared to something better. But others have been through much worse. I've read enough history to know you and I are lucky to be where we are, when we are, no matter how bad it seems to us compared to our fantasies. It's a sane thought and worth thinking.

So here, coming to us from the extreme edge of survival, are words that can give us strength. Whatever you're going through, tell yourself you can handle it. Compared to what others have been through, you're fortunate. Tell this to yourself over and over, and it will help you get through the rough spots with a little more fortitude.

Tell yourself you can handle it.

Attitude by : Unknown

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, then circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think, say, or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.

We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.

Attitude is Everything by : Brian Cavanaugh

Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!"

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?" Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, 'Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life."

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested. "Yes, it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life."

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?" I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live." "Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked. Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man.' "I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry.

"She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breathe and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them. 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead." Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

A Slave to His Destiny by : Adam Khan

One morning a sixteen-year-old boy was kidnapped from his house by a band of knife-wielding thugs and taken to another country, there to be sold as a slave. The year was 401 AD.

He was made a shepherd. Slaves were not allowed to wear clothes, so he was often dangerously cold and frequently on the verge of starvation. He spent months at a time without seeing another human being -- a severe psychological torture.

But this greatest of difficulties was transformed into the greatest of blessings because it gave him an opportunity not many get in a lifetime. Long lengths of solitude have been used by people all through history to meditate, to learn to control the mind and to explore the depths of feeling and thought to a degree impossible in the hubbub of normal life.

He wasn't looking for such an "opportunity," but he got it anyway. He had never been a religious person, but to hold himself together and take his mind off the pain, he began to pray, so much that "...in one day," he wrote later, "I would say as many as a hundred prayers and after dark nearly as many again...I would wake and pray before daybreak -- through snow, frost, and rain...."

This young man, at the onset of his manhood, got a 'raw deal.' But therein lies the lesson. Nobody gets a perfect life. The question is not "What could I have done if I'd gotten a better life?" but rather "What can I do with the life I've got?"

How can you take your personality, your circumstances, your upbringing, the time and place you live in, and make something extraordinary out of it? What can you do with what you've got?

The young slave prayed. He didn't have much else available to do, so he did what he could with all his might. And after six years of praying, he heard a voice in his sleep say that his prayers would be answered: He was going home. He sat bolt upright and the voice said, "Look, your ship is ready."

He was a long way from the ocean, but he started walking. After two hundred miles, he came to the ocean and there was a ship, preparing to leave for Britain, his homeland. Somehow he got aboard the ship and went home to reunite with his family.

But he had changed. The sixteen-year-old boy had become a holy man. He had visions. He heard the voices of the people from the island he had left -- Ireland -- calling him back. The voices were persistent, and he eventually left his family to become ordained as a priest and a bishop with the intention of returning to Ireland and converting the Irish to Christianity.

At the time, the Irish were fierce, illiterate, Iron-Age people. For over eleven hundred years, the Roman Empire had been spreading its civilizing influence from Africa to Britain, but Rome never conquered Ireland.

The people of Ireland warred constantly. They made human sacrifices of prisoners of war and sacrificed newborns to the gods of the harvest. They hung the skulls of their enemies on their belts as ornaments.

Our slave-boy-turned-bishop decided to make these people literate and peaceful. Braving dangers and obstacles of tremendous magnitude, he actually succeeded! By the end of his life, Ireland was Christian. Slavery had ceased entirely. Wars were much less frequent, and literacy was spreading.

How did he do it? He began by teaching people to read -- starting with the Bible. Students eventually became teachers and went to other parts of the island to create new places of learning, and wherever they went, they brought the know-how to turn sheepskin into paper and paper into books.

Copying books became the major religious activity of that country. The Irish had a long-standing love of words, and it expressed itself to the full when they became literate. Monks spent their lives copying books: the Bible, the lives of saints, and the works accumulated by the Roman culture -- Latin, Greek, and Hebrew books, grammars, the works of Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Homer, Greek philosophy, math, geometry, astronomy.

In fact, because so many books were being copied, they were saved, because as Ireland was being civilized, the Roman Empire was falling apart. Libraries disappeared in Europe. Books were no longer copied (except in the city of Rome itself), and children were no longer taught to read. The civilization that had been built up over eleven centuries disintegrated. This was the beginning of the Dark Ages.

Because our slave-boy-turned-bishop transformed his suffering into a mission, civilization itself, in the form of literature and the accumulated knowledge contained in that literature, was saved and not lost during that time of darkness. He was named a saint, the famous Saint Patrick. You can read the full and fascinating story if you like in the excellent book How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill.

"Very interesting," you might say, "but what does that have to do with me?"

Well...you are also in some circumstances or other, and it's not all peaches and cream, is it? There's some stuff you don't like -- maybe something about your circumstances, perhaps, or maybe some events that occurred in your childhood.

But here you are, with that past, with these circumstances, with the things you consider less than ideal. What are you going to do with them? If those circumstances have made you uniquely qualified for some contribution, what would it be?

You may not know the answer to that question right now, but keep in mind that the circumstances you think only spell misery may contain the seeds of something profoundly Good. Assume that's true, and the assumption will begin to gather evidence until your misery is transformed, as Saint Patrick's suffering was, from a raw deal to the perfect preparation for something better.

Ask yourself and keep asking, "Given my upbringing and circumstances, what Good am I especially qualified to do?"

How Poor We Are by : Author Unknown

One day a father and his rich family took his son to a trip to the country with the firm purpose to show him how poor people can be.

They spent a day and a night in the farm of a very poor family. When they got back from their trip the father asked his son, "How was the trip?"

"Very good Dad!" "Did you see how poor people can be?" the father asked.

"Yeah!"

"And what did you learn?"

The son answered, "I saw that we have a dog at home, and they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of the garden, they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lamps in the garden, they have the stars. Our patio reaches to the front yard, they have a whole horizon." When the little boy was finishing, his father was speechless.

His son added, "Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are!"

Learn From Mistakes by : Author Unknown

Thomas Edison tried two thousand different materials in search of a filament for the light bulb. When none worked satisfactorily, his assistant complained, "All our work is in vain. We have learned nothing."

Edison replied very confidently, "Oh, we have come a long way and we have learned a lot. We now that there are two thousand elements which we cannot use to make a good light bulb."

My Miraculous Family by : Michael Jordan Segal

I never considered myself unique, but people are constantly telling me, "I am a miracle." To me, I was just an ordinary "guy" with realistic goals and big dreams. I was a 19-year-old student at the University of Texas and well on my way toward fulfilling my "big dream" of one day becoming an orthopedic surgeon.

On the night of February 17, 1981 I was studying for an Organic Chemistry test at the library with Sharon, my girlfriend of three years. Sharon had asked me to drive her back to her dormitory as it was getting quite late. We got into my car, not realizing that just getting into a car would never quite be the same for me again. I quickly noticed that my gas gauge was registered on empty so I pulled into a nearby convenience store to buy $2.00 worth of gas. "I'll be back in two minutes," I yelled at Sharon as I closed the door. But instead, those two minutes changed my life forever.

Entering the convenience store was like entering the twilight zone. On the outside I was a healthy, athletic, pre-med student, but on the inside I was just another statistic of a violent crime. I thought I was entering an empty store, but suddenly I realized it was not empty at all. Three robbers were in the process of committing a robbery and my entrance into the store caught them by surprise. One of the criminals immediately shoved a .38 caliber handgun to my head, ordered me to the cooler, pushed me down on the floor, and pumped a bullet into the back of my head - execution style. He obviously thought I was dead because he did not shoot me again. The trio of thieves finished robbing the store and left calmly.

Meanwhile, Sharon wondered why I had not returned. After seeing the three men leave the store she really began to worry as I was the last person she saw entering the store. She quickly went inside to look for me, but saw no one -- only an almost empty cash register containing one check and several pennies. Quickly she ran down each aisle shouting, "Mike, Mike!"

Just then the attendant appeared from the back of the store shouting, "Lady, get down on the floor. I've just been robbed and shot at!"

Sharon quickly dropped to the floor screaming, "Have you seen my boyfriend ... auburn hair?" The man did not reply but went back to the cooler where he found me choking on my vomit. The attendant quickly cleaned my mouth and then called for the police and an ambulance.

Sharon was in shock. She was beginning to understand that I was hurt, but she could not begin to comprehend or imagine the severity of my injury.

When the police arrived they immediately called the homicide division as they did not think I would survive and the paramedic reported that she had never seen a person so severely wounded survive. At 1:30 a.m. my parents who lived in Houston, were awakened by a telephone call from Brackenridge Hospital advising them to come to Austin as soon as possible for they feared I would not make it through the night.

But I did make it through the night and early in the morning the neurosurgeon decided to operate. However, he quickly informed my family and Sharon that my chances of surviving the surgery were only 40/60. If this were not bad enough, the neurosurgeon further shocked my family by telling them what life would be like for me if I beat the odds and survived. He said I probably would never walk, talk, or be able to understand even simple commands.

My family was hoping and praying to hear even the slightest bit of encouragement from that doctor. Instead, his pessimistic words gave my family no reason to believe that I would ever again be a productive member of society. But once again I beat the odds and survived the three and a half hours of surgery.

Even though my family breathed a huge sigh of relief that I was still alive the doctor cautioned that it would still be several days before I would be out of danger. However, with each passing day I became stronger and stronger and two weeks later I was well enough to be moved from the ICU to a private room.

Granted, I still could not talk, my entire right side was paralyzed and many people thought I could not understand, but at least I was stable. After one week in a private room the doctors felt I had improved enough to be transferred by jet ambulance to Del Oro Rehabilitation Hospital in Houston.

My hallucinations, coupled with my physical problems, made my prognosis still very bleak. However, as time passed my mind began to clear and approximately six weeks later my right leg began to move ever so slightly. Within seven weeks my right arm slowly began to move and at eight weeks I uttered my first few words.

My speech was extremely difficult and slow in the beginning, but at least it was a beginning. I was starting to look forward to each new day to see how far I would progress. But just as I thought my life was finally looking brighter I was tested by the hospital europsychologist. She explained to me that judging from my test results she believed that I should not focus on returning to college but that it would be better to set more "realistic goals."

Upon hearing her evaluation I became furious for I thought, "Who is she to tell me what I can or cannot do. She does not even know me. I am a very determined and stubborn person!" I believe it was at that very moment that I decided I would somehow, someday return to college.

It took me a long time and a lot of hard work but I finally returned to the University of Texas in the fall of 1983 - a year and a half after almost dying. The next few years in Austin were very difficult for me, but I truly believe that in order to see beauty in life you have to experience some unpleasantness. Maybe I have experienced too much unpleasantness, but I believe in living each day to the fullest, and doing the very best I can.

And each new day was very busy and very full, for besides attending classes at the University I underwent therapy three to five days each week at Brackenridge Hospital. If this were not enough I flew to Houston every other weekend to work with Tom Williams, a trainer and executive who had worked for many colleges and professional teams and also had helped many injured athletes, such as Earl Campbell and Eric Dickerson. Through Tom I learned: "Nothing is impossible and never, never give up or quit."

He echoed the same words and sentiments of a prominent neurosurgeon from Houston, Dr. Alexander Gol, who was a close personal friend of my parents and who drove to Austin with my family in the middle of the night that traumatic February morning. Over the many months I received many opinions from different therapists and doctors but it was Dr. Gol who told my family to take one day at a time, for no matter how bad the situation looked, no one knew for certain what the brain could do.

Early, during my therapy, my father kept repeating to me one of his favorite sayings. It could have been written by both Tom and Dr. Gol and I have repeated it almost every day since being hurt:

"Mile by mile it's a trial; yard by yard it's hard; but inch by inch it's a cinch."

I thought of those words, and I thought of Dr. Gol, Tom, my family and Sharon who believed so strongly in me as I climbed the steps to receive my diploma from the Dean of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas on that bright sunny afternoon in June of 1986. Excitement and pride filled my heart as I heard the dean announce that I had graduated with "highest honors" (grade point average of 3.885), been elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and been chosen as one of 12 Dean's Distinguished Graduates out of 1600 in the College of Liberal Arts.

The overwhelming emotions and feelings that I experienced at that very moment, when most of the audience gave me a standing ovation, I felt would never again be matched in my life -- not even when I graduated with a masters degree in social work and not even when I became employed full time at the Texas Pain and Stress Center. But I was wrong!

On May 24, 1987, I realized that nothing could ever match the joy I felt as Sharon and I were married. Sharon, my high school sweetheart of nine years, had always stood by me, through good and bad times. To me, Sharon is my miracle, my diamond in a world filled with problems, hurt, and pain. It was Sharon who dropped out of school when I was hurt so that she could constantly be at my side. She never wavered or gave up on me.

It was her faith and love that pulled me through so many dark days. While other nineteen year old girls were going to parties and enjoying life, Sharon devoted her life to my recovery. That, to me, is the true definition of love.

After our beautiful wedding I continued working part time at the Pain Center and completed my work for a masters degree while Sharon worked as a speech pathologist at a local hospital. We were extremely happy, but even happier when we learned Sharon was pregnant.

On July 11, 1990 at 12:15 a.m. Sharon woke me with the news: "We need to go to the hospital .... my water just broke." I couldn't help but think how ironic it was that my life almost ended in a convenience store and now on the date "7-11" we were about to bring a new life into this world. This time it was my turn to help Sharon as she had helped me over those past years. Sharon was having contractions about every two minutes, and each time she needed to have her lower back massaged.

Since she was in labor for 15 hours that meant 450 massages!! It was well worth every bit of pain in my fingers because at 3:10 p.m. Sharon and I experienced the birth of our beautiful daughter, Shawn Elyse Segal!

Tears of joy and happiness came to my eyes as our healthy, alert, wonderful daughter entered this world. We anxiously counted her 10 fingers and her 10 toes and watched her wide eyes take in the world about her. It was truly a beautiful picture that was etched in my mind forever as she lie in her mother's waiting arms, just minutes after her birth. At that moment I thanked God for blessing us with the greatest miracle of all -- Shawn Elyse Segal

Optimist by : Source Unknown

There is a story of identical twins. One was a hope-filled optimist. "Everything is coming up roses!" he would say. The other twin was a sad and hopeless pessimist. He thought that Murphy, as in Murphy's Law, was an optimist. The worried parents of the boys brought them to the local psychologist.

He suggested to the parents a plan to balance the twins" personalities. "On their next birthday, put them in separate rooms to open their gifts. Give the pessimist the best toys you can afford, and give the optimist a box of manure." The parents followed these instructions and carefully observed the results.

When they peeked in on the pessimist, they heard him audibly complaining, "I don't like the color of this computer . . I'll bet this calculator will break . . . I don't like the game . . . I know someone who's got a bigger toy car than this . . ."

Tiptoeing across the corridor, the parents peeked in and saw their little optimist gleefully throwing the manure up in the air. He was giggling. "You can't fool me! Where there's this much manure, there's gotta be a pony!"

Power of Choice by : Fr. Norbert Weber

The power of choice is real.

We can . . .
Choose to love--rather than hate.
Choose to smile--rather than frown.
Choose to build--rather than destroy.
Choose to persevere--rather than quit.
Choose to praise--rather than gossip.
Choose to heal--rather than wound.
Choose to give--rather than grasp.
Choose to act--rather than delay.
Choose to pray--rather than despair.
Choose to forgive--rather than curse.

Each day brings a new opportunity to choose. What kind of choices will you make today?

Shake It Off and Step Up by : Unknown

A parable is told of a farmer who owned an old mule. The mule fell into the farmer's well. The farmer heard the mule 'braying' - or - whatever mules do when they fall into wells. After carefully assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the mule, but decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. Instead, he called his neighbors together and told them what had happened and enlisted them to help haul dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery.

Initially, the old mule was hysterical! But as the farmer and his neighbors continued shoveling and the dirt hit his back, a thought struck him. It suddenly dawned on him that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back: he should shake it off and step up! This he did, blow after blow.

"Shake it off and step up... shake it off and step up... shake it off and step up!" he repeated to encourage himself. No matter how painful the blows, or distressing the situation seemed the old mule fought "panic" and just kept right on shaking it off and stepping up!

You're right! It wasn't long before the old mule, battered and exhausted, stepped triumphantly over the wall of that well! What seemed like it would bury him, actually blessed him. All because of the manner in which he handled his adversity.

Refusing To Accept Failure by : Brian Cavanaugh

Sir Edmund Hillary was the first man to climb Mount Everest. On May 29, 1953 he scaled the highest mountain then known to man-29,000 feet straight up. He was knighted for his efforts. He even made American Express card commercials because of it! However, until we read his book, High Adventure, we don't understand that Hillary had to grow into this success. You see, in 1952 he attempted to climb Mount Everest, but failed. A few weeks later a group in England asked him to address its members. Hillary walked on stage to a thunderous applause. The audience was recognizing an attempt at greatness, but Edmund Hillary saw himself as a failure. He moved away from the microphone and walked to the edge of the platform. He made a fist and pointed at a picture of the mountain. He said in a loud voice, "Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I'll beat you the next time because you've grown all you are going to grow... but I'm still growing!"

World of Smiles by : Author Unknown

About ten years ago when I was an undergraduate in college, I was working as an intern at my University's Museum of Natural History. One day while working at the cash register in the gift shop, I saw an elderly couple come in with a little girl in a wheelchair.

As I looked closer at this girl, I saw that she was kind of perched on her chair. I then realized she had no arms or legs, just a head, neck and torso. She was wearing a little white dress with red polka dots.

As the couple wheeled her up to me I was looking down at the register. I turned my head toward the girl and gave her a wink. As I took the money from her grandparents, I looked back at the girl, who was giving me the cutest, largest smile I have ever seen. All of a sudden her handicap was gone and all I saw was this beautiful girl, whose smile just melted me and almost instantly gave me a completely new sense of what life is all about. She took me from a poor, unhappy college student and brought me into her world; a world of smiles, love and warmth.

That was ten years ago. I'm a successful business person now and whenever I get down and think about the troubles of the world, I think about that little girl and the remarkable lesson about life that she taught me.

Unpolished Diamonds by : Unknown

How a person reacts to criticism often means the difference between success and failure. Take the case of Ole Bull, the famous Norwegian violinist of the past century.

His practical father, a chemist, sent him to the University of Christiania to study for the ministry and forbade him to play his beloved violin. He promptly flunked out and, defying his father, devoted all his time and energy to the violin. Unfortunately, though he had great ability, his teachers were relatively unskilled, so that by the time he was ready to start his concert tour he wasn't prepared.

In Italy a Milan newspaper critic wrote: "He is an untrained musician. If he be a diamond, he is certainly in the rough and unpolished."

The Window by : Unknown

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour a day to drain the fluids from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.

The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation. And every afternoon when the man in the bed next to the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.

The man in the other bed would live for those one-hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the outside world.

The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake, the man had said. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Lovers walked arm in arm amid flowers of every color of the rainbow. Grand old trees graced the landscape, and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance. As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene. One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other man could not hear the band, he could see it in his mind's eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words. Unexpectedly, an alien thought entered his head: Why should he have all the pleasure of seeing everything while I never get to see anything?

It didn't seem fair. As the thought fermented, the man felt ashamed at first. But as the days passed and he missed seeing more sights, his envy eroded into resentment and soon turned him sour. He began to brood and found himself unable to sleep. He should be by that window --- and that thought now controlled his life.

Late one night, as he lay staring at the ceiling, the man by the window began to cough. He was choking on the fluid in his lungs. The other man watched in the dimly lit room as the struggling man by the window groped for the button to call for help. Listening from across the room, he never moved, never pushed his own button which would have brought the nurse running. In less than five minutes, the coughing and choking stopped, along with the sound of breathing. Now, there was only silence-deathly silence.

The following morning the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths. When she found the lifeless body of the man by the window, she was saddened and called the hospital attendant to take it away-no works, no fuss.

As soon as it seemed appropriate, the man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone. Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look. Finally, he would have the joy of seeing it all himself. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed...........

It faced a blank wall.

The Trouble Tree by : Unknown

The carpenter I hired to help me restore an old farmhouse had just finished a rough first day on the job. A flat tire made him lose an hour of work, his electric saw quit, and now his ancient pickup truck refused to start.

While I drove him home, he sat in stony silence. On arriving, he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching tips of the branches with both hands. When opening the door, he underwent an amazing transformation. His tanned face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss.

Afterward he walked me to the car. We passed the tree and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen him do earlier. Oh, that's my trouble tree," he replied. "I know I can't help having troubles on the job, but one thing's for sure, troubles don't belong in the house with my wife and the children. So I just hang them up on the tree every night when I come home. Then in the morning I pick them up again."

"Funny thing is," he smiled, "when I come out in the morning to pick 'em up, there ain't nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before."

The Secret of Jimmy Yen by : Adam Khan

A jury of distinguished scholars and scientists, including Albert Einstein and Orville Wright thought enough of Jimmy Yen to vote him one of the top ten Modern Revolutionaries of the Twentieth Century. Yet all he did was teach Chinese peasants to read.

What made that so amazing was that for four thousand years reading and writing in China was only done by the Scholars. "Everybody" knew, including the peasants themselves, that peasants were incapable of learning.

That thoroughly ingrained cultural belief was Jimmy Yen's first impossible" barrier. The second barrier was the Chinese language itself, consisting of 40,000 characters, each character signifying a different word! The third barrier was the lack of technology and good roads. How could Jimmy Yen reach the 350 million peasants in China?

Impossible odds, an impossibly huge goal-and yet he had almost attained it when he was forced (by Communism) to leave his country.

Did he give up? No. He learned from defeat and expanded his goal: Teach the rest of the Third World to read. Practical reading programs, like the ones he invented in China, started pumping out literate people like a gushing oil well in the Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Kenya, Columbia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Ghana, India-people became literate. For the first time in their entire genetic history, they had access to the accumulated knowledge of the human race.

For those of us who take literacy for granted, I'd like you to consider for a moment how narrow your world would be if you'd never learned how to read and there was no access to radios or TVs.

180,000 Chinese peasants were hired by the Allied Forces in WW1 as laborers in the war effort. Most of them had no idea-not a clue-where England, Germany or France was, they didn't know what they were being hired to do, and didn't even know what a war was!

Try to grasp, if you will, the vacancy, the darkness, the lack that existed in those people because they couldn't read. Jimmy Yen was a savior to them.

What was the secret of Jimmy Yen's success? He found a real need, and found in himself a strong desire to answer that need. And he took some action: He tried to do something about it even though it seemed impossible. He worked long hours. And he started with what he had in front of him and gradually took on more and more, a little upon a little.

The English author Thomas Carlyle said, "Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand." And that's what Jimmy Yen did. He started out teaching a few peasants to read, with no desks, no pens, no money, no overhead projectors. He started from where he found himself and did what was clearly at hand.

And that's all you need to do. Start now. Start here. And do what lies clearly at hand.

The Builder by : Author Unknown

An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by.

The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.

When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter. "This is your house," he said, "my gift to you."

What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well.

So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way, reacting rather than acting, willing to put up less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort. Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized, we would have done it differently.

Think of yourself as the carpenter. Think about your house. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Build wisely. It is the only life you will ever build. Even if you live it for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived graciously and with dignity. The plaque on the wall says, "Life is a do-it-yourself project."

Who could say it more clearly? Your life today is the result of your attitudes and choices in the past. Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices you make today.

The Blessing Tree by : John Sharrock

I had gone into a supervisor's office to talk about a couple of issues that needed to be addressed. She, like all of the men and women in her department, had been through the proverbial 'ringer.' The stress was so intense, one could almost taste it.

I had been assisting the department during a crunch period of being very short-handed, and was watching everyone get close to burn-out. When I inquired about her state of mind, she confessed that her home life was almost non-existant, because she was 'zombie-ing through the evening'. The next words out of her mouth expressed a frustration of my own: "This work is not my gift from God. My family is!"

I had heard of hanging all of one's problems from the office on a "Trouble Tree" while driving home, to be picked up on the way back to the office in the morning, and for a brief second thought about suggesting that scenario.

But what came out was: "Why don't we do something different? Let's have a Blessing Tree. On the way home in the evening, we could pull down a blessing to dwell on a character trait we adore in our spouse, a particular reason we love them, the love they or our children have for us, etc. The list could be endless.

When I tried it on the way home that night, the stress seemed to melt away. There was a 'spring in my step' and when I arrived, a smile of joy and contentment was bubbling up from within! For the first time in 2 weeks, I was overjoyed to greet my wife and children!

The Blessing Tree could make a major difference in your evenings, especially after those REALLY tough days.

Dare Mighty Things by : Theodore Roosevelt

In the battle of life, it is not the critic who counts; nor the one who points out how the strong person stumbled, or where the doer of a deed could have done better.

The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually strive to do deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends oneself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he or she fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat

Courage to Face Up to Ethical Challenges by : Gen. C.C. Krulak, USMC, Commandant

We are not born with character. It is developed by the experiences and decisions that guide our lives. Each individual creates, develops and nurtures his or her own character. Being a man or woman of character is no easy task. It requires tough decisions, many of which put you at odds with the more commonly accepted social morés of the times.

Making the right ethical choices must become a habit. Decisions cannot be situational, based on other's actions or dependent upon whom is watching.

Cowardliness in character, manifested by a lack of integrity, or honor, will sooner or later manifest itself as cowardliness in other forms. People who have the courage to face up to the ethical challenges in their daily lives, to remain faithful to sacred oaths, have a reservoir of strength from which to draw upon in times of great stress—in the heat of battle.

A Friend by : Danielle Fishel

Recently, one of my best friends, whom I've shared just about everything with since the first day of kindergarten, spent the weekend with me. Since I moved to a new town several years ago, we've both always looked forward to the few times a year when we can see each other.

Over the weekend, we spent hours and hours, staying up late into the night, talking about the people she was hanging around with. She started telling me stories about her new boyfriend, about how he experimented with drugs and was into other self-destructive behavior. I was blown away! She told me how she had been lying to her parents about where she was going and even sneaking out to see this guy because they didn't want her around him. No matter how hard I tried to tell her that she deserved better, she didn't believe me. Her self-respect seemed to have disappeared.

I tried to convince her that she was ruining her future and heading for big trouble. I felt like I was getting nowhere. I just couldn't believe that she really thought it was acceptable to hang with a bunch of losers, especially her boyfriend.

By the time she left, I was really worried about her and exhausted by the experience. It had been so frustrating, I had come close to telling her several times during the weekend that maybe we had just grown too far apart to continue our friendship - but I didn't. I put the power of friendship to the ultimate test. We'd been friends for far too long. I had to hope that she valued me enough to know that I was trying to save her from hurting herself. I wanted to believe that our friendship could conquer anything.

A few days later, she called to say that she had thought long and hard about our conversation, and then she told me that she had broken up with her boyfriend. I just listened on the other end of the phone with tears of joy running down my face. It was one of the truly rewarding moments in my life. Never had I been so proud of a friend.

The Fence by : Unknown

There was a little boy with a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, to hammer a nail in the back fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Then it 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. It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound is still there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.

Friends are a very rare jewel, indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed. They lend an ear, they share a word of praise, and they always want to open their hearts to us

The Right Moves by : Tom Crabtree

One day, many years ago, when I was working as a psychologist at a children's institution in England, an adolescent boy showed up in the waiting room. I went out there where he was walking up and down restlessly.

I showed him into my office and pointed to the chair on the other side of my desk. It was in late autumn, and the lilac bush outside the window had shed all its leaves. "Please sit down," I said.

David wore a black rain coat that was buttoned all the way up to his neck. His face was pale, and he stared at his feet while wringing his hands nervously. He had lost his father as an infant, and had lived together with his mother and grandfather since. But the year before David turned 13, his grandfather died and his mother was killed in a car accident. Now he was 14 and in family care.

His head teacher had referred him to me. "This boy," he wrote, "is understandably very sad and depressed. He refuses to talk to others and I'm very worried about him. Can you help?"

I looked at David. How could I help him? There are human tragedies psychology doesn't have the answer to, and which no words can describe. Sometimes the best thing one can do is to listen openly and sympathetically.

The first two times we met, David didn't say a word. He sat hunched up in the chair and only looked up to look at the children's drawings on the wall behind me. As he was about to leave after the second visit, I put my hand on his shoulder. He didn't shrink back, but he didn't look at me either.

"Come back next week, if you like," I said. I hesitated a bit. Then I said, "I know it hurts."

He came, and I suggested we play a game of chess. He nodded. After that we played chess every Wednesday afternoon - in complete silence and without making any eye contact. It's not easy to cheat in chess, but I admit that I made sure David won once or twice.

Usually, he arrived earlier than agreed, took the chessboard and pieces from the shelf and began setting them up before I even got a chance to sit down. It seemed as if he enjoyed my company. But why did he never look at me?

"Perhaps he simply needs someone to share his pain with," I thought. "Perhaps he senses that I respect his suffering." One afternoon in late winter, David took off his rain coat and put it on the back of the chair. While he was setting up the chess pieces, his face seemed more alive and his motions more lively.

Some months later, when the lilacs blossomed outside, I sat starring at David's head, while he was bent over the chessboard. I thought about how little we know about therapy - about the mysterious process associated with healing. Suddenly, he looked up at me.

"It's your turn," he said.

After that day, David started talking. He got friends in school and joined a bicycle club. He wrote to me a few times ("I'm biking with some friends and I feel great"); letters about how he would try to get into university. After some time, the letters stopped. Now he had really started to live his own life.

Maybe I gave David something. At least I learned a lot from him. I learned how time makes it possible to overcome what seems to be an insuperable pain. I learned to be there for people who need me. And David showed me how one - without any words - can reach out to another person. All it takes is a hug, a shoulder to cry on, a friendly touch, a sympathetic nature - and an ear that listens.

Two Nickels and Five Pennies by : Unknown

When an ice cream sundae cost much less, a boy entered a coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. "How much is an ice cream sundae?"

"Fifty cents," replied the waitress.

The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied a number of coins in it. "How much is a dish of plain ice cream?" he inquired.

Some people were now waiting for a table, and the waitress was impatient. "Thirty-five cents," she said angrily.

The little boy again counted the coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream."

The waitress brought the ice cream and walked away. The boy finished, paid the cashier, and departed. When the waitress came back, she swallowed hard at what she saw. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies--her tip.

A Recovering Pessimist's Story by : Emily Anne

Tonight my mother and I were driving down the road. She was speeding unintentionally as she often does. Now you can guess what happened next. She got pulled over. My mom was really embarrassed. She lives in a small town, and this could cause quite a bit of talk. Anyway, she was stressed and she snapped at me. I was extremely upset. Her comment had really hurt me, after all I was just trying to help.

Now, all you optimists out there are always saying things like "Oh, you can choose to be happy... it's all in attitude and your mind..." Never seemed to apply to me. Tonight however, I learned the reality. Mother's comment didn't really hurt me any. It was understandable, and she was stressed at the time. Meant nothing. I chose to be happy. I like to think of myself as a "recovering pessimist."

A Samurai and a Zen Master by : Author Unknown

A samurai, a very proud warrior, came to see a Zen Master one day. The samurai was very famous, but looking at the beauty of the Master and the Grace of the moment, he suddenly felt inferior.

He said to the Master, "Why am I feeling inferior? Just a moment ago everything was okay. As I entered your court suddenly I felt inferior. I have never felt like that before. I have faced death many times, and I have never felt any fear -- why am I now feeling frightened?"

The Master said, "Wait. When everyone else has gone, I will answer. "

People continued the whole day to come and see the Master, and the samurai was getting more and more tired waiting. By evening the room was empty, and the samurai said, "Now, can you answer me?"

The Master said, "Come outside."

It was a full moon night, the moon was just rising on the horizen. And he said, "Look at these trees. This tree is high in the sky and this small one beside it. They both have existed beside my window for years, and there has never been any problem. The smaller tree has never said to the big tree, 'Why do I feel inferior before you?' This tree is small, and that tree is big -- why have I never heard a whisper of it?"

The samurai said, "Because they can't compare."

The Master replied, "Then you need not ask me. You know the answer."

The Loney Ember by : Author Unknown

A rich man asked a Zen master to write something down that could encourage the prosperity of his family for years to come. It would be something that the family could cherish for generations. On a large piece of paper, the master wrote, "Father dies, son dies, grandson dies."

The rich man became angry when he saw the master's work. "I asked you to write something down that could bring happiness and prosperity to my family. Why do you give me something depressing like this?"

"If your son should die before you," the master answered, "this would bring unbearable grief to your family. If your grandson should die before your son, this also would bring great sorrow. If your family, generation after generation, disappears in the order I have described, it will be the natural course of life. This is true happiness and prosperity."