How much do we all take for granted? How much do you take for granted? Why does it take something monumental, traumatic or even tragic for us to focus on our true values and begin living our lives everyday, rather than living in the fantasy of "One day I`ll...."?
I have no answers, only questions.....
Here`s someone who could teach us all a lesson and he didn`t have the luxury of time.
"You`re not here to make a living; you`re here to make a difference" - Andrew Matthews
People often believe that it takes a special kind of person to touch lives and change them for the better, but the truth is, everyone of us has the potential to do that almost everyday, often without even noticing it........
There was an art teacher at a
local high school. He had been there for many years and was well liked and
respected by colleagues and students alike. On one particular day he was
visited by an ex student, returning after four or five years to show off her
wedding ring, her new baby and her promising career. He remembered her as a
quiet, plain girl who mostly kept herself to herself and was generally quite
shy. Now she was a confident young woman, and a mother. She had come to see her
former art teacher for a specific reason.
“When I was in high school,”
she explained, “my stepfather abused me. He hit me and came into my bed at
night. It was horrible. I was deeply ashamed. I told no one. No one knew.
Finally, I decided I`d had
enough. My parents went away for a weekend, leaving me alone for the first
time. I planned my escape.
They left on Thursday evening,
so I spent the entire night preparing. I did my homework,wrote a long letter
to my mother, and organised my belongings. I bought a roll of wide plastic tape
and spent an hour taping all the outside doors and windows of the garage from
the inside. I put the keys in the ignition of my mother`s car, put my teddy
bear on the passenger`s seat and then went up to bed.
My plan was to go to school as
usual on Friday and catch the bus home, as usual. I would wait at home until my
parents called, talk to them, and then go to the garage and start the engine. I
thought nobody would find me until Sunday afternoon when my parents returned. I
would be dead. I would be free.”
She stuck to her plan until the
last lesson of the day, her art class. When her teacher sat on a stool next to
her, looked at her artwork and slipped an arm around her shoulder. He made
small talk. He complimented her on her ability, asked a few questions, listened to her answers, squeezed her arm gently and moved on. That was it.
She went home that Friday
afternoon and wrote a second, different letter of goodbye to her mother. She
removed the tape from the garage and packed her teddy bear with the rest of her
belongings. Then she called her priest, who immediately came for her. She left
her parent`s home and never went back. Her life turned a corner at that point
and she gave her art teacher the credit.
“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word,
a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of
which have the potential to turn a life around”
- Leo
Buscaglia
Isn`t it interesting that in
the politically correct world in which we live, where to touch a pupil would
be distinctly discouraged and spending time on idle chit chat would be deemed
“wasted” time, in this particular situation, with this particular teacher, it
seemed perfectly natural. He probably used that approach a hundred times.It
was his style. It was natural. It saved a life. To him it was
nothing special. To this particular student, at this particular time it altered
her entire life. She decided in that moment, in that art class, that if a
casually friendly teacher cared enough about her to take the time to stop, make
contact, look at her and listen to her, then there must be other people who cared about her too.
After all these years she had
come back to tell him that he had saved her life!
The key point here is, he didn`t even remember the incident!
You may like it, you may hate it, but it will be yours for
the entire period this time around. So many people are dissatisfied with their
bodies, particularly young people.
Recommendation:- Learn
to like it! Look after it! It is difficult to have a healthy self
esteem, if you don`t like yourself. Good self esteem and a strong positive self
image are essential to long term success and happiness.
2.“YOU WILL
LEARN LESSONS”
You are enrolled in a full time informal school called life.
Each day in this school , you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You
may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid. (You may not even
realise that they are lessons at all! – and if so, you won`t learn from them.
Have you ever noticed how certain things happen to certain people?
Every time someone abuses you, each time you blow a sale, or
your girlfriend/boyfriend dumps you, there was a lesson staring you in the
face. If you find yourself being miserable most of the time, it`s likely you`ve
missed a lesson somewhere along the line.
We are not here to be
punished - we are here to be educated!
Everything that happens to us has the potential to transform
us.
ACT AS IF EVERY EVENT HAS A PURPOSE AND YOUR LIFE WILL HAVE
A PURPOSE.
3.“A LESSON IS
REPEATED UNTIL LEARNED”
A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you
have learned it. When we fail to learn a lesson, we get to take it again and
again! Once we have learned a lesson we move on to the next one. We reach
points in our lives when we are ready for new information (it`s called
maturity!) Until then, something could be staring us in the face and we don`t
recognise it. So life provides us with gentle reminders and if we don`t respond,
it gives us a nudge, and then a slap at the back of the head!
“Growth is most
painful when we resist it!”
Because most people fear change, they don`t change until
they have to:-
They exercise and diet – after the coronary
They study at school and begin to work hard – when they`re about to fail
They start to deliver excellent customer service – when the customers are leaving
They work on the marriage – when the relationship is falling apart
Winners recognise the lessons earlier – losers ignore the
warning signs.
And when we are forced to learn the lesson, what do we often
find -
“That`s the best thing that ever happened to me!”
4.“THERE ARE
NO MISTAKES, ONLY LESSONS”
There is no failure, only feedback! Growth is a process of
trial and error and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a
part of the process as the experiment that ultimately “works”.
We often
celebrate our successes – but we don`t learn too much. Negative feedback is a powerful teacher. When did we get the most negative feedback? As kids!
Everything was a steep learning curve. Did we think of it as failure? No! So when
did we suddenly get the idea that failure was wrong?
5.“LEARNING
DOES NOT END”
There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons.
If you are alive there are lessons to be learned, which is bad news for those
people who thought that learning stopped when they left school/university! Does
life get simpler? No! But you can learn
to handle it better. We know that we have to keep retaking lessons until we
have learned them, but the other inference of this pillar of wisdom is, we
should proactively learn. The future belongs to those who keep
learning. What have you learned recently? What new skills have you
acquired?
6.“THERE", IS
NO BETTER THAN “HERE”
When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply
obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here”. Otherwise known
as “the greener grass syndrome”. Learn to love what you do – cut out jealousy
and envy of others. If you want to be “there” instead of “here” because you are
surrounded by problems “here”, don`t be surprised if when you get “there”, you
find the same set of problems you had when you were “here”!(because you
probably took them with you). Remember, you create your own environment.
7.“OTHERS ARE
MERELY MIRRORS OF YOU”
You cannot love or hate something about another person
unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself. Lesson no.
1. Start learning to love yourself. One of the most important gifts you can
give anyone is the gift of self esteem – helping people feel good about
themselves. What about your own self esteem? What kind of self image have you
designed? Some people are well balanced – They have a chip on both shoulders!
8.“WHAT YOU
MAKE OF YOUR LIFE IS UP TO YOU”
You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do
with them is up to you. The choice is yours. Life is all about
choices:-
“The entirety of one`s adult life is a series of personal
choices, decisions. If we can accept this totally, then we become free people.
To the extent to which we do not accept this we will forever feel victims” - The
Road Less Travelled (M. Scott Peck)
When
you ask people what they want out of life they say happiness, guess what - Happiness
is a choice! It`s all in your attitude. You choose your
attitude. The facts don`t count. The fact that it rains has nothing to do with
how you feel – unless you let it!
The fact that someone cuts you up on the motorway doesn`t bother
you unless you let it!
The fact that you didn`t get a job doesn`t mean that you are
a loser unless you think that!
"Men are disturbed, not by the things that happen to them, but rather by their opinion of the things that happen" - EPICTETUS.
9.“YOUR
ANSWERS LIE INSIDE YOU”
All the world`s great philosophers, teachers, leaders and
wise men since the beginning of recorded time Confucius, Lao Tzu, Jesus,
Buddha are agreed in one thing -
The answers to life`s questions lie inside you. All you need
to do is look, listen and trust. They hadn`t got the benefit of modern neuro
science, they had no knowledge of the power of the subconscious. We can now
explain some of what they knew
instinctively. They just knew that when people meditated they got insights,
answers, truths. We know that the bio computer is capable of solving virtually
any problem that you pose it. Many of the world`s greatest discoveries have
come as flashes of inspiration after a period of concentrated thought/meditation or even sleep ( Study MOZART,
McCARTNEY, EDISON to see how this phenomenon operates)
Plant the seed, wait, listen and trust!
10. “YOU WILL FORGET ALL THIS” (Adapted from Cherie Scott Carter)
For some powerful, positive affirmations check out this video:-
