Saturday, May 21, 2005

Contentment

What does this above word mean to you? I got this email from my Aunt.

Have you ever, at any one time, had the feeling that life is bad real bad, and you wish you were in another situation? You find life make things difficult for you, work sucks, life sucks, everything seems to go wrong...

Read the following story... it may change your views about life:

After a conversation with one of my friends, he told me despite taking 2 jobs, he brings back barely above 1K per month, he is happy as he is. I wonder how he can be as happy as he is considering he has to skimp his life with the low pay to support a pair of old parents, in-laws, a wife, 2 daughters and the many bills of a household. He explained that it was through one incident that he saw in India...that happened a few years ago when he was really feeling low and touring India after a major setback.

He said that right in front of his very eyes he saw an Indian mother chop off her child's right hand with a chopper. The helplessness in the mother's eyes, the scream of pain from the innocent 4- year-old child haunted him until today. You may ask why did the mother do so; had the child been naughty, had the child's hand been infected?? No, it was done for two simple words- - -TO BEG!

The desperate mother deliberately caused the child to be handicapped so that the child could go out to the streets to beg. Taken aback by the scene, he dropped a piece of bread he was eating half-way. And almost instantly, a flock of 5 or 6 children swamped towards this small piece of bread which was covered with sand, robbing bits from one another. The natural reaction of hunger. Stricken by the happenings, he instructed his guide to drive him to the nearest bakery. He arrived at two bakeries and bought every single loaf of bread he found in the bakeries. The owner was dumbfounded but willingly sold everything. He spent less than $100 to obtain about 400 loaves of bread (this is less than $0.25 per loaf) and spent another $100 to get daily necessities. Off he went in the truck full of bread into the streets. As he distributed the bread and necessities to the children (mostly handicapped) and a few adults, he received cheers and bows from these unfortunate. For the first time in his life he wondered how people can give up their dignity for a loaf of bread which cost less than $0.25.

He began to tell himself how fortunate he is. How fortunate he is to be able to have a complete body, have a job, have a family, have the chance to complain what food is nice and what isn't nice, have the chance to be clothed, have the many things that these people in front of him are deprived of... Now I begin to think and feel it, too! Was my life really that bad? Perhaps... no, I should not feel bad at all... What about you? Maybe the next time you think you are, think about the child who lost one hand to beg on the streets.

"Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, it is the realization of how much you already have." When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one which has been opened for us. It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives.

The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way. The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past, you can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

"True love knows no fear. If you believe in something beautiful, then it is always worth the risk. For only those who are brave enough to risk getting hurt are the only ones who find their true destiny. Those who are afraid of what love brings never find it, and only those who are not afraid of getting hurt are the ones who keep it."

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We Never Told Him He Couldn't Do It

I got this email from David Lee. What it says is truth...

It's amazing what we can achieve, if only people would stop telling us we can't. The power of negativity cannot be underestimated. Seemingly harmlesscomments like "Are you sure you can do it?", "No, I don't think it willwork", "You'll never be able to do that!" can be very debilitating, especially to a child.

Today's story, by Kathy Lamancusa, illustrates the things that are possibleif only we don't stifle them with our negativity and pessimism.My son Joey was born with club feet. The doctors assured us that withtreatment he would be able to walk normally - but would never run very well.

The first three years of his life were spent in surgery, casts and braces. By the time he was eight, you wouldn't know he had a problem when you saw him walk.The children in our neighborhood ran around as most children do during play, and Joey would jump right in and run and play, too. We never told him that he probably wouldn't be able to run as well as the other children. So he didn't know. In seventh grade he decided to go out for the cross-country team. Everyday he trained with the team. He worked harder and ran more than any of the others - perhaps he sensed that the abilities that seemed to come naturallyto so many others did not come naturally to him.

Although the entire team runs, only the top seven runners have the potential to score points for the school. We didn't tell him he probably would never make the team, so he didn't know.He continued to run four to five miles a day, every day - even the day he had a 103-degree fever. I was worried, so I went to look for him after school. I found him running all alone. I asked him how he felt. "Okay," he said. He had two more miles to go. The sweat ran down his face and his eyes were glassy from his fever. Yet he looked straight ahead and kept running. We never told him he couldn't run four miles with a 103-degree fever. So he didn't know.

Two weeks later, the names of the team runners were called. Joey was number six on the list. Joey had made the team. He was in seventh grade - the other six team members were all eighth-graders. We never told him he shouldn't expect to make the team. We never told him he couldn't do it. Wenever told him he couldn't do it...so he didn't know. He just did it.

A true story written by Kathy Lamancusa. Sometimes we can succeed purely because we didn't know we could fail.

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Saw this 2 funny and lame poem...

Haggard i look, said by some
All things can't seem to be overcome
Lord, i ask y i so cham
I should believe things go and come

No longer go to pasar malam
Cos wallet also become kang kang
Yoshinoya i had for mum mum
But gastric until i diam diam

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Bo liao my poem as it seem
I see also i gek sim
The light in my life is just a dim
life not sweet like pudding

Ulcers hurt till mouth tia
now i lose appetite sia
when can i ever eat mee siam
wait long long till i long pia

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