Value of our life

Whether or not you're religious, the qualities a healthy family finds valuable tend to be the same: Respect. Tolerance. Forgiveness. Honesty. Courage. Responsibility. Integrity. Self-discipline. Compassion. Generosity. Doing things together as a family.

RESPECT is the acknowledgment that everything and everyone is just as important as you are. If you are religious, you acknowledge that God created the Universe and called it "very good"; if God thinks something is "very good," who are YOU to think otherwise? A family should remember that respect goes beyond the biblical "Honor your father and your mother." It's a two-way street. Children should be taught to respect adults, school rules, traffic laws, our country's flag and leaders, and other people's feelings. Parents should model respect by valuing their children's talents, opinions, and feelings.

Community leaders have discovered the broken-window theory of neighborhood safety. If a building has a few broken windows that go unfixed, pretty soon vandals will break a few more. Then squatters will move in and trash the place or even torch it. Similarly, when a neighborhood ignores litter or untended yards, next thing you know, it's not a neighborhood, it's a slum. The broken-window theory states that if you fix broken windows, pick up trash, and clean away graffiti, you'll avert both petty crimes (like more graffiti) AND major crimes (like arson). It's all a matter of treating the neighborhood with respect.

The same thing goes for families. Regard each act of disrespect as a broken window. Don't punish the window for being broken; instead, fix whatever is wrong. Evaluate or reevaluate the evidence; identify any distortions in thinking; correct errors in reasoning; and reject the temptation to dismiss the problem as too minor. What's cute in a three-year-old boy is appalling in a 30-year-old man!

Above all, hone the art of the apology, which should include (1) an acknowledgment of the fault; (2) an expression of regret for the fault; and, arguably most important, (3) an attempt to fix the fault and/or make restitution. "I'm sorry I laughed at you. Laughing WITH someone is okay, but laughing AT someone is mean. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. Let's do something together, just the two of us." Children ought also to be taught how to accept an apology gracefully. It's difficult even for adults to learn the power of forgiveness, but adults should model forgiveness for their children whether they feel the emotion or not.

COMPASSION is feeling the pain of others and trying to do something to reduce that pain. In the Christian Testament, compassion is the number-one virtue. Jesus points to the poor, the homeless, the hungry and thirsty, the alienated, the sick, the imprisoned, and those who lack the basic necessities of life (like clothing), and tells his followers that how you treat people who are miserable is how you treat GOD. "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to the most insignificant member of [God's] family, you did it to [God]."

No matter how unhappy you might feel, there is always someone who is worse off. A strong family might work together in a soup kitchen or food co-op or clean up litter together. Elderly people in nursing homes are often lonely and would love to be visited whether or not you're related to them. The girls in "Little Women" didn't give away their Christmas presents because they were dumb presents; the girls gave away their Christmas because they were happy, and saw others who were miserable.

An HONEST person does not lie, cheat, or steal. A person who has HONOR sticks faithfully to high moral and ethical principles no matter what. A person who has INTEGRITY has a moral character that is incorruptible. Like the related word "integer," integrity means wholeness. A database has integrity for as long as it remains uncorrupted by error. A musical composition has integrity when its structure contains no unrelated musical ideas, like sticking "Pop Goes the Weasel" into the middle of the 1812 Overture.

If you have integrity, you stick to your convictions no matter what. You can't be bribed; you can't be coerced; you can't be tempted. (Or, tempted is all that happens.) Here's another way to look at it: In order to sell your soul, you first have to have a soul to sell.

The most valuable thing in our life

This story us about my friend's EJ experience which I rewrote it with my own word. EJ was my friend who I never meet before. Just because I read his story, suddenly I feel he was a kind of person which could be my friends. He has a great stories about his family life which change his life sightseeing. In the first time he was a man who always see that prosperity, wealth are the most important things for his family, so he works so hard everyday and starting to forget his family.

Someday his son Jr suddenly told him that he didn't want to playing with his bestfriend again. He want to playing with another friend with EJ never heard their name before. First time EJ saw his son, he just think that is just temporary emotion which so ordinary to happen. He just let his son's calm his emotion down then make some question about it.

At the night he go to JR's room and want to discuss his problem, but his son already sleep in his blanket. But Actually his son was crying under his blanket. He go to his son's next side and asked him what happen? His told something which he never imagine before. His son told him that his friends just back from his holiday with his family. And his friends share his experience to each other. And because JR didn't have any experience especially EJ never bring his son using flight to go somewhere.

So at the next holiday, EJ with his family went to Singapore to have some family holiday. When in the flight, his son was happy and asked some question which he never see and never meet before. After back from their holiday, His son was like new boy with his smile. Next week when EJ went school to pick his son, Jr's teacher asked him what was happened? Why Jr was totally different? He much better than before, totally confident with his life, etc.

After that EJ realized that Prosperity, wealth life, much money weren't the most important thing in his life. His son's smile was more valuable things for his life. EJ's life story is something which could happen at every people's life. When Money become more important than our family.

Wisdom of chocolate

A group of graduates, well established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired. During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives.

Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups - porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate

When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said:'Notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones.

While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

The cup that you 're drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink.What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups. And then you began eyeing each other's cups.

Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life. The cup you have does not define, nor change the qualityof life you have. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate God has provided us. God makes the hot chocolate, man chooses the cups.

They just makethe best of everything that they have.

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. And enjoy your hot chocolate!!

Fact story from China

Do you know WHAT LOVE IS ?.... An incredible love story has come out of China recently and managed to touch the world.It is a story of a man and an older woman who ran off to live and love each other in peace for over half a century.
The 70-year-old Chinese man who hand-carved over 6,000 stairs up a mountain for his 80-year-old wife has passed away in the cave which has been the couple's home for the last 50 years. Over 50 years ago, Liu Guojiang a 19 year-old boy, fell in love with a 29 year-old widowed mother named Xu Chaoqin.
In a twist worthy of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, friends and relatives criticized the relationship because of the age difference and the fact that Xu already had children. At that time, it was unacceptable and immoral for a young man to love an older woman.. To avoid the market gossip and the scorn of their communities, the couple decided to elope and lived in a cave in Jiangjin County in Southern ChongQing Municipality.In the beginning, life was harsh as hey had nothing, no electricity or even food. They had to eat grass and roots they found in the mountain, and Liu made a kerosene lamp that they used to light up their lives.Xu felt that she had tied Liu down and repeatedly asked him, 'Are you regretful? Liu always replied, 'As long as we are industrious, life will improve.'
In the second year of living in the mountain, Liu began and continued for over 50 years, to hand-carve the steps so that his wife could get down the mountain easily.
Half a century later in 2001, a group of adventurers were exploring the forest and were surprised to find the elderly couple and the over 6,000 hand-carved steps. Liu MingSheng, one of their seven children said, 'My parents loved each other so much, they have lived in seclusion for over 50 years and never been apart a single day. He hand carved more than 6,000 steps over the years for my mother's convenience, although she doesn't go down the mountain that much.
The couple had lived in peace for over 50 years until last week. Liu, now 72 years, returned from his daily farm work and collapsed. Xu sat and prayed with her husband as he passed away in her arms. So in love with Xu, was Liu, that no one was able to release the grip he had on his wife's hand even after he had passed away.
'You promised me you'll take care of me, you'll always be with me until the day I died, now you left before me, how am I going to live without you?' Xu spent days softly repeating this sentence and touching her husband's black coffin with tears rolling down her cheeks.
In 2006, their story became one of the top 10 love stories from China , collected by the Chinese Women Weekly. The local government has decided to preserve the love ladder and the place they lived as a museum, so this love story can live forever.

Is knowledge is our power??

Knowledge on its own, is never power. The power is always in the ability of the person to use his knowledge powerfully. But it takes great love to do this in the right way to create the right type of person that is not influenced too much by his power or too much by his ego, and so that his love is overshadowed and lessened thereby.

So what is knowledge and what is power?

"To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day. To attain true and enduring power, master yourself and so find enlightenment"

- Lao Tzu

To me wisdom is connecting knowledge with our own truths. I think what Lao Tzu means here in the above quote is to first remove your beliefs, illusions and ideas and ways of thinking or habits that colour real knowledge. And so when knowledge is coloured or distorted in this way it is hard for it to lead you to its wisdom that comes out of this marriage of truth and knowledge.

Wisdom is attained by adding your truths to real knowledge and not to false perceptions of knowledge. Wisdom is about applying truth to knowledge so as knowledge can then be applied in the best possible way. If the knowledge is distorted to be not truthful knowledge, because it is only hearsay knowledge based on beliefs and on illusionary habits of thinking that you have knowledge, when you actually don't, wisdom will never evaluate itself out from this type of knowledge in any real way.

Love then is wisdom that applies itself to distributing the love and knowledge with love to others and to yourself by allowing your truths to be displayed with love and so seem like a kinder wisdom to all than just knowledge and truth by itself. Real wisdom, higher wisdom always has love added to the equation as well so your truth, your knowledge, plus love mixing them together and combining them produce the higher wisdoms.

So what more can I say about knowledge bringing power?

Knowledge can bring a certain amount of power as when you have a knowledge of what to do you then don't waste the power searching and being tied up by allowing lack of knowledge to stop you. Lack of knowledge by itself will stop you from using any power that you have but knowledge of itself only ever can use the power you already have.

So how do you marry power, your power with you knowledge and where does your power come from anyway?

Power is certainly a misnomer as it is just an illusion for the use of energy usually in the form of force. But power is not force. Power is the force behind the energy that directs the energy but never forces the energy. It just, with knowledge knows where and how the energy is best used and utilised for maximum power output.

So where does a persons power come from? It comes from on the one hand, love and the other hand, the ego. One is negative and the other positive. So that all power coming only from the ego produces the dictator and despot. And all love and no ego usually produces a weak person who doesn't know how to apply his love powerfully. So along comes someone like Mahatma Ghandi who had great love for his people and a great ego for his own ability to win out over the British by his own force of silent power. Marry his inner love with his outer ego and you find the incredible silent power that he wielded.

But none of this compares with Jesus. He acted from complete love but with no ego. This was so because the ego is only needed when we have incomplete knowledge, and Jesus had complete knowledge and so he needed no ego and always put it behind him so to speak. He had complete power but never used it except with complete love.

So yes, complete knowledge with complete love brings complete power.

And any other combination usually produces an unbalanced mix of power or love through a lack of complete knowledge to use them.

our loneliness

The word loneliness summons up another word, isolation, and perhaps it is this word that holds the key to how to become less lonely.

We all crave that feeling of belonging and a connectedness to others to some degree or the other.

It doesn't matter if you are in a crowd of people or stood on a mountain if the feeling that you are isolated occurs. The feeling can hit you with the same intensity in either situation.

This happens if you have a sense of being an outsider from the crowd. It is as if you are amongst people who are foreign to you and who don't always see you or know of your presence.

Sometimes loneliness can arise when you feel misunderstood. In this way it may seem as though it is you, battling against the world, who either receives you in a cold fashion, or not at all.

The way to change that feeling is to forge a connection with others around you, or if there is no one around you to visit places where others are who are likely to have things in common with you.

This can be easier said than done in some situations, if others are hurrying on by deep in their own thoughts and unreceptive to you. Persistence can help on such an occasion. A friendly smile or polite gesture can often spark a warm conversation.

Sometimes, if we reach out to others we may find that they were lonely too and grateful for our initiative in making that first connection.

If you find that you often feel lonely then a way to help you relieve your loneliness and reach out to others at the same time is to get yourself a friendly pet dog. I have a lovely dog that I got from an animal rescue center and whenever I take him for a walk people stop to pet him and we end up chatting. Dogs can be wonderful company and will attract other animal lovers to you.

Beginning a conversation with a stranger may seem hard at first. However, after a few words have been spoken the ice will be broken.

Often the best place to begin is to make a friendly remark about a mutual situation. This can be immediately bonding as others have an instant understanding of what you are saying.

An example of this could be when you are out shopping and you see someone accidentally drop an item. If you help them by picking up the item and tell them the the same thing happens to us all at some point then they will be glad that you helped them and made a kind comment.

The English are famous for starting conversations with people that they don't know by remarking on the weather. Most people are not really wanting to talk about the rain or sunshine. Rather they are making a move to show that they are friendly and open to talking with the other person.

If it is not that you feel shy when in a crowd or awkward being amongst strangers, but actually feel very unhappy in the company that you are in then it could just be that you need to find people who are more like you.

We are all different. Sometimes those who are more similar than others group together. It can be that at times you find yourself amongst a group of people who are similar to each other but different to you.

When this happens it is best to remind yourself that there will be other people who are more like you out there who will value your company and who will welcome you openly.

Finding such people is easiest if you join groups in which you already have an interest. Evening classes, dancing, further education and specialist groups that you are drawn to will all probably come with new friends that would be a pleasure to meet and who will find the experience mutual.