Author Unknown
He was a busy executive. In the rush of his busy life, he had even no time to spend with his wife and son. He was working on his future, and nothing could stop him.
One such busy day, he received a call from his mother, "Ramu Kaka died last night. The funeral is tomorrow."
He remained silent. Memories flashed through his mind as he sat quietly remembering his childhood days. After his father’s death, Ramu Kaka stepped in to make sure he had a man's influence in his life. "He's the one who taught me the basic things in life," he thought. "I wouldn't be in this position if it weren't for him. He spent a lot of time teaching me things he thought were important.” He remembered that he loved that old house that kaka lived in.
But honestly he thought that Ramu kaka died years ago.
"Ramesh, did you hear me?"
"Oh sorry, Mom. Yes, I heard you. It's been so long since I thought of him. I'm sorry," he said.
"Well, he didn't forget you. Every time I saw him he'd ask how you were doing. He'd recollect about the old days you spent over 'his side of the fence' as he put it," Mom told him.
“Mom, I'll be there for the funeral," he said.
As busy as he was, he kept his word. He caught the next flight to his hometown. Ramu kaka’s funeral was small and uneventful. He had no children of his own, and most of his relatives had passed away.
The night before he had to return home, he stopped by the old house next door one more time. The house was exactly as he remembered. He stopped suddenly.
"There was a small gold box that he kept locked on top of his desk. I must have asked him a thousand times what was inside. All he'd ever tell me was the thing he valued the most. The box is gone," he thought.
He figured someone from Kaka’s family had taken it.
"Now I'll never know what was so valuable to him," he told himself.
Returning home one day he received a parcel by post.
He ripped open the parcel. There inside was the gold box that he was searching for in Ramu kaka’s house and an envelope.
The letter in the envelope was addressed to him. “It's the thing I valued most in my life." A small key was taped to the letter. His heart racing, as tears filling his eyes, he carefully unlocked the box. There inside he found a beautiful GOLD POCKET WATCH.
Running his fingers slowly over the finely etched casing, he unlatched the cover. Inside he found these words engraved:
"Ramesh, Thanks for your time! –Ramu Kaka."
"The thing he valued most...was...my time," he realized with shock.
He held the watch for a few minutes, then called his office and cleared his appointments for the next two days. "Why?" his assistant Suzy asked.
"I need some time to spend with my wife and son," he said. "Oh, by the way Suzy... thanks for your time!"
There was a cowherd boy who took his cows to the meadows every morning and brought them back to the cowshed at the end of the day.
One evening, as he was tying the cows up for the night, the boy found that one of them was missing her rope. He feared that she might run away, but it was too late to go and buy a new rope. The boy didn't know what to do, so he went to a wise man who lived nearby and sought his advice.
The wise man told the boy to pretend to tie the cow, and make sure that the cow saw him doing it. The boy did as the wise man suggested and pretended to tie the cow.
The next morning the boy discovered that the cow had remained still throughout the night. He untied all the cows as usual, and they all went outside.
He was about to go to the meadows when he noticed that the cow with the missing rope was still in the cowshed. She was standing on the same spot where she had been all night. He tried to coax her to join the herd, but she wouldn't budge.
The boy was perplexed.
He went back to the wise man who said, "The cow still thinks she is tied up. Go back and pretend to untie her."
The boy did as he was told, and the cow happily left the cowshed.
Like the cow, due to our ignorance, we believe that we are bound by the ego when, in fact, we are completely free. We need to be convinced of this, however.
There are many ways to respond when life takes a serious turn, but even then, perhaps especially then, one of the best is to find some humor.
Katie was a young woman with a great, big problem. She was a teenager dying of leukemia. Katie's mother wrote to tell how her daughter approached her disease. She told about a time, shortly after a bone marrow transplant, when Katie's head was “slickly bald,” as she put it.
One day Katie heard the doctor coming on rounds and ducked into the bathroom. Her mother heard her giggling and asked, "Katie, what is so funny?"
She put her finger to her lips, pulled a Nike ski cap onto her head and crawled into bed.
When the doctor came in, she said, "Well, Miss Katie! How are you feeling today?"
Katie frowned and said, "I am OK, I guess... but I just have this 'splitting' headache.”
She pulled off her ski cap and there on her bald head was a huge red crack, which she had drawn with a marker. As the doctor recovered from her initial shock, the room exploded in laughter.
Katie did not survive the cancer, but she conquered depression and despair and found an authentic way to live as fully as possible her last months of life.
“It DOES help!” Katie's mother asserted at the end of her letter.
Mark Twain says that the "human race has unquestionably one really effective weapon – laughter.”
Laughing at the twists and turns of life may not be your first response, but it can be one of the best.
There was an old man who spread rumours about his neighbour that he was a thief. And the young man was arrested.
Days later the young man was proven innocent. After been released from the jail, he sued the old man for defamation.
In court, the old man told the judge, “They were just comments. Didn’t mean to harm anyone.”
The judge told the old man, “Write all the things you said on a piece of paper.” The old man wrote.
The judge asked him to cut them into pieces. The old man did.
The judge then said, “On the way home, throw the pieces of paper out. Come back tomorrow to hear the sentence.”
The next day, the judge told the old man, “Before hearing the sentence, please go out and gather all the pieces of paper that you threw out yesterday."
The old said, “How can I do that? The wind must’ve spread them and I wouldn’t know where to find them.”
The judge then replied, "The same way, simple comments may destroy the honour of a man to such an extent that one is not able to fix it. If you can’t speak well of someone, rather don’t say anything.”
Lets all be masters of our mouths and not slaves of our words.
There was no timetable nor a room designated for PRAYERS in the School. The School was ‘secular,’ hence prayers were not supposed to be allowed.
After being interviewed and accepted by the school administration, the eager teaching prospect said in protest:
“Let me see if I’ve got this right. You want me to go into that room with all those kids and fill their every waking moment with a love for learning.
And I’m supposed to instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, modify their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse and even censor their T-shirt messages and dress habits.
You want me to wage a war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, check their backpacks for weapons of mass destruction, and raise their self-esteem.
You want me to teach them patriotism, good citizenship, sportsmanship, and fair play, how and where to register to vote, how to balance a checkbook, & how to apply for a job.
I am to check their heads for lice, maintain a safe environment, recognize signs of antisocial behavior, offer advice, write letters of recommendation for student employment and scholarships, and encourage respect for their elders and future employers.
And I am to communicate regularly with the parents by letter, telephone, newsletter, & report card.
All of this I am to do with just a piece of chalk, a blackboard, a few books, a bulletin board, and a big smile AND on a starting salary that qualifies my family for food stamps!
You want me to do all of this, and you expect me NOT TO PRAY?
You want me to do all of this and you expect me not to pray when SUCCESS of every one depends on Prayers?
Dear sir, since I am sure that I will not be able to fulfill your expectations, nor I will be successful in my career WITHOUT prayers, and so I resign willingly from the post.”
The Administrator looked down for a while then suddenly declared: “Young man, go ahead with your job. You have taught me a very important lesson today: Without prayers and help from God, no work is a success. We shall make special arrangements for prayers from today.”
