Spokenez

  Appreciation of Hard Work One young academically excellent person went to apply for a managerial position in a big company. He passed the first interview, the director did the last interview, made the last decision. The director discovered from the CV that the youth’s academic achievements were excellent all the way, from the secondary school until the postgraduate research, Never had a year when he did not score.  The director asked, “Did you obtain any scholarships in school?” The youth answered “none”.  The director asked, “Was it your father who paid for your school fees?” The youth answered, “My father passed away when I was one year old, it was my mother who paid for my school fees”.   The director asked, “Where did your mother work?” The youth answered, “My mother worked as clothes cleaner. The director requested the youth to show his hands. The youth showed a pair of hands that were smooth and perfect”.  The director asked, “Have you ever helped your mother wash the clothes b

  Focus on the good things in life: Two friends were walking through the desert. At one stage in their journey, they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything he wrote in the sand, ‘Today my best friend slapped me in the face.’ They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to have a wash. The one who had been slapped got stuck in a mire and started drowning, but his friend saved him. After he had recovered from his shock, he wrote on a stone, ‘Today my best friend saved my life.’ The friend who slapped and saved his best friend asked him, ‘After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write in stone, why?’ The other friend replied, ‘When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.'

  Don’t insult the things you wish you could have: One afternoon, a fox was walking through the forest and spotted a bunch of grapes hanging from a lofty branch. ‘Just the thing to quench my thirst,’ he thought. Taking a couple of steps back, the fox jumped and just missed the hanging grapes. The fox tried again but still failed to reach them. Finally, giving up, the fox turned his nose up and said, ‘They’re probably sour anyway,’ and walked away.

  Never let one failure from the past hold you back in the future: As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not. He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. ‘Well,’ trainer said, ‘when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.’ The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.

  Sharpen your ‘axe’: There was a newly joined woodcutter and the king was really impressed by his dedication towards his work. Out of encouragement, he started giving his best in work and cut 18 trees in the first month and the king was glad. The next month he put in the same effort but could cut only 15 trees. And the third month, he still tried his best but could cut only 12 trees. The king visited him the third month and talked about his decrease in productivity. He explained that he might have lost his strength or got too old to do the work. The king asked him “when was the last time you sharpened your ax?” To the surprise, he has not even done it once in the last three months. That was the only reason why he couldn’t cut more trees. Moral: It is good that you put in a lot of effort and hard work to work towards your goals. But you should balance your life priorities and invest time with your family and save some time to relax which would boost up your productivity. These are just

  Value yourself: A speaker started off his seminar by showing a $20 to the public. He asked the people “who wants this?” There was no surprise to see that all of them lifted their hands. He offered to give the money to one of them but insisted that he will do something to it. He crumpled the paper money and showed it again to the crowd and repeated the question. Still, everyone raised the hands. He then put the money into the ground and stepped on it and then raised it again and offered it to the public. The people gathered there still showed interest to take that money despite seeing how dirty the note was. He told the public” No matter what I did to this money, you all still wanted this. You all went in favor of my offer just because the value of the money never decreased despite what all I did to it. Similarly, value yourself despite the painful conditions or failures” Moral: Believe in yourself and work hard to achieve success. Value yourself irrespective of the failures or obstac

  Let go of your stresses: A psychology professor entered the classroom with half a glass of water in his hand. The students expected the old common question “was it half empty or half full?” But to the surprise, he asked them “How heavy is this glass of water?” The answers given by the students ranged from 7 oz. To 25 oz. But the professor replied that the actual weight of the glass with water doesn’t always matter but how long you hold the glass is what matters. If you hold the glass for a minute, you won’t feel much weight. But if you hold for 10 minutes, you will feel a little more weight and it gets heavier for you with hours. If you hold it for the entire day, then your hands would go numb and pain. Similar is the case when you carry stress with you. If you think about it for a while and leave it, then there is no problem but if you think about it for hours, it starts becoming a problem and it becomes worse if you sleep with it. Moral: You should learn to let go of your stresses

  Shake off problems: A man and his donkey were on the way to grazing while the donkey fell into a huge pit. The man was shaken and tried hard to pull off his favorite donkey up to the ground. Despite his strenuous attempts, he failed to bring the donkey back. But he can’t leave the donkey to starve and die with pain for days. So he decided to bury him alive and make his death smoother. So he started pouring soil over the donkey in the pit. When he poured the soil, the donkey felt the load and shakes it off and he steps on it. He does the same every time when the soil was poured on his body. In the end, he reached the ground level and easily walked away to graze in the green pastures. Moral: Don’t choose to live with your problem. Just shake off your problems and stand on it and step up in life after learning from them. Every bad experience is a new learning. So get the positives out of it and work towards your goals.

  Seeing opportunity in obstacles: Once there was a king who was curious but wealthy. He decided to test his fellow people to know who has a got a good attitude in life and who would spare some time for country’s progress. He placed a huge boulder right at the middle of the road and hid in a nearby place to see if anyone would make an attempt to move it off. He saw some wealthy merchants and courtiers passing by the road. None of them made any attempt to move it off but simply walked away while some others blamed the king for not maintaining roads. Later, a peasant came the way with a load of vegetables and saw the boulder. He kept his load down and tried to move the boulder away. After strenuous effort, he succeeded in moving it away. He saw a purse lying in the place of the boulder. It contained many gold coins and a note from the king which read ‘this is the reward for the person who moves the boulder away’. Moral: It is quite common for people to run away from problems and obstacle

  Overcome Fear A young man was walking in a jungle. He was hungry. On a tree, he saw fruits and climbed on the tree and plucked the fruits. Many fruits were present at the edge of the branches. When he moved to the edge of the branch, the branch was broken off due to his weight. He started hanging down on a branch. He was already frightened and began to shout again and again, to save him . Incidentally, an old man came to that place. He saw the man hanging on the tree. He threw a small stone at him. The young man got pain after it and looked down with a rage. "Oldman! I asked help. But you hit me with stone. Don't you have sense?", he asked angrily. The old man without answering him took another small stone and threw on him. The young man got more angry and jumped down with great effort. He went straight to the old man and scolded him. The old man said, "Youngman, I only helped you". The young man stared at him without understanding anything. The old man then s