NORMA AND THE GOOD THINGS

In Madrid lives Norma, a very special Brazilian lady. The Spanish call her ‘the rocking grandma’. She is over sixty and works in various places, organizing promotions, parties and concerts.

She was once asked where she got all her energy from.

‘I have a magic calendar. If you like, I can show it to you.’

She picked up an old, much scribbled-upon calendar.

‘Right, today is the day they discovered a vaccine against polio,’ she said.’ We must celebrate that, because life is beautiful.’

On each day of the year, Norma had written down something good that had happened on that date.

For her, life was always a reason to be happy.

CORRECTION

Once upon a time there was an inn called THE SILVER STAR. The innkeeper was unable to make both ends meet even though he did his very best to draw customers by making the inn comfortable, the service cordial and the prices reasonable. So in despair he consulted a Sage.

After listening to his tale of woe the Sage said, “It is very simple. You must change the name of your inn.”

“Impossible!” said the innkeeper. “It has been THE SILVER STAR for generations and is well known all over the country.”

“No,” said the Sage firmly, “You must now call it THE FIVE BELLS and have a row of six bells hanging at the entrance.”

“Six bells? But that’s absurd. What good would that do?”

“Give it a try and see,” said the Sage with a smile.

Well, the innkeeper gave it a try. And this is what he saw. Every traveller who passed by the inn walked in to point out the mistake, each one believing that no one else had noticed it. Once inside, they were impressed by the cordiality of the service and stayed on to refresh themselves, thereby providing the innkeeper with the fortune that he had been seeking in vain for so long.

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There are few things the ego delights in more than correcting other people’s mistakes.

We stand in our own shadow and wonder why it is dark!

When we think there is a problem in life, we should realize that the problem actually lies within us. We may not be able to transform the situation, but we can transform ourselves and how we perceive our lives.

When we look at things from the view point of our separate ego-self, we cast a shadow which obscures the light of our essential self and everything seems dark. If we turn and face the light, we rise above our limited self-interest and can see the whole picture.

THE OTHER SIDE

A father was reading a magazine and his little daughter every now and then distracted him.

Trying to keep her busy, he tore out one page on which was printed the map of the world. He then tore the page into pieces and asked her to go to her room and put them together to make the map again.

He was sure she would take the whole day to get it done. But the little one came back within minutes with the perfect map…

When he asked how she could do it so quickly, she said, “Oh… Dad, there is a man’s face on the other side of the paper… I made the face perfect to get the map right.” She ran outside to play leaving the father surprised.

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There is always the other side to whatever you experience in this world. This story indirectly teaches a lesson. i.e. whenever we come across a challenge or a puzzling situation, look at the other side… You will be surprised to see an easy way to tackle the problem.

CRITICISM

A judge who was holding court in a certain town was always sure of being annoyed by some cutting remarks by a local lawyer. But he never ever reacted. Once while he was at a dinner he was asked as to why he didn't tell off the nasty lawyer.

The judge dropped his knife and fork at the table, placed his chin in his hands and elbows on the table, as he stressed the following story: "Up in our town, there lives a widow with a dog that barks all night whenever the moon shines."

That is all the judge said, and he picked up his fork and knife and began to eat again. Then one of the people at the table said, "Judge, you didn't finish your story about the dog and the moon."

"Oh," said the judge, "despite all that noise from the dog, the moon keeps on shining."