Lessons of the Week
INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIFE
1. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
2. Memorize your favorite poem.
3. Don't believe all you hear.
4. Don't spend all you have.
5. Don't sleep all you want.
6. When you say, "I love you", mean it.
7. When you say, "I'm sorry", look the person in the eye.
8. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.
9. Believe in love at first sight.
10. Never laugh at anyone's dreams.
11. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.
12. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name-calling.
13. Don't judge people by their relatives.
14. Talk slowly, but think quick.
15. When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, "Why do you want to know?"
16. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
17. Call your parents.
18. Say, "God bless you," when you hear someone sneeze.
19. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
20. Remember the three R's: respect for self; respect for others; responsibility for all your actions.
21. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
22. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
23. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.
24. Marry a person you love to talk to. As you get older, his or her conversational skills will be as important as any other.
25. Spend some time alone.
26. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
27. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
28. Read more books and watch less TV.
29. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll get to enjoy it a second time.
30. Trust in God but lock your car.
31. A loving atmosphere in your home is so important. Do all you can to create a tranquil, harmonious home.
32. In disagreements with loved ones, deal with a current situation. Don't bring up the past.
33. Read between the lines.
34. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
35. Be gentle with the earth.
36. Pray. There's immeasurable power in it.
37. Never interrupt when you are being flattered. Say, "Thank you."
38. Mind your own business.
39. Don't trust a person who doesn't close his or her eyes when you kiss them.
40. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
41. If you make a lot of money, put it to use helping others while you are living. That is wealth's greatest satisfaction.
42. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes stroke of luck.
43. Learn the rules, then break some.
44. Remember that the best relationship is one where your love for each other is greater than your need for each other.
45. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
46. Remember that your character is your destiny.
47. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
Three Great Lessons: the important things life teaches you.
1) Most Important Question
During my second month of nursing school, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions, until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank.
Before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. "Absolutely," said the professor. "In your careers you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say 'Hello'." I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.
2) Always remember those who serve
In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10 year old boy entered a hotel 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 a bit impatient. "Thirty-five cents," she said brusquely. The little boy again counted the coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream," he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and departed. When the waitress came back, she began wiping down the table and then swallowed hard at what she saw. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies - her tip.
3) Giving Blood
Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at Stanford Hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her 5-year old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies, needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, "Yes, I'll do it if it will save Liz."
As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, "Will I start to die right away?" Being young, the boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his sister all of his blood.
Here is Charles Handy, an English economist, social philosopher, professor at the London Business School. Two of his best-known books are "The Empty Raincoat: Making Sense of the Future" and "The Hungry Spirit: A Quest for Purpose in the Modern World." In the magazine Fast Company last year, Handy described the death of his father, a quiet, modest man who had lived his life as an unambitious minister of a small church in Ireland:
"When he died, I rushed back to Ireland for the funeral. Held in the little church where he had spent most of his life, it was supposed to be a quiet family affair. But it turned out to be neither quiet nor restricted to the family. I was astounded by the hundreds of people who came, on such short notice, from all corners of the British Isles. Almost every single person there came up to me and told me how much my father had meant to them -- and how deeply he had touched their lives.
"That day, I stood by his grave and wondered, Who would come to my funeral? How many lives have I touched? Who knows me as well as all of these people who knew this quiet man?
"When I returned to London, I was a deeply changed man. Later that year, I resigned my tenured professorship. More important, I dropped my pretense of being someone other than who I was. I stopped trying to be a hot shot. I decided to do what I could to make a genuine difference in other people's lives. Whether I have succeeded, only my own funeral will tell.
"I only wish that I could have told my father that he was my greatest teacher."
Renassaince
The rise of systematized education during the Renaissance -a term coined by the French more than two centuries after it began in Italy, signifying the "rebirth" of learning- laid the foundation for the West's technological and financial power for the next few hundred years.
A century of extraordinary intellectual developments -most notably the rediscovery of Euclidean geometry, which led to the invention of perspective in art and to Galileo's astronomical findings- and perhaps, most important, the rise of humanism all helped encourage intellectual freedom and put Western man in control of his own fate.
Loosers? Think again.
Do obstacles get you down when you are trying to get something done? An excellent book, 'Chicken Soup for the Soul', asks you to consider the following:
* After Fred Astaire's first screen test, a 1933 memo from the MGM testing director said: "Can't act. Slightly bald. Can dance a little". Astaire kept that memo over the fireplace in his Beverly Hills home.
* An expert said of famous football coach Vince Lombardi: "He possesses minimal football knowledge. Lacks motivation".
* Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, was advised by her family to find work as a servant or seamstress.
* Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him hopeless as a composer.
* The teacher of famous opera singer Enrico Caruso said Caruso has no voice at all and could not sing.
* Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper for lacking ideas. He also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.
* Eighteen publishers turned down Richard Bach's 10,000-word story about a soaring seagull before Macmillan finally published it in 1970. By 1975, Jonathan Livingston Seagull had sold more than seven million copies in the U.S. alone.
"After the cancer was diagnosed, the first thing I thought was 'Oh,no! My career's in jeopardy!' Then they kept finding new problems, and I forgot about my career- I was more worried about making it to my next birthday. I had the same emotions when I was sick as I have as a competitive athlete. At first I was angry; then I felt motivated and driven to get better. And when I knew I was getting better, I knew I was winning".
Lance Armstrong
Cancer survivor (In 1996, he was diagnosed testicular cancer than had spread to his brain and lungs); winner of the 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 Tour de France (absolute record of victories), which is one of the most demanding events in the world, and which people say is like running a marathon every day for 20 days.
In 1962, four nervous young musicians played their first record audition for the executives of the Decca Recording Company. The executives were not impressed. While turning down this British rock group called The Beatles, one executive said, "We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out".
from "Chicken Soup for the Soul"
When Pablo Casals reached 95, a young reporter threw him the following question: "Mr. Casals, you are 95 and the greates cellist that ever lived. Why do you still practive six hours a day?"
Mr. Casals answered, "Because I think I'm making progress."
from "Chicken Soup for the Soul"
Things I learned
- I've learned that it's taking me a long time to become the person I want to be.
- I 've learned that we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.
- I've learned that our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.
-·I've learned that either you control your attitude or it controls you.
-·I've learned that money is a lousy way of keeping score.
-·I've learned that just because two people argue, it doesn't mean they don't love each other and just because they don't argue, it doesn't mean they do.
-·I've learned that two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.
-·I've learned that we don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.
-·I've learned that no matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesn't stop for your grief.
-·I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them.
-·I've learned that no matter how much I care, some people just don't care back.
-·I've learned that it takes years to build up trust, and only seconds to destroy it.
-·I've learned that it's not what you have in your life but who you have in your life that counts.
-·I've learned that you can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes. After that, you'd better know something.
-·I've learned that you shouldn't compare yourself to the best others can do.
-·I've learned that you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.
-·I've learned that regardless of how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, the passion fades and there had better be something else to take its place.
-·I've learned that my best friend and I can do anything or nothing and have the best time.
-·I've learned that sometimes when I'm angry I have the right to be angry, but that doesn't give me the right to be cruel.
-·I've learned that true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. Same goes for true love.
-·I've learned that just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.
-·I've learned that no matter how good a friend is, they're going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.
-·I've learned that it isn't always enough to be forgiven by others. Sometimes you are to learn to forgive yourself.
-·I've learned that your life can be changed in a matter of hours by people who don't even know you.
-·I've learned that even when you think you have no more to give, when a friend cries out to you, you will find the strength to help.
-·I've learned that credentials on the wall do not make you a decent human being.
And here's what a friend of mine added to the list:
* I've learned- that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in.
* I've learned- that no matter how much I care, some people are just assholes.
* I've learned- that it takes years to build up trust, and only suspicion, not proof, to destroy it.
* I've learned -that you can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes. After that, you'd better have something more to offer.
* I've learned- that you shouldn't compare yourself to others; they are more fucked up than you think.
* I've learned- that you can keep puking long after you think you're finished.
* I've learned- that we are responsible for what we do, unless we are celebrities.
* I've learned- that sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you're down will be the ones who do.
* I've learned- that your family won't always be there for you. Of course, if you win the lottery, the hag, the philanderer, the fucked-up, and the missing one will be "there for you".
* I've learned- that we don't have to ditch bad friends because their dysfunction makes us feel better about ourselves.
* I've learned- that no matter how you try to protect your children, they will eventually get arrested and end up in the local paper.
* I've learned- that overzealous customs agents can change your life in a matter of hours.
* I've learned- that the people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon. And all the less important ones just never go away.
* I've learned- to say "Fuck them if they can't take a joke" in 6 languages.
