The Value of Time

Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400.

It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day.

 

What would you do?

 

Draw out every cent, of course!!!

 

Each of us has such a bank. Its name is TIME.

 

Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours.

 

There is no going back. There is no drawing against the “tomorrow”. You must live in the present on today’s deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success!

 

The clock is running. Make the most of today.

 

To realize the value of one year,
ask a student who has failed his final exam.

 

To realize the value of one month,
ask the parent of a premature baby.

 

To realize the value of one week,
ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.

 

To realize the value of one day,
ask a daily wage laborer who has a large family to feed.

 

To realize the value of one hour,
ask lovers who are waiting to meet.

 

To realize the value of one minute,
ask a person who has missed the train, the bus, or a plane.

 

To realize the value of one second,
ask a person who has survived an accident.

 

To realize the value of one millisecond,
ask the person who has won a silver medal at the Olympics.

 

Treasure every moment that you have! And treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time. And remember that time waits for no one.

To Love and to be Loved

Once upon a time ….

 

A very poor man lived with his wife. One day, his wife, who had very long hair asked him to buy her a comb for her hair to grow well and to be well-groomed.

 

The man felt very sorry and said no. He explained that he did not even have enough money to fix the strap of his watch he had just broken.

 

She did not insist on her request.

 

The man went to work and passed by a watch shop, sold his damaged watch at a low price and went to buy a comb for his wife.

He came home in the evening with the comb in his hand ready to give to his wife.

 

He was surprised when he saw his wife with a very short hair cut. She had sold her hair and was holding a new watch band.

 

Tears flowed simultaneously from their eyes, not for the futility of their actions, but for the reciprocity of their love.

 

Moral of the story: To love is nothing, to be loved is something but to love and to be loved by the one you love, that is everything.

The Value of Knowledge

A giant ship engine failed. The ship’s owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure but how to fix the engine.

 

Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a young.

He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.

 

Two of the ship’s owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do.

After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something.

 

Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!

 

A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars.

 

“What?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!”

 

So they wrote the old man a note saying, “Please send us an itemized bill.”

 

The man sent a bill that read:

 

Tapping with a hammer…… …… ……… $ 2.00
Knowing where to tap……… …… ……… $ 9,998.00

 

Effort is important, but knowing where to make an effort makes all the difference! Keep studying hard. Don’t give up!

The Blind Boy.

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: “I am blind, please help.”

 

There were only a few coins in the hat.

 

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were.

 

The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, “Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?”

 

The man said, “I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.”

What he had written was: “Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it.”

 

Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?

 

Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

 

Moral of the story: Be thankful for what you have. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.

 

Invite others towards good with wisdom. Live life with no excuse and love with no regrets. When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile. Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear.

 

Great men say, “Life has to be an incessant process of repair and reconstruction, of discarding evil and developing goodness…. In the journey of life, if you want to travel without fear, you must have the ticket of a good conscience.”

 

The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling… And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!

A Perfectionist Sculpture

A gentleman once visited a temple under construction where he saw a sculptor making an idol of God. Suddenly he noticed a similar idol lying nearby.

 

Surprised, he asked the sculptor, “Do you need two statues of the same idol?”

 

“No,” said the sculptor without looking up, “We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage.”

 

The gentleman examined the idol and found no apparent damage. “Where is the damage?” he asked.

 

“There is a scratch on the nose of the idol.” said the sculptor, still busy with his work.

 

“Where are you going to install the idol?”

 

The sculptor replied that it would be installed on a pillar twenty feet high.

 

“If the idol is that far, who is going to know that there is a scratch on the nose?” the gentleman asked.

 

The sculptor stopped his work, looked up at the gentleman, smiled and said,

“I know it and God knows it!”

 

Moral – The desire to excel should be exclusive of the fact whether someone appreciates it or not. Excellence is a drive from inside, not outside. Excel at a task today – not necessarily for someone else to notice but for your own satisfaction.

Enjoy your life at every moment.

Once a fisherman was sitting near seashore, under the shadow of a tree smoking his beedi. Suddenly a rich businessman passing by approached him and enquired as to why he was sitting under a tree smoking and not working. To this the poor fisherman replied that he had caught enough fishes for the day.

 

Hearing this the rich man got angry and said: Why don’t you catch more fishes instead of sitting in shadow wasting your time?

Fisherman asked: What would I do by catching more fishes?

Businessman: You could catch more fishes, sell them and earn more money, and buy a bigger boat.

Fisherman: What would I do then?

Businessman: You could go fishing in deep waters and catch even more fishes and earn even more money.

Fisherman: What would I do then?

Businessman: You could buy many boats and employ many people to work for you and earn even more money.

Fisherman: What would I do then?

Businessman: You could become a rich businessman like me.

Fisherman: What would I do then?

Businessman: You could then enjoy your life peacefully.

Fisherman: What do you think I’m doing right now?

MORAL – You don’t need to wait for tomorrow to be happy and enjoy your life. You don’t even need to be more rich, more powerful to enjoy life. LIFE is at this moment, enjoy it fully.

As some great men have said “My riches consist not in extent of my possessions but in the fewness of my wants”.

An example of True Love

One day, a young guy and a young girl fell in love. But the guy came from a poor family. The girl’s parents weren’t too happy. So the young man decided not only to court the girl but to court her parents as well.

 

In time, the parents saw that he was a good man and was worthy of their daughter’s hand. But there was another problem: The man was a soldier. Soon, war broke out and he was being sent overseas for a year. The week before he left, the man knelt on his knee and asked his lady love, “Will you marry me?” She wiped a tear, said yes, and they were engaged. They agreed that when he got back in one year, they would get married.

 

 

But tragedy struck. A few days after he left, the girl had a major vehicular accident. It was a head-on collision. When she woke up in the hospital, she saw her father and mother crying. Immediately, she knew there was something wrong. She later found out that she suffered brain injury. The part of her brain that controlled her face muscles was damaged. Her once lovely face was now disfigured. She cried as she saw herself in the mirror. “Yesterday, I was beautiful. Today, I’m a monster.” Her body was also covered with so many ugly wounds. Right there and then, she decided to release her fiancé from their promise. She knew he wouldn’t want her anymore. She would forget about him and never see him again.

 

For one year, the soldier wrote many letters—but she wouldn’t answer. He phoned her many times but she wouldn’t return her calls. But after one year, the mother walked into her room and announced, “He’s back from the war.”

 

The girl shouted, “No! Please don’t tell him about me. Don’t tell him I’m here!”

The mother said, “He’s getting married,” and handed her a wedding invitation.

The girl’s heart sank. She knew she still loved him—but she had to forget him now.

With great sadness, she opened the wedding invitation.

And then she saw her name on it!

Confused, she asked, “What is this?”

 

That was when the young man entered her room with a bouquet of flowers. He knelt beside her and asked, “Will you marry me?”

 

The girl covered her face with her hands and said, “I’m ugly!”

 

The man said, “Without your permission, your mother sent me your photos. When I saw your photos, I realized that nothing has changed. You’re still the person I fell in love. You’re still as beautiful as ever. Because I love you!”

A Couple's Heart-break

A boy was born to a couple after eleven years of marriage. They were a loving couple and the boy was the apple of their eyes.

 

One morning, when the boy was around two years old, the husband saw a medicine bottle open. He was late for work so he asked the wife to cap the bottle and put it in the cupboard. The mother, preoccupied in the kitchen, totally forgot the matter.

 

The boy saw the bottle and playfully went to it and, fascinated with its color, drank it all. It happened to be a poisonous medicine meant for adults in small dosages.

 

When the child collapsed, the mother hurried him to the hospital, where he died. The mother was stunned; she was terrified. How would she face her husband?

 

When the distraught father came to the hospital and saw the dead child, he looked at his wife and uttered just four words.

 

“I Love You Darling.”

 

The husband’s totally unexpected reaction is proactive behavior. The child is dead. He can never be brought back to life. There is no point in finding fault with the mother. Besides, if only he have taken time to put the bottle away, this would not have happened.

 

No point in attaching blame. She had also lost her only child. What she needed at that moment was consolation and sympathy from the husband. That is what he gave her.

 

Sometimes we spend time asking who is responsible or who’s to blame, whether in a relationship, in a job or with the people we know and miss out on the warmth in human relationships we could receive by giving each other support.

 

After all, shouldn’t forgiving someone we love be the easiest thing in the world to do?

Treasure what you have. Don’t multiply pain, anguish and suffering by holding onto forgiveness. Let go of all your envies, jealousies, unwillingness to forgive, selfishness, and fears and you will find things are actually not as difficult as you think.

 

If everyone could look at life with this kind of perspective, there would be fewer problems in the world.

God's Existence

One day a 6 year old girl was sitting in a classroom. The teacher was going to explain evolution to the children.

The teacher asked a little boy: Kevin do you see the tree outside?
Kevin: Yes.
Teacher: Kevin, do you see the grass outside?
Kevin: Yes.
Teacher: Go outside and look up and see if you can see the sky.
Kevin: Okay. (He returned a few minutes later) Yes, I saw the sky.
Teacher: Did you see God?
Kevin: No.
Teacher: That’s my point. We can’t see God because he isn’t there. He doesn’t exist.
 

A little girl spoke up and wanted to ask the boy some questions.
The teacher agreed and the little girl asked the boy: Kevin, do you see the tree outside?
Kevin: Yes.
Little Girl: Kevin do you see the grass outside?
Kevin: Yessssss (getting tired of the questions by this time).
Little Girl: Did you see the sky?
Kevin: Yessssss
Little Girl: Kevin, do you see the teacher?
Kevin: Yes
Little Girl: Do you see her brain?
Kevin: No
Little Girl: Then according to what we were taught today in school, she must not have one!

Wood Cutter

Once upon a time, a very strong woodcutter asked for a job in a timber merchant and he got it. The pay was really good and so was the work condition. For those reasons, the woodcutter was determined to do his best.

 

His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he supposed to work.

The first day, thae woodcutter brought 18 trees.

 

“Congratulations,” the boss said. “Go on that way!”

 

Very motivated by the boss words, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he could only bring 15 trees. The third day he tried even harder, but he could only bring 10 trees. Day after day he was bringing less and less trees.

 

“I must be losing my strength”, the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on.

 

“When was the last time you sharpened your axe?” the boss asked.

 

“Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees…”

Reflection:

Our lives are like that. We sometimes get so busy that we don’t take time to sharpen the “axe”. In today’s world, it seems that everyone is busier than ever, but less happy that ever.

Why is that? Could it be that we have forgotten how to stay “sharp”? There’s nothing wrong with activity and hard work. But we should not get so busy that we neglect the truly important things in life, like our personal life, taking time to get close to our Creator, giving more time for our family, taking time to read etc.

 

We all need time to relax, to think and meditate, to learn and grow. If we don’t take the time to sharpen the “axe”, we will become dull and lose our effectiveness.



One Eyed Mom

My mom only had one eye. I hated her… She was such an embarrassment. She cooked for students and teachers to support the family.

There was this one day during elementary school where my mom came to say hello to me. I was so embarrassed.

 

How could she do this to me? I ignored her, threw her a hateful look and ran out. The next day at school one of my classmates said, ‘EEEE, your mom only has one eye!’

I wanted to bury myself. I also wanted my mom to just disappear. I confronted her that day and said, ‘ If you’re only gonna make me a laughing stock, why don’t you just die?’

My mom did not respond… I didn’t even stop to think for a second about what I had said, because I was full of anger. I was oblivious to her feelings.

I wanted out of that house, and have nothing to do with her. So I studied real hard, got a chance to go abroad to study.

 

Then, I got married. I bought a house of my own. I had kids of my own. I was happy with my life, my kids and the comforts. Then one day, my Mother came to visit me. She hadn’t seen me in years and she didn’t even meet her grandchildren.

When she stood by the door, my children laughed at her, and I yelled at her for coming over uninvited. I screamed at her, ‘How dare you come to my house and scare my children!’ GET OUT OF HERE! NOW!!!’

And to this, my mother quietly answered, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I may have gotten the wrong address,’ and she disappeared out of sight.

 

One day, a letter regarding a school reunion came to my house. So I lied to my wife that I was going on a business trip. After the reunion, I went to the old shack just out of curiosity. My neighbors said that she died. I did not shed a single tear. They handed me a letter that she had wanted me to have.

 

‘My dearest son,

 

I think of you all the time. I’m sorry that I came to your house and scared your children.

I was so glad when I heard you were coming for the reunion. But I may not be able to even get out of bed to see you. I’m sorry that I was a constant embarrassment to you when you were growing up.

 

You see……..when you were very little, you got into an accident, and lost your eye. As a mother, I couldn’t stand watching you having to grow up with one eye. So I gave you mine.

I was so proud of my son who was seeing a whole new world for me, in my place, with that eye.

 

With all my love to you,

Your mother.’

A Glass of Milk - Paid in Full

One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry. He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, “How much do I owe you?” “You don’t owe me anything,” she replied. “Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness.” He said, “Then I thank you from my heart.”

 

As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and man was strong also. He had been ready to give up and quit.

 

Year’s later that young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to her room. Dressed in his doctor’s gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day he gave special attention to the case.

 

After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it, then wrote something on the edge and the bill was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally she looked, and something caught her attention on the side of the bill. She began to read the following words:

 

“Paid in full with one glass of milk”

 

Signed, Dr. Howard Kelly.

Bad Temper

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper.

His Father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.

...

The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence.

Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.

Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all.
He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his
temper.
The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.

The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence.
He said, “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same.

When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there.

“A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.”

-Pearl-

Burnt Toast

“When I was a little Boy, I remember one day in particular when she had made breakfast. She must have been very tired. My mom placed a plate of eggs, and rather burned toast in front of my dad. I remember waiting to see if anyone noticed. Yet all my dad did was reach for his toast, smile at my mom, and ask me how was I ready for school. I don’t remember what I replied, but I do remember watching him smear butter and jam on that toast and eat every bite!

When I got up from the table, I remember hearing my mom apologize to my dad for burning the toast. And I’ll never forget what he said: ‘Baby, I love burned toast.’
...

Later that night, I went to kiss Daddy and I asked him if he really liked his toast burned. He wrapped me in his arms and said, ‘Your Momma works hard day after day and she’s real tired. And besides a little burnt toast never hurt anyone!’ You know, life is full of imperfect things…..and imperfect people. I’m not the best football player either.

What I’ve learned over the years is that learning to accept each other’s faults – and choosing to celebrate each other’s differences – is the one of the most important keys to creating a healthy, growing, and lasting relationship.

We should learn to take the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of your life and lay them at the feet of God. Because in the end, He’s the only One who will be able to give you a relationship where burnt toast isn’t a deal-breaker! We could extend this to any relationship in fact – as understanding is the base of any relationship, be it a husband-wife or parent-child or friendship!!”