Inspirational

Abraham Lincoln’s Letter to his Son’s Headmaster

He will have to learn, …….. I know, that all men are not just, all men are not true, but teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero; that for every selfish politician, there is a dedicated leader... Teach him that for every enemy there is a friend. It will take time, I know, but teach him, if you can, that a dollar earned is of far more value than five found... Teach him to learn to lose...and also to enjoy winning. Steer him away from envy, if you can, teach him the secret of quiet laughter. Let him learn early that the bullies are the easiest to lick... Teach him, if you can, the wonder of a book... but also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun, and flowers on a green hillside. In school, teach him it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat... Teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if everyone tells him they are wrong... Teach him to be gentle with gentle people, and tough with the tough. Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone is getting on the bandwagon.. .Teach him to listen to all men...but teach him also to filter all he hears on a screen of truth, and take only the good that comes through. Teach him, if you can, how to laugh when he is sad... Teach him there is no shame in tears. Teach him to scoff at cynics and to beware of too much sweetness... Teach him to sell his brawn and brain to the highest bidders, but never to put a price tag on his heart and soul. Teach him to close his ears to a howling mob... and to stand and fight if he thinks he is right.

Treat him gently, but do not coddle him, because only the test of fire makes fine steel. Let him have the courage to be impatient...let him have the patience to be brave. Teach him always to have sublime faith in himself, because then he will always have sublime faith in mankind. This is a big order, but see what you can do... He is such a fine little fellow, my son!

Anand hi Anand One day I decided to quit... I quit my job, my relationship, my spirituality... I wanted to quit my life. I went to the woods to have one last talk with God. "God", I said. "Can you give me one good reason not to quit?" His answer surprised me... "Look around", He said. "Do you see the fern and the bamboo?" "Yes", I replied. "When I planted the fern and the bamboo seeds, I took very good care of them. I gave them light. I gave them water. The fern quickly grew from the earth. Its brilliant green covered

the floor. Yet nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo. In the second year the Fern grew more vibrant and plentiful. And again, nothing came from the bamboo seed. But I did not quit on the bamboo. He said. "In year three there was still nothing from the bamboo seed. But I would not quit. In year four, again, there was nothing from the bamboo seed. I would not quit." He said. "Then in the fifth year a tiny sprout emerged from the earth. Compared to the fern it was seemingly small and insignificant...But just 6 months later the bamboo rose to over 100 feet tall. It had spent the five years growing roots. Those roots made it strong and gave it what it needed to survive. I would not give any of my creations a challenge it could not handle." He said to me. "Did you know, my child, that all this time you have been struggling, you have actually been growing roots" "I would not quit on the bamboo. I will never quit on you." "Don't compare yourself to others." He said. "The bamboo had a different purpose than the fern. Yet they both make the forest

beautiful." "Your time will come", God said to me. "You will rise high" "How high should I rise" I asked. "How high will the bamboo rise" He asked in return. "As high as it can" I questioned. "Yes." He said, "Give me glory by rising as high as you can." I left the forest and bring back this story. Never Give up.

THE INTERVIEW WITH GOD I dreamed I had an interview with God. “So you would like to interview me?” God asked. “If you have the time” I said. God smiled. “My time is eternity.” “What questions do you have in mind for me?” “What surprises you most about humankind?” God answered... “That they get bored with childhood, they rush to grow up, and then long to be children again.” “That they lose their health to make money... and then lose their money to restore their health.” “That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, such that they live in neither the present nor the future.” "That they live as if they will never die, and die as though they had never lived.”

God’s hand took mine and we were silent for a while. And then I asked... “As a parent, what are some of life’s lessons you want your children to learn?” “To learn they cannot make anyone love them. All they can do is let themselves be loved.” “To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others.” “To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness.” “To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in those they love, and it can take many years to heal them.” “To learn that a rich person is not one who has the most, but is one who needs the least.” “To learn that there are people who love them dearly, but simply have not yet learned how to express or show their feelings.” “To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it differently.” “To learn that it is not enough that they forgive one another, but they must also forgive themselves.” "Thank you for your time," I said humbly. "Is there anything else you would like your children to know?" God smiled and said, “Just know that I am here... always.” -author unknown[i]

THE INTERVIEW WITH GOD I dreamed I had an interview with God. “So you would like to interview me?” God asked. “If you have the time” I said. God smiled. “My time is eternity.” “What questions do you have in mind for me?” “What surprises you most about humankind?” God answered... “That they get bored with childhood, they rush to grow up, and then long to be children again.” “That they lose their health to make money... and then lose their money to restore their health.” “That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, such that they live in neither the present nor the future.” "That they live as if they will never die, and die as though they had never lived.” God’s hand took mine

and we were silent for a while. And then I asked... “As a parent, what are some of life’s lessons you want your children to learn?” “To learn they cannot make anyone love them. All they can do is let themselves be loved.” “To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others.” “To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness.” “To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in those they love, and it can take many years to heal them.” “To learn that a rich person is not one who has the most, but is one who needs the least.” “To learn that there are people who love them dearly, but simply have not yet learned how to express or show their feelings.” “To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it differently.” “To learn that it is not enough that they forgive one another, but they must also forgive themselves.” "Thank you for your time," I said humbly. "Is there anything else you would like your children to know?" God smiled and said, “Just know that I am here... always.” -author unknown[i]

Life's lesson No. 1 There once was a bunch of tiny frogs,... ... who arranged a running competition.

The goal was to reach the top of a very high tower.

A big crowd had gathered around the tower to see the race and cheer on the contestants...

The race began...

Honestly:

No one in crowd really believed that the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower.

You heard statements such as: "Oh, WAY too difficult!!" "They will NEVER make it to the top." or: "Not a chance that they will succeed. The tower is too high!"

The tiny frogs began collapsing. One by one... ... Except for those, who in a fresh tempo, were climbing higher and higher...

The crowd continued to yell, "It is too difficult!!! No one will make it!"

More tiny frogs got tired and gave up...

...But ONE continued higher and higher and higher... This one wouldn't give up!

At the end everyone else had given up climbing the tower. Except for the one tiny frog who, after a big effort, was the only one who reached the top!

THEN all of the other tiny frogs naturally wanted to know how this one frog managed to do it?

A contestant asked the tiny frog how he had found the strength to succeed and reach the goal?

It turned out... That the winner was DEAF!!!!

The wisdom of this story is:

Never listen to other people's tendencies to be negative or pessimistic... ...because they take your most wonderful dreams and wishes away from you -the ones you have in your heart!

Always think of the power words have. Because everything you hear and read will affect your actions!

Therefore:

ALWAYS be...

POSITIVE!

And above all:

Be DEAF when people tell YOU that you cannot fulfill your dreams! Always think: God and I can do this!

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat these two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!' If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

In ancient Greece (469 - 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom. One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who ran up to him excitedly and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?" Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me I'd like you to pass a little test.It's called the Triple Filter Test." "Triple filter?" "That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my student let's take a moment to filter what you're going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?" "No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and..." "All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?" "No, on the contrary..." "So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him, even though you're not certain it's true?" The man shrugged, a little embarrassed. Socrates continued. "You may still pass the test though,because there is a third filter - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?" "No, not really..." "Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful,! why tell it to me at all?" The man was defeated and ashamed. This is the reason Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.

Principles of life * Winning isn't everything. But wanting to win is. * You would achieve more, if you don't mind who gets the credit. * When everything else is lost, the future still remains. * Don't fight too much. Or the enemy would know your art of war. * The only job you start at the top is when you dig a grave. * If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for everything. * If you do little things well, you'll do big ones better. * Only thing that comes to you without effort is old age. * You won't get a second chance to make the first impression. * Only those who do nothing do not make mistakes. * Never take a problem to your boss unless you have a solution. * If you are not failing you're not taking enough risks. * Don't try to get rid of bad temper by losing it. * If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you. * Those who don't make mistakes usually don't make anything * There are two kinds of failures. Those who think and never do, and those who do and never think. * Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win. * All progress has resulted from unpopular decisions. * Change your thoughts and you change your world. * Understanding proves intelligence, not the speed of the learning. * There are two kinds of fools in this world. Those who give advise and those who don't take it. * The best way to kill an idea is to take it to a meeting.

* Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things. * Friendship founded on business is always better than business founded on friendship.

Amazing Speech by Steve Jobs 'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005. I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college. And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in

a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together. I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the

head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle. My third story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes. I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now. This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Thank you all very much.

This is a true, emotionally overwhelming and a beautiful story of a father and a son that shakes you enough to moist your eyes... read on Strongest Dad in the World [From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly] I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck. Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day. Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right? And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life. This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. ``He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an institution.'' But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain.'' "Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want to do that.'' Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. "Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks.'' That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!'' And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon. "No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite

a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year. Then somebody said, "Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?'' How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried. Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think? Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together. This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time'? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time. ``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.'' And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack arteries was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.'' So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life. Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day. That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy. `The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.'' ... »

Learning from a Mouse A little mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. "What food might this contain?" the mouse wondered. He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap. Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The chicken clucked and scratched,raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tellthis is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it." The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The pig sympathized,but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, butthere is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers." The mouse turned to the cow and said, "There is a mousetrapin the house! There is a mousetrap in the huse!"The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose." So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house - like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake lunged and bit the farmer's wife on her foot. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient. But his dear wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. The farmer's wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral that the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for them to eat. The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall and sighed with great sadness... So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and you think it doesn't concern you, remember that when one of us is threatened, we are ALL at risk ... we are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for other folks and make an extra effort to encourage and help one another. And remember each of us is a vital thread in another person's tapestry Our lives are woven together for a reason!!!! ... »

Scientists at the Rocket launching station in Thumba, were in the habit of working for nearly 12 to 18 hours a day. There were about Seventy such scientists working on a project. All the scientists were really frustrated due to the pressure of work and the demands of their boss but everyone was loyal to him and did not think of quitting the job. One day, one scientist came to his boss and told him - Sir, I have promised to my children that I will take them to the exhibition going on in our township. So I want to leave the office at 5 30 pm. His boss replied - O K, , You are permitted to leave the office early today. The Scientist started working. He continued his work after lunch. As usual he got involved to such an extent that he looked at his watch when he felt he was close to completion.The time was 8.30 p.m Suddenly he remembered of the promise he had given to his children. He looked for his boss,,He was not there. Having told him in the morning itself, he closed everything and left for home. Deep within himself, he was feeling guilty for having disappointed his children. He reached home. Children were not there.His wife alone was sitting in the hall and reading magazines. The situation was explosive, any talk would boomerang on him. His wife asked him - Would you like to have coffee or shall I straight away serve dinner if you are hungry. The man replied - If you would like to have coffee, i too will have but what about Children??? Wife replied- You don't know - Your manager came at 5 15 p.m and has taken the children to the exhibition. What had really happened was The boss who granted him permission was observing him working seriously at 5.00 p.m. He thought to himself, this person will not leave the work, but if he has promised his children they should enjoy the visit to exhibition. So he took the lead in taking them to exhibition The boss does not have to do it everytime. But once it is done, loyalty is established. That is why all the scientists at Thumba continued to work under their boss eventhough the stress was tremendous. By the way , can you hazard a guess as to who the boss was???????? He was the president of India Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam.