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Showing posts with label Smile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Smile. Show all posts

Saturday, 27 March 2021

 (WhatsApp forward)

To all the wonderful moms:

We tend to care a lot and hence want to decide everything for our family members. Sometimes it stresses us too. This mom teaches us how to overcome it.

LESSON FOR LIFE💝

My mom felt exhausted. She was irritable and grumpy, until one day, suddenly, she changed.

One day my dad said to her:  I'm going to have a few beers with friends.

My mom replied:  Okay.

My brother said to her:  I'm doing poorly in all subjects in college.

My mom replied:  Okay, you will recover, and if you don't, you repeat the semester, but you pay the tuition.

My sister said to her:  I smashed the car.

My mom replied:  Okay, take it to the car shop & get it fixed.

All of us were worried to see these reactions coming from mom. We suspected that she had gone to the doctor and was prescribed some pills called "I don't give a damn”.

We then proposed to do an "intervention" with my mother to remove her from any possible addiction she had towards some anti-tantrum medication.

But then mom gathered us around her and explained:

"It took me a long time to realize that each person is responsible for their life. It took me years to discover that my anguish, anxiety, my depression, my courage, my insomnia & my stress, does not solve your problems but aggravates mine.

I am not responsible for the actions of anyone and it’s not my job to provide happiness.

Therefore, I came to the conclusion that my duty to myself is to remain calm and let each one of you solve what corresponds to you.

I have taken courses in yoga, meditation, miracles, human development, mental hygiene, vibration and neuro linguistic programming and in all of them, I found a common denominator.

I can only control myself, you have all the necessary resources to solve your own problems despite how hard they may be. My job is to PRAY for you, LOVE you, ENCOURAGE you, but it’s up to YOU to solve them and find your happiness.

I can only give you my advice if you ask me and it depends on you to follow it or not. There are consequences, good or bad, to your decisions and YOU have to live with them.”

Everyone at home was speechless.

From that day on, the family began to function better because everyone in the house knew exactly what it is that they needed to do.



Tuesday, 18 August 2015

Education and Experience

Unknown Author

There is a difference between education and experience.
Education is what you get from reading the small print.
Experience is what you get from not reading it! 
But isn't it true that great learning comes from both education and experience? 
Let me tell you a parable:
A young school teacher had a dream that an angel appeared to him and said, "You will be given a child who will grow up to become a world leader. How will you prepare her so that she will realize her intelligence, grow in confidence, develop both her assertiveness and sensitivity, be open—minded, yet strong in character? In short, what kind of education will you provide that she can become one of the world's truly GREAT leaders?"

The young teacher awoke in a cold sweat. It had never occurred to him before —any ONE of his present or future students could be the person described in his dream. Was he preparing them to rise to ANY POSITION to which they may aspire? He thought, 'How might my teaching change if I KNEW that one of my students were this person?'  


He gradually began to formulate a plan in his mind:

·         This student would need experience as well as instruction.
·         She / he would need to know how to solve problems of various kinds.
·         She / he would need to grow in character as well as knowledge.
·         She / he would need self assurance as well as the ability to listen well and work with others.
·         She / he would need to understand and appreciate the past, yet feel optimistic about the future.
·         She / he would need to know the value of lifelong learning in order to keep a curious and active mind.
·         She / he would need to grow in understanding of others and become a student of the spirit.
·         She/ he would need to set high standards for herself and learn self discipline, yet  would also need love and encouragement, that they might be filled with love and goodness.

His teaching changed. Every young person who walked through his classroom became, for him, a future world leader. He saw each one, not as they were, but as they could be. He expected the best from his students, yet tempered it with compassion. He taught each one as if the future of the world depended on his instruction.


After many years, a woman he knew rose to a position of world prominence.  He realized that she must surely have been the girl described in his dream. 


It turned out she was not one of his students, but rather his daughter. For all the various teachers in her life, her father was the best. 


I've heard it said that "Children are living messages we send to a time and place we will never see." But this isn't simply a parable about an unnamed school teacher. It is a parable about you and me —whether or not we are parents or even teachers.


And the story, OUR story, actually begins like this:


"You will be given a child who will grow up to become...."  You finish the sentence.

If not a world leader, then a superb father?
An excellent teacher?
A gifted healer?
An innovative problem solver?
An inspiring artist?
A generous philanthropist?

Where and how you will encounter this child is a mystery. But believe that one child's future may depend upon influence only you can provide, and something remarkable will happen. For no young person will ever be ordinary to you again. And you will never be the same.




Tuesday, 20 May 2014

Live for this moment

A man died. When he realized it, he saw God coming closer with a suitcase in his hand.
God said, “Alright son. It’s time to go.”

Surprised the man responded, “Now? So soon? I had a lot of plans...”

“I'm sorry but its time to go,” said God

“What do you have in that suitcase?” the man asked.
“God answered, “Your belongings.”

“My belongings? You mean my things, my clothes, my money?”
“God answered, “Those things were not yours. They belonged to the earth.”

“Is it my memories?” the man asked.
“God answered, “Those never belonged to you. They belonged to Time.”

“Is it my talents?”
God answered, “Those were never yours. They belonged to the circumstances.”

“Is it my friends and family?”
God answered, “I'm sorry they were never yours. They belonged to the path.”

“Is it my wife and son?”
God answered, “They were never yours. They belonged to your heart.”

“Is it my body?”
God answered, “That was never yours. It belonged to the dust.”

“Is it my soul?”
God answered, “No, that is mine.”

Full of fear, the man took the suitcase from god and opened it just to find out the suitcase was empty.

With a tear coming down his cheek the man said, “I never had anything???”

God answered, “That is correct. Nothing belonged to you. Life is just a moment. Only the moments you lived were yours. Nothing else.”

So, Live for Now. Live your life. Don't forget to be happy. That is the only thing that matters. Material things and everything else that we fight for stay here.
WE CAN'T TAKE ANYTHING.



Tuesday, 6 May 2014

Stresses and worries

A Psychologist walked around a room while teaching Stress Management to an audience.

As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they'd be asked the... "Half empty or Half full" question.

Instead, with a smile on her face, she inquired: "How heavy is this glass of water?"

Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.

She replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long I hold it. 

If I hold it for a minute, it's not a problem.

If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my arm.

If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed.

In each case, the weight of the glass doesn't change.

But

The longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."

She continued, "The Stresses and Worries in Life , are like that Glass of Water...

Think about them for a while and nothing happens.

Think about them a bit longer and they begin to hurt.

And

If you think about them all day long, you will feel paralyzed – incapable of doing anything."

Remember to put the Glass Down —



Sunday, 9 February 2014

Friendship Cake

Ingredients:                                                        

1 cup. love
1/2 cup. smiles
1 oz. hug
2/3 cup. compassion
1 tsp. sympathy
2 cup. joy

Method:
Cream love and smiles thoroughly.
Add hugs separately.
Slowly stir in compassion.
Sift sympathy and joy and fold in carefully.
Bake in warm heart.

Serve often.  

Sunday, 12 January 2014

Enjoy your gifts

Author Unknown

May this story serve as a gentle reminder to all of us that the things we overlook as simple and ordinary are often the most wonderful - and we don't have to travel anywhere special to experience them.


Junior high school students in a school were studying the Seven Wonders of the World. At the end of the lesson, the students were asked to list what they considered to be the Seven Wonders of the World. Though there was some disagreement, the following received the most votes:

1. Egypt's Great Pyramids
2. The Taj Mahal in India
3. The Grand Canyon in Arizona
4. The Panama Canal
5. The Empire State Building
6. St. Peter's Basilica
7. China's Great Wall

While gathering the votes, the teacher noted that one student, a quiet girl, hadn't turned in her paper yet. So she asked the girl if she was having trouble with her list. The quiet girl replied, "Yes, a little. I couldn't quite make up my mind because there were so many." The teacher said, "Well, tell us what you have, and maybe we can help."

The girl hesitated, then read, "I think the Seven Wonders of the World are:

1. to touch...
2. to taste...
3. to see...
4. to hear... (She hesitated a little, and then added...)
5. to feel...
6. to laugh...
7. and to love.

The room was so quiet, you could have heard a pin drop.

Enjoy your gifts!


Friday, 10 January 2014

God, the photographer

Author Unknown


A little girl walked daily to and from school. Though the weather this particular morning was questionable and clouds were forming, she made her trek to the elementary school. As the afternoon progressed, the winds whipped up, along with thunder and lightning.

The child's mother, concerned that her daughter would be frightened and possibly harmed by the storm got into her car and drove along the route to her child's school.

As she did so, she saw her little daughter walking along happily but at each flash of lightning the child would stop, look up, and smile.

Stopping the car, the mother called to the child to get in with her. As they drove toward school, the girl continued to turn toward each lightning flash and smile.

The Mother asked, "What are you doing?"

The child answered, "Well, I must do this, God keeps taking pictures of me."

Thursday, 9 January 2014

The truly evolved person

A Rabbi was delivering his lectures from the Hebrew Scriptures. In the course of their studies the students came across a line which read, “The truly evolved person is he who continues to smile in the midst of his difficulties.”

The students had a problem here. They were unable to accept this. “How is it possible to smile when we are truly in difficulty? Its impossible” they said.

The Rabbi thought it over. He had to concede. “To be honest with you, I myself cannot answer this. Because I too cannot smile when I am in difficulty”.

There was an eerie silence. The Rabbi continued, “However I can help you in this. There is an old man not far from this place. As a child, he had been an abandoned and orphaned. As a young man he lost both his legs in an accident. His life has been a difficult one, with series of struggles and sufferings. Yet, he always wears a beautiful smile. You must go and ask him how it is possible.”

The students became curious. They went and knocked at his door. It was opened by the man himself who was moving in a wheelchair. He welcomed them smilingly and asked them what brought them there.

“Sir, its this text in our lesson which brought us here. It says that the truly evolved person is he who continues to smile in the midst of his difficulties. The Rabbi himself couldn’t answer but he said you are the best person who can answer this. Please tell us how you continue to wear that smile despite all your difficulties and suffering?”

The man said smilingly, “I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong address. I’m 73, and I’ve never faced any difficulty in my life so far. The Lord has always been good to me. He has always protected me and saved me. This being the truth, how can I teach you how to smile in the midst of difficulties?”

The students got the answer. 

Here was a person who lived in close proximity to God.



Wednesday, 26 September 2012

Genuine smile, Fake smile and Invisible smile


It was an amazing talk on the power of smiling. He revealed some stunning facts in that talk.

§  One single smile can generate the same level of brain stimulants as finding $25,000 or upto 2000 bars of chocolate
§  Most adults smile about 20 times a day while children smile more than 400 times a day.
§  Studies show that even unborn children smile most of the time in the womb.
§  Smiling reduces stress hormone levels and increases the levels of stimulants, while also reducing blood pressure.
§  The fullness of a smile in a picture has been shown to be an accurate predictor of longevity, success, and well-being.

Well, what exactly is a smile? What causes a smile in one’s face? Charles Gordy answers this--"A "smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks."  A smile is nothing but externalization of an internal joy. A smile is an expression of happiness and joy in us. Smiling is one of the most basic biological uniform expressions of all humans.

Living in a jet age as such, we struggle juggling between too many things. Managing the kids around, cleaning the house, getting groceries…… we are always on the run. Lives can be busy at times and slow and boring at other moments. It's so easy to get caught up in everyday life that we forget how a simple thing like smiling takes so little effort and time.

Actually, there isn’t any great art behind smiling. We are all born to be happy, and we can show this happiness with that beautiful smile of ours. When you walk into a fun party where everyone is smiling and laughing, it's easy to get into the high spirit of the occasion. On the other hand, when you walk into a room where frowns are predominant, it's equally easy to start feeling a little lower in spirit. All it takes to uplift the mood in this room is to remember to smile away instantly without even blinking an eye! A smile is not something that you would like to save and store to be given sometime in the future! Use it when it is badly needed. 

But a point to be noted here. All smiles are not genuine. Sadly sometimes we have to fake a smile. Of course not in the bad sense of the term. To put it mildly it can be called a 'polite smile.' These smiles are generated by the conscious brain and can be performed at will. A smile which we show when we meet some strangers in the elevators, our next seat neighbor in the flight, the person standing behind us in the payment counter at the grocery store.... are all this kind of polite smiles. Genuine smiles, on the other hand, are generated by the unconscious brain and so are automatic. 

Is it possible for us to distinguish between a genuine smile and a fake one?  I came across this quick interactive quiz from BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/) to test out your ability to spot the difference between a real smile and a fake one. Please do take this test without fail. Its fun. It tells you how good you are at finding out the fake smile from a genuine one.

Real smile and fake smile apart, have you heard about ‘invisible smile’? Read this story on..

Mr. Menon was an old grouch, and everyone in town knew it. Kids knew not to go into his yard to pick a yummy apple, even off the ground, because old  Menon, they said, would come after you with his gun.

One day, 12 year old Annie was going to stay all night with her friend Priya. They had to walk by Menon’s house on the way to Priya's house, but as they got close Annie saw him sitting on his front porch and suggested they cross over to the other side of the street. Like most of the children, she was scared of Mr. Menon because of the stories she'd heard about him.

Priya said not to worry, Mr. Menon wouldn't hurt anyone. When they got close enough, Menon looked up with his usual frown, but when he saw it was Priya, a broad smile changed his entire countenance as he said, "Hello Miss Priya. I see you've got a little friend with you today."

Priya smiled back and told him Annie was staying overnight and they were going to listen to music and play games. Menon told them that sounded fun, and offered them each a fresh picked apple off his tree. They gladly accepted, Menon had the best apples in town.

When they got out of Menon's earshot, Annie asked Priya, "Everyone says he's the meanest man in town. How come he was he so nice to us?"

Priya explained that when she first started walking past his house he wasn't very friendly and she was afraid of him, but she pretended he was wearing an invisible smile and so she always smiled back at him. It took a while, but one day he half-smiled back at her.After some more time, he started smiling real smiles and then started talking to her. Just a "hello" at first, then more. She said he always offers her an apple now, and is always very kind.

"An invisible smile?" questioned Annie.

"Yes," answered Priya, "my grandma told me that if I pretended I wasn't afraid and pretended he was smiling an invisible smile at me and I smiled back at him, that sooner or later he really would smile. Grandma says smiles are contagious."


If as per Priya's grandma, every one of us wears an invisible smile, we too will find that even grouchy person like Mr Menon can't resist reciprocating it after a while. J



Monday, 2 July 2012

Gratitude to the Universe


   Many of us must've read the book or watched the movie "The Secret". The movie that created ripples of positivism in the world and brought the terms "Laws of Attraction" and "positive thinking" into drawing room conversation. 

      "Like attracts Like" is what the laws of attractions says which simply means that if we focus on negative thoughts, we attract negative results and vice versa. In other words, our life is only a projection of our inner beliefs. Like Laws of Attraction, Law of gravity too says, "whatever we throw, comes back to us." There goes another saying "as you sow, so shall you reap". Just as a needle in the compass which always points to the North, apparently, all these laws point to the same direction. 

      Of late, we are constantly attacked with whole lot of scams. Internet scams, online scams, facebook scams, 3-G scams, email scams, corruptions...........all the negative aspects of life. These scams have set up a deep root in our civilization. Hearing them day in and day out have blown our minds and numbed our brains that at times we are unable to react. But when we do, we react furiously. The media discusses it with much passion and fury. There are atleast 6 participants engaged in hot discussion, no one conceding to the other, allegations, counter allegations, with no possible solution at the end. Sparks of fire fly across but the status quo of the scam remains. All wasteful talk. We contribute too whatever possible from our side. What we do not realize here is that if we go by the "Laws of Attractions" we are only strengthening the roots by our violent reactions and are attracting more of this negative features. That is probably one of the reasons why these scams are increasing in great proportion of late. Without realizing, we create these.   

I'm reminded of a parable by Sri Ramakrishna.

A THIEF entered the palace of a king in the dead of night and overheard the king saying to the queen, "I shall give my daughter in marriage to one of those holy men who are dwelling on the bank of the river," The thief thought within himself: "Well, here is good luck for me. I will go and sit among the holy men tomorrow in the disguise of a holy man, and perchance I may succeed in getting the king's daughter."

The next day he did so. When the king's officers came soliciting the holy men to marry the king's daughter, none of them consented to it. At last they came to the thief in the guise of a holy man, and made the same proposal to him. The thief kept quiet. The officers went back and told the king that there was a young holy man who might be influenced to marry the princess and that there was no other who would consent. The king then came to the holy man in person and earnestly entreated him to honour him by accepting the hand of his daughter.

But the heart of the thief was changed at the king's visit. He thought within himself: "I have only assumed the garb of a holy man, and behold! The king comes to me and is all entreaties. Who can say what better things may not be in store for me if I become a real holy man?" These thoughts so strongly affected him that, instead of marrying under false pretences, he began to mend his ways from that very day and exerted himself to become a true holy man. He did not marry at all, and ultimately became one of the most pious ascetics of his day.

The counterfeiting of a good thing sometimes leads to unexpected good results.

This being the reality, life tells us that the best way to react to these negative aspects of life is to keep a positive attitude. As responsible citizens, rather than spreading negativity by discussing more and more of these scams, etc, the wisest thing that we can do is to wish and affirm that these are teaching us a lesson and that we are turning the leaves over to enter a beautiful new era filled with positivity. So the Universe and we will attract more of it. That is the least we can do for this planet. "Will that bring progress?" you may ask. Well, progress is not achieved by negative steps but by taking positive steps, though small. 

Says acclaimed writer Louise Hay, “It's as though every time we think a thought, every time we speak a word, the universe is listening and responding to us. The more grateful you are, the more you get to be grateful about. It's that simple. The universe really loves gratitude. And the more gratitude you have, the more goodies you get.”

There is only one saying which defies this law. It is, “If you smile, the world smiles back at you, but on the other hand if you cry, you cry alone.”

So, let’s smile more and more and attract more smiles………. JJJJJJ