Feel good about who you are

[rgurus]

Share:

Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp Email Share Link

Don't confuse a chapter with the whole book.​ ​ ​ ​

Relationships can only go as deep as the people in them.​ ​ ​ ​

 

[rgurus]

"The sexiest thing in the entire world is being really smart. And being thoughtful, and being generous. Everything else is crap, I promise you. It’s just crap that people try to sell to you to make you feel like less. So don’t buy it. Be smart, be thoughtful and be generous. Everything around us that we call life was made up of people that are no smarter than you. And you can build your own things, you can build your own life that other people can live in. So build a life — don’t just live one, build one." ~ ​

Ashton Kutcher

 

[rgurus]

Learn to appreciate
Once upon a time, there was a man who was very helpful, kindhearted, and generous. He was a man who will help someone without asking anything to pay him back. He will help someone because he wants to and he loves to. One day while walking into a dusty road, this man saw a purse, so he picked it up and noticed that the purse was empty. Suddenly a woman with a policeman shows up and gets him arrested.
The woman kept on asking where did he hide her money but the man replied, “It was empty when I found it, Mam.” The woman yelled at him, “Please give it back, It’s for my son’s school fees.” The man noticed that the woman really felt sad, so he handed all his money. He could say that the woman was a single mother. The man said, “Take these, sorry for the inconvenience.” The woman left and a policeman held the man for further questioning.
The woman was very happy but when she counted her money, later on, it was doubled, she was shocked. One day while the woman was going to pay her son’s school fees towards the school, she noticed that some skinny man was walking behind her. She thought that he may rob her, so she approached a policeman standing nearby. He was the same policeman, who she took along to inquire about her purse. The woman told him about the man following her, but suddenly they saw that man collapsing. They ran at him and saw that he was the same man whom they arrested a few days back for stealing a purse.
He looked very weak and the woman was confused. The policeman said to the woman, “He didn’t return your money, he gave you his money that day. He wasn’t the thief but hearing about you son’s school fees, he felt sad and gave you his money.” Later, they helped the man stand up, and the man told the woman, “Please go ahead and pay your son’s school fees, I saw you and followed you to be sure that no one steals your son’s school fees.” The woman was speechless.
Moral: Life gives you strange experiences, sometime it shocks you and sometimes it may surprise you. We end up making wrong judgments or mistakes in our anger, desperation and frustration. However, when you get a second chance, correct your mistakes and return the favor. Be Kind and Generous. Learn to Appreciate what you are given.

 

[rgurus]

Dream big and dare to fail.” ~Norman Vaughan
Having small dreams and being afraid to fail is the antithesis of this advice, and it’s something many of us do, even though we may not want to admit it. The two go hand in hand, if you are too afraid of failing you’ll keep your dreams on a leash. But if you overcome that fear, and jump out there fully willing to completely fail, you free your mind to dream up new adventures and goals for your life. Failure comes with trying, and a life of not trying will not leave you satisfied, so it’s good to continually put yourself out there.

 

[rgurus]

 

[rgurus]

"The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can't be organized or regulated. It isn't true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth." ~ Ram Dass

 

[rgurus]

"Some beautiful paths can't be discovered without getting lost." ~ Erol Ozan

 

[rgurus]

Son to father
Once day, the father was doing some work and his son came and asked, “Daddy, may I ask you a question?” Father said, “Yeah sure, what it is?”
So his son asked, “Dad, how much do you make an hour?”
Father got a bit upset and said, “That’s none of your business. Why do you ask such a thing?”
Son said, “I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?” So, the father told him “I make Rs. 500 per hour.”

“Oh”, the little boy replied, with his head down. Looking up, he said, “Dad, may I please borrow Rs. 300?”
The father became furious and said, “if the only reason you asked about my pay is so that you can borrow some money to buy a silly toy or other nonsense, then march yourself to your room and go to bed. Think why you are being so selfish. I work hard every day and do not like this childish behavior.”



The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door. The man sat down and started to get even angrier about the little boy’s questions. How dare he asks such questions only to get some money?
After about an hour or so, the man had calmed down and started to think, “Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that Rs. 300 and he never really asked for money very often!”
The man went to the little boy’s room and opened the door.“ Are you sleeping, son?” He asked.
“No daddy, I’m awake,” replied the boy.
“I’ve been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier”, said the man. “It’s been a long day and I took out my aggravation on you, Here’s the Rs.300 you asked for”.

The little boy sat straight up, smiling “oh thank you, dad!” He yelled. Then, reaching under his pillow he pulled some crippled up notes. The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to get angry again. The little boy slowly counted out his money, then looked up at his father.
“Why do you want money if you already had some?” the father grumbled. “Because I didn’t have enough, but now I do,” the little boy replied.
“Daddy I have Rs. 500 now. Can I buy an hour of your time?
Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you”. Father was dumbstruck.

Moral: It’s just a short reminder to all of you working so hard in life! We should not let time slip through our fingers without having spent some time with those who really matter to us, those close to our hearts. If we die tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days. But the family & friends we leave behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives. And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more into work than to our family.

 

[rgurus]

When it comes to success, there will ALWAYS be a struggle in some way, shape, or form and we should drop the notion of living a struggle-free life—it simply won’t happen.

 

[rgurus]

Until death does us apart ( A heart rending long short story)
When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I’ve got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes. Suddenly I didn’t know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly.
She didn’t seem to be annoyed by my words, instead, she asked me softly, why? I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn’t talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn’t love her anymore. I just pitied her!
With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake in my company. She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally, she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me, her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.
The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn’t have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane. When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.
In the morning she presented her divorce conditions. She didn’t want anything from me but needed a month’s notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month, we both try to live as normal a life as possible. Her reason for this conditions was simple. Our son had his exams in a month’s time and she didn’t want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.
This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day. She requested that everyday for the month’s duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.
I told Jane about my wife’s divorce conditions. She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully.
My wife and I hadn’t had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mommy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don’t tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.
On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn’t looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young anymore. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.
On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me. On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn’t tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.
She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily. Suddenly it hit me. She had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.
Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it’s time to carry mom out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last-minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly, it was just like our wedding day.
But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn’t noticed that our life lacked intimacy. I drove to the office and jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind. I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore.
She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Jane, I said, I won’t divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn’t value the details of our lives, not because we didn’t love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death does us apart.
Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away. At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, “I’ll carry you out every morning until death does us apart”.
That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run upstairs, only to find my wife in the bed – dead.
My wife had been fighting cancer for months and I was so busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon and she wanted to save me from the whatever negative reaction from our son, in case we push through with the divorce. At least, in the eyes of our son— I’m a loving husband.
Moral: The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves. So find time to be your spouse’s friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. And have a real happy marriage.

 

[rgurus]

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, Not sure if we can use electricity properly.”
Edison replied very confidently, “Oh, we have come a long way and we have learned a lot. We know that there are two thousand elements which we cannot use to make a good light bulb.”
Moral: We can also learn from our mistakes.

 

[rgurus]

Love leads to connection and oneness, acceptance and compassion. It's the path we need to take, both to survive and to evolve. Indeed, it's the spiritual path. anonymous

 

[rgurus]

Our spiritual nature is a wonderful aspect that we each have as a human being. Yes, every single one of us, even our dotty neighbor and especially our rebellious child. And it is the challenge we each have, to rediscover and express our true self in this life. Only then will we die content.
anonymous

 

[rgurus]

“We are made by love, we are made of love, and we are made for love.” Kurshed Batliwala

 

[rgurus]

“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do. But it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.” ~ Dale Carnegie

 

[rgurus]

Where weakness becomes strength
10-year-old boy decided to study judo despite the fact that he had lost his left arm in a devastating car accident.
The boy began lessons with an old Japanese judo master. The boy was doing well, so he couldn’t understand why, after three months of training the master had taught him only one move. “Sensei,”(Teacher in Japanese) the boy finally said, “Shouldn’t I be learning more moves?” “This is the only move you know, but this is the only move you’ll ever need to know,” the sensei replied.
Not quite understanding, but believing in his teacher, the boy kept training. Several months later, the sensei took the boy to his first tournament. Surprising himself, the boy easily won his first two matches. The third match proved to be more difficult, but after some time, his opponent became impatient and charged; the boy deftly used his one move to win the match. Still amazed by his success, the boy was now in the finals.
This time, his opponent was bigger, stronger, and more experienced. For a while, the boy appeared to be overmatched. Concerned that the boy might get hurt, the referee called a time-out. He was about to stop the match when the sensei intervened. “No,” the sensei insisted, “Let him continue.” Soon after the match resumed, his opponent made a critical mistake: he dropped his guard. Instantly, the boy used his move to pin him. The boy had won the match and the tournament.
He was the champion. On the way home, the boy and sensei reviewed every move in each and every match. Then the boy summoned the courage to ask what was really on his mind.
“Sensei, how did I win the tournament with only one move?”
“You won for two reasons,” the sensei answered. “First, you’ve almost mastered one of the most difficult throws in all of the judo. And second, the only known defense for that move is for your opponent to grab your left arm.”
The boy’s biggest weakness had become his biggest strength.
Moral: Sometimes we feel that we have certain weaknesses and we blame God, the circumstances or ourselves for it but we never know that our weaknesses can become our strengths one day. Each of us is special and important, so never think you have any weakness, never think of pride or pain, just live your life to its fullest and extract the best out of it!

 

[rgurus]

"The best six doctors anywhere - and no one can deny it - are sunshine, water, rest, air, exercise and diet." ~ Wayne Fields

 

[rgurus]

"When the mind, body and spirit work as one, anything is possible." ~ Criss Angel

 

[rgurus]

"The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly." ~ Buddha

 

[rgurus]

Opening up to painful feelings, experiencing them and realizing they are our own creation and therefore a choice, enables us to release and let go of the stress they cause. Peter Shepherd

 

[rgurus]

Mother's love for her baby
One day Thomas Edison came home and gave a paper to his mother. He told her, “MOM, My teacher gave this paper to me and told me to give it only to YOU.”
His mother’s eyes were tearful and after some hesitation, she READ the letter out LOUD to her child, “Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn’t have enough good teachers for training him. Please teach him yourself.”

Many years after Edison’s mother had died, Edison had become one of the greatest inventors of the century. One day he was going through the old closet and he found a folded letter which was given to him by his teacher for his mother. He opened it.
The message written on the letter was, “Your son is MENTALLY ILL . We can not let him attend our school anymore. He is expelled.”
Edison became emotional reading it and then he wrote in his diary, “Thomas Alva Edison was a mentally ill child whose mother turned him into the genius of the century.”
Moral: A Mother’s love and upbringing can help change the destiny of a child.

 

[rgurus]

Find something you like to do so much that you would gladly do it for nothing; then learn to do it so well that people are happy to pay you for it." ~ ​

John C. Maxwell, Leadership Gold

 

[rgurus]

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.” ~ Marcus Aurelius,Meditations


​

​

 

[rgurus]

“Don’t hope for a life with no pain; hope for a life with good pain. We all know that not everything that feels good is actually good. In the same way, not everything that feels painful is necessarily bad.” ~ LaRae Quy, Smart Brief

 

[rgurus]

Loh was in the Broadway cast of The King and I, and a mom came to see the show with her son, who was apparently autistic. During an intense moment Loh described as “the whipping scene,” the child yelped and then, according to reports, became inconsolable. Loh wrote, “His voice pierced the theater. The audience started to rally against the mother and her child to be removed. I heard murmurs of ‘Why would you bring a child like that to the theater?'”






But what was the reaction of Loh?

But not in the way you might think. He said




"This is wrong. Plainly wrong. Because what you didn’t see was a mother desperately trying to do just that [calm her son]. But her son was not compliant. What they didn’t see was a mother desperately pleading with her child as he gripped the railing refusing—yelping more out of defiance. I could not look away. I wanted to scream and stop the show and say—”EVERYONE RELAX. SHE IS TRYING. CAN YOU NOT SEE THAT SHE IS TRYING???!!!!” I will gladly do the entire performance over again. Refund any ticket because—




For her to bring her child to the theater is brave. You don’t know what her life is like. Perhaps, they have great days where he can sit still and not make much noise because this is a rare occurrence. Perhaps she chooses to no longer live in fear, and refuses to compromise the experience of her child. Maybe she scouted the aisle seat for a very popular show in case such an episode would occur. She paid the same price to see the show as you did for her family. Her plan, as was yours, was to have an enjoyable afternoon at the theater and slowly her worst fears came true."




As the lights lifted for the curtain call, he saw the seats where the mother and child had been. Empty. He was heartbroken. “I want her to know,” he said, “that she is brave and should continue to champion her child… I will continue to make theater for her. And that is the best I can do for now!”




That is compassion. The ability to step outside our self-interest, stand in another’s shoes, feel that person’s suffering and want to do something to make it better. Empathy meets altruism. It is, quite possibly, the key to human existence and the answer to much of the violence, strife, and separation that seem to increasingly define the world we inhabit.