Blessed

I received this in my inbox today (Lawrence, if you happen to be reading this, for which I'm quite sure you will, thank you!).

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got due to infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983. From world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: 'Why does God have to select you for such a bad disease?'

To this Arthur replied:
'The world over -- 50 million children start playing tennis, 5 million learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, when I was holding a cup I never asked God 'Why me?'.

And today in pain I should not be asking God 'Why me?'

Which prompts me to ask myself when was the last time I counted my blessings?

Each & every one of us have so many things to be thankful for and yet often, we fail to realize how lucky we are. It has not dawned upon us that there are a lot of people in this world who are so much less fortunate than us. (Or, maybe, for some of us, we don't really give a hoot because all we care about is ourselves and for that, my friend, all I can say is that I feel sorry for you)

Instead of counting our blessings, we put more emphasis on what is lacking in our own little world - physical beauty, worldly possessions, a loving, more understanding/romantic partner, a better paying AND less stressful job (keep on dreamin', baby!)

In times of trial, we blame God; at times, our parents/partners, society, government, etc. but not for a moment do we look back and ask ourselves whether we have ever thanked or credited anyone during our happy moments.

The truth is that most of the time we don't because the majority of us think we deserve all the happiness in the world but not the trials & tribulations that come with it.

We simply refuse to acknowledge that ups & downs are part & parcel of life.

So today, I am ever so grateful for:

• Having my mom as a parent and thankful for everything that she has done for both my brother & I - without you, there will be no us;
• My relatives for being ever so supportive and remaining a close knit family even though there tend to be some on and off minor arguments,
• My cousin for allowing me to stay with her so that I can watch baby Aydan grow into a beautiful little girl and also, at the same time discover that in a relationship, a perfect partner does not exist;
• My amazing friends whom I have come to realize that even though we're far apart, that I can always count on them (you know who you are!);
• My job which I enjoy despite the fact that I still hate the idea of getting out of bed at 6.15am every weekday morning;
• My yoga classes which never fail to make me marvel at how time can possibly pass sooooo slowly and yet, brings a sense of peacefulness within me;
• Me being pink, pasty & healthy and though sometimes my left knee hurts a little after my 3km run, at least my four, whole, limbs are still attached to my trunk & in working order.

I could not have asked for more.

"There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness." - Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychiatrist, Psychologist and Founder of the Analytic Psychology, 1875 - 1961

The Window

by Author Unknown

A young couple moves into the neighbourhood. The next morning, while they were eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbour hanging her wash outside.

That laundry is not very clean, she said, she doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Is there such a thing as ‘washing correctly’???

Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.

Her husband looked on, but remained silent.

Every time the neighbour would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.

About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband: Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this.

The husband said: I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows. My gut feeling tells me that the wife must be a dumb blonde, don’t ask me how I know, I just do.

And so it is with life:

What we see when watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look.

Before we give any criticism, it might be a good idea to check our state of mind and ask ourselves if we are ready to see the good rather than to be looking for something in the person we are about to judge.

Sometimes we have this negative perception about a certain person and so every tiny mistake that he/she makes, we just use them as an excuse to further re-emphasize that we were indeed right about this person in the first instance.

Perhaps all we wanted was to make ourselves feel better, at the expense of somebody else's feelings.

Always bear in mind that nobody is perfect, including you and I.

See the Trees

By William Lambert

I lived in Alabama on a half-acre lot blessed with huge oak trees that were 40 feet in diameter. They were HUGE! The house was laid out in such a manner that every bedroom faced the backyard and each bedroom had a large picture window. The view was breathtaking. I enjoyed just looking at the trees. In the fall, I would identify a particular leaf that was falling and watched it for what seemed liked 5 minutes before it fell to earth.

One day, I invited this married couple over to enjoy the view from the bedroom window. I took them into the bedroom and excitedly pointed to the trees out of the window and exclaimed, "Just look!"

After about 20 seconds there was no comment from the couple. I, however, noticed a big frown on the woman's face.

I said, "What's wrong?" She was reluctant to reply.

I insisted and again said, "What's wrong?"

She relented and said, "Don't you see those fingerprints on the glass?"

I turned and looked and there were what seemed to be fifty or more fingerprints on the glass. I ran for the Windex to clean the glass. The lady "Oh, I didn't mean for you to clean it now."

The morale here is this: That lady never saw the trees. Even when I tried to point them out, she missed it! As for me, I didn't see the fingerprints. I was looking through the glass and not at it.

When the fingerprints were pointed out to me, I saw them and removed them. The lady never saw the trees. She focused on the fingerprints and never got passed them.

Life is very much like that. There are things in life that are good and things that are bad. You choose which things you want to focus on. I focus on the trees.

What are you focusing on?

The law of the garbage truck

I got told off by one of my clients today. Yes, in case you are wondering, working in a service-oriented industry sucks. Big time. It's unbelievable how office politics can get so ugly in some companies and the victim this time, unfortunately, happened to be someone out of the company: me. She (sadly, women are extremely prone to mood swings, more often than not) didn't even want to hear my explanation.

Perhaps she's having menopausal depression.

Or maybe she didn't get any from her husband last night.

Kudos to her for ruining my whole morning – Thursdays are supposed to be one of my favorite days of the week, after Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday; in that exact order.

I would also like to take this opportunity to retract my apology for the following reasons:-

(1) First and foremost, I am adamant that I didn’t do anything wrong

(2) If she has done her job in the first place then this wouldn’t have happened. I find it extremely amusing that this thought has never crossed her mind.

(3) Last but not least, people who behave like a**es do not deserve any apology. After all, we don’t go about saying that we're sorry to donkeys after accidentally stepping on their tails, do we?

But then again, I remembered this forwarded gem that I received in my inbox not too long ago:

Law of the Garbage Truck by Author Unknown One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. He was really friendly. So I asked, 'Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!' This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck.' He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so... love the people who treat you right. Pray for the ones who don't.

I guess I shouldn't take it personally; after all, I'm much better than that.

I ain't no garbage collector,

The Paradoxical Commandments by Dr. Kent M. Keith

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

© Copyright Kent M. Keith 1968