“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” ― Maya Angelou

This is the story of two frogs. One frog was fat and the other skinny. One day, while searching for food, they inadvertently jumped into a vat of milk. They couldn’t get out, as the sides were too slippery, so they were just swimming around. The fat frog said to the skinny frog, “Brother frog, there’s no use paddling any longer. We’re just going to drown, so we might as well give up.” The skinny frog replied, “Hold on brother, keep paddling. Somebody will get us out.” And they continued paddling for hours.

After a while, the fat frog said, “Brother frog, there’s no use. I’m becoming very tired now. I’m just going to stop paddling and drown. It’s Sunday and nobody’s working. We’re doomed. There’s no possible way out of here.” But the skinny frog said, “Keep trying. Keep paddling. Something will happen, keep paddling.” Another couple of hours passed.

The fat frog said, “I can’t go on any longer. There’s no sense in doing it because we’re going to drown anyway. What’s the use?” And the fat frog stopped. He gave up. And he drowned in the milk. But the skinny frog kept on paddling.

Ten minutes later, the skinny frog felt something solid beneath his feet. He had churned the milk into butter and he hopped out of the vat.

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Thomas A. Edison

It was the coldest winter ever. Many animals died because of the cold. The hedgehogs, realizing the situation, decided to group together to keep warm. This way they covered and protected themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest companions.

After awhile, they decided to distance themselves one from the other and they began to die, alone and frozen. So they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth. Wisely, they decided to go back to being together. They learned to live with the little wounds caused by the close relationship with their companions in order to receive the heat that came from the others. This way they were able to survive.

The best relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people, but when each individual learns to live with the imperfections of others and can admire the other person’s good qualities.

"The power of love to change bodies is legendary, built into folklore, common sense, and everyday experience. Love moves the flesh, it pushes matter around.... Throughout history, 'tender loving care' has uniformly been recognized as a valuable element in healing." – Larry Dossey

The Tiger’s Whisker (T.L.C)

Once upon a time, a young wife named Yun Ok was at her wit’s end. Her husband had always been a tender and loving soul mate before he had left for the wars but, ever since he returned home, he was cross, angry, and unpredictable. She was almost afraid to live with her own husband. Only in glancing moments did she catch a shadow of the husband she used to know and love.

When one ailment or another bothered people in her village, they would often rush for a cure to a hermit who lived deep in the mountains. Not Yun Ok. She always prided herself that she could heal her own troubles. But this time was different. She was desperate.

As Yun Ok approached the hermit’s hut, she saw the door was open. The old man said without turning around: “I hear you. What’s your problem?”

She explained the situation. His back still to her, he said, “Ah yes, it’s often that way when soldiers return from the war. What do you expect me to do about it?”

“Make me a potion!” cried the young wife. “Or an amulet, a drink, whatever it takes to get my husband back the way he used to be.”

The old man turned around. “Young woman, your request doesn’t exactly fall into the same category as a broken bone or ear infection.”

“I know”, said she.

“It will take three days before I can even look into it. Come back then.”

Three days later, Yun Ok returned to the hermit’s hut. “Yun Ok”, he greeted her with a smile, “I have good news. There is a potion that will restore your husband to the way he used to be, but you should know that it requires an unusual ingredient. You must bring me a whisker from a live tiger.”

“What?” she gasped. “Such a thing is impossible!”

“I cannot make the potion without it!” he shouted, startling her. He turned his back. “There is nothing more to say. As you can see, I’m very busy.”

That night Yun Ok tossed and turned. How could she get a whisker from a live tiger?

The next day before dawn, she crept out of the house with a bowl of rice covered with meat sauce. She went to a cave on the mountainside where a tiger was known to live. She clicked her tongue very softly as she crept up, her heart pounding, and carefully set the bowl on the grass. Then, trying to make as little noise as she could, she backed away.

The next day before dawn, she took another bowl of rice covered with meat sauce to the cave. She approached the same spot, clicking softly with her tongue. She saw that the bowl was empty, replaced the empty one with a fresh one, and again left, clicking softly and trying not to break twigs or rustle leaves, or do anything else to startle and unsettle the wild beast.

So it went, day after day, for several months. She never saw the tiger (thank goodness for that! she thought) though she knew from footprints on the ground that the tiger – and not a smaller mountain creature – had been eating her food. Then one day as she approached, she noticed the tiger’s head poking out of its cave. Glancing downward, she stepped very carefully to the same spot and with as little noise as she could, set down the fresh bowl and, her heart pounding, picked up the one that was empty.

After a few weeks, she noticed the tiger would come out of its cave as it heard her footsteps, though it stayed a distance away (again, thank goodness! she thought, though she knew that someday, in order to get the whisker, she’d have to come closer to it).

Another month went by. Then the tiger would wait by the empty food bowl as it heard her approaching. As she picked up the old bowl and replaced it with a fresh one, she could smell its scent, as it could surely smell hers.

“Actually”, she thought, remembering its almost kittenish look as she set down a fresh bowl, “it is a rather friendly creature, when you get to know it.” The next time she visited, she glanced up at the tiger briefly and noticed what a lovely downturn of reddish fur it had from over one of its eyebrows to the next. Not a week later, the tiger allowed her to gently rub its head, and it purred and stretched like a house cat.

Then she knew the time had come. The next morning, very early, she brought with her a small knife. After she set down the fresh bowl and the tiger allowed her to pet its head, she said in a low voice: “Oh, my tiger, may I please have just one of your whiskers?” While petting the tiger with one hand, she held one whisker at its base and, with the other hand, in one quick stroke, she carved the whisker off. She stood up, speaking softly her thanks, and left, for the last time.

The next morning seemed endless. At last her husband left for the rice fields. She ran to the hermit’s hut, clutching the precious whisker in her fist. Bursting in, she cried to the hermit: “I have it! I have the tiger’s whisker!”

“You don’t say?” he said, turning around. “From a live tiger?”

“Yes!” she said.

“Tell me”, said the hermit, interested. “How did you do it?”

Yun Ok told the hermit how, for the last six months, she had earned the trust of the creature and it had finally permitted her to cut off one of its whiskers. With pride she handed him the whisker. The hermit examined it, satisfied himself that it was indeed a whisker from a live tiger, then flicked it into the fire where it sizzled and burned in an instant.

“Yun Ok”, the hermit said softly, “you no longer need the whisker. Tell me, is a man more vicious than a tiger? If a dangerous wild beast will respond to your gradual and patient care, do you think a man will respond any less willingly?”

Yun Ok stood speechless. Then she turned and stepped down the trail, turning over in her mind images of the tiger and of her husband, back and forth. She knew what she could do.

Source: Korean fable

'I want to be free. And so I let it go. I let it go."

In an interview with Mandela, former President Clinton asked him,” “That was pretty smart of you to have your jailers come to the Inauguration and all of that, but let me ask you something.” I said, “Didn’t you really hate them for what they did?”
He said, “Oh, yeah, I hated them for a long time. I stayed alive on hate for 12 years. I broke rocks every day, and I stayed alive on hate.They took a lot away from me. They took me away from my wife, and it subsequently destroyed my marriage. They took me away from

seeing my children grow up. They abused me mentally and physically. And one day, I realized they could take it all except my mind and my heart and I decided not to give that away.”
Clinton asked,”Well, what about when you were getting out of prison? I watched you walk down that dirt road to freedom. Now, when you were walking down there, and you realized how long you had been in their prison, didn’t you hate them then? Didn’t you feel some hatred?

Mandela said, “Yes, I did a little bit. I felt that. Frankly, I was kind of afraid, too, because I hadn’t been free in so long. But as I felt the anger rising up, I thought to myself, ‘They have already had you for 27 years. And if you keep hating them, they’ll have you again.’ And I said,’I want to be free. And so I let it go. I let it go.”

A Glass of Milk

One day, a poor boy, who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry. He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so she brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, How much do I owe you? “You don’t owe me anything,” she replied. “Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness.”

He said… “Then I thank you from my heart.”

As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and man was stronger also. He had been ready to give up and quit.

Many years later that same young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease.

Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to her room.

Dressed in his doctor’s gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once.
He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day he gave special attention to her case.

After a long struggle, the battle was won.

Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it, then wrote something on the edge and the bill was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally she looked, and something caught her attention on the side of the bill. She read these words…..

“Paid in full with one glass of milk.” — Signed — Dr. Howard Kelly.

Tears of joy flooded her eyes as her happy heart prayed: “Thank you, God , that Your love has spread through human hearts and hands.”

There’s a saying which goes something like this: “Bread cast on the waters comes back to you. The good deed you do today may benefit you or someone you love at the least expected time. If you never see the deed again at least you will have made the world a better place.” And, after all, isn’t that what life is all about?

—–

Dr. Howard Kelly was a distinguished physician who, in 1895, founded the Johns Hopkins Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Johns Hopkins University.  According to Dr. Kelly’s biographer, Audrey Davis, the doctor was on a walking trip through Northern Pennsylvania one spring day when we stopped by a farm house for a drink of water.  A little girl answered his knock at the door and instead of water, brought him a glass of fresh milk.  He visited with her briefly, then went his way.  Sometime after that, the little girl came to him as a patient and needed surgery.  After the surgery, the bill was brought to her room and on it were the words, “Paid in full with one glass of milk.”

Fifteen Minutes of Fame 

I dashed out an exit at the airport and ran towards a waiting cab. I was greeted by a cab driver with a three-day-old beard, an old baseball cap and arms the size of tree trunks. As he tossed my bags into the trunk, he spotted my luggage tags and said, “What kind of doctor are you?”

“A veterinarian,” I said. Instantly, his grizzled face broke into a smile. This happens to veterinarians all the time, as people love to talk about their pets.

The doors slammed, he put the car into gear and hit me with this opening salvo, “My wife claims I love my toy poodle Missy more than I love her.Just once, she wants me to be as excited to see her as I am Missy. But Doc, it ain’t gonna happen. Ya see, when I get home from a long day in the cab, dead tired, I open the door and there are the two of them looking at me, Ma and Missy. Ma has a scowl on her face and is ready to tear into me. Missy, on the other hand, is shaking all over, she’s that happy – her face is grinning so wide, she could eat a banana sideways. Now who do you think I’m going to run to?”

I nodded my head in agreement because I understood his point only too well. He loved his wife, but he simply wanted permission to savor his fifteen minutes of fame. Everybody gets fifteen minutes of fame once in his lifetime. We pet owners get our fifteen minutes every time we come home – or even return from the next room.

A few days after I saw the cab driver in Chicago, I returned home. I was tired from my travels and looking forward to seeing my family. Pulling into the driveway, I peered through the windshield, straining to catch a glimpse of my loved ones. My two children, Mikkel and Lex, are very close to good ol’ dad, but I didn’t see their faces pressed against the window looking for me. Nor did my beloved wife, Teresa, come running in super slow motion across the yard, arms open wide ready to embrace me.

But I didn’t despair. I knew I was still wanted, a Hollywood heartthrob, hometown hero to my two dogs: Scooter, a wire haired fox terrier, and, Sirloin, a black Labrador retriever!

As soon as I exited the pickup, Sirloin and Scooter charged to meet me. Their love-filled eyes danced with excitement, and their tail turbochargers whipped them into a delighted frenzy of fur.

Was this affection-connection routine, or ho-hum for me? Was I cool, calm and collected? Heck no. I turned into a blithering idiot as I got out of my truck and rushed to meet the hairy-princess, Scooter, and Sirloin, the fur-king.

There I stood, all these false layers stripped away, masks removed and performances canceled. It was my true self. Extra pounds, bad-hair day, angry people, travel strains, no matter. Scooter and Sirloin came to the emotional rescue and allowed me to drink in the sheer love and joy of the moment. I was drunk with contentment.

I was glad this took place in the privacy of my own home. What happened next might have spoiled my polished professional image. I immediately smiled, and raised my voice an octave or two, exclaiming, “Sirloin, yuz is daaaaddy’s boy, aren’t ya?” And, “Scooter have you been a good girl today? Yeah, you have, you’ve been a goooood girl!!”

They responded by turning inside out with delight, pressing themselves against my legs and talking to me. I felt as if I could tap directly into their wellspring of positive, healing energy. Gee, it was great to be home!

I bounded up the steps to find the rest of the family, heart open, stress gone and spirits restored by my fifteen minutes of fame.

If I Had My Life to Live over by Erma Bombeck

• I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.
• I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his life

• I would have eaten the popcorn in the GOOD” living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.
• I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.
• 
• I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.
•  I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.
• I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life.

• I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I wasn’t there for the day.
•  I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn’t show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

• Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I’d have cherished every moment realizing that the wonderment growing inside me was! The only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.
• When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, “Later. Now go get washed up for dinner.”
• There would have been more “I love you’s” and more “I’m sorry’s” but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute…..look at it and really see it … live it. And never give it back.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well. Voltaire

Different Type of Prayer:

Heavenly Father, Help us remember that the person who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who works nine hours that day and was rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children.

Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can’t make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

Remind us, Lord, that the scary looking beggar, asking for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together.

Heavenly Father, remind us each day that, of all the gifts you give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Open our hearts not just to those who are close to us, but to all humanity. Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive, show patience, empathy and love.

We all have different strengths and capabilities.

We can learn from geese on how these can be harnessed through teamwork, to create strong organizations.

1. As geese flap their wings, they create an uplift for the bird following. By flying together in a V formation, the flock’s flying range is 71% greater than that of any bird flying alone.

When we share a common direction and sense of community, we can get where we are going more quickly and easily because we are traveling on the energy of another.

2. When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to fly alone, and quickly gets back into form to take advantage of the lifting power of the birds in front.
-When we have as much sense as geese, we will stay in formation with those who are headed where we want to go; we will be willing to accept their help as well as give ours to others.

3. The geese in formation honk to encourage those up front to keep up their speed. When the lead goose gets tired it rotates back into formation and another goose flies out the point position.
When we take turns doing the hard tasks, when we encourage others, we become stronger through shared leadership.

4. When a goose gets sick or wounded, 2 geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it. They stay with it until it is able to fly again or dies. They then launch out on their own to find another formation or to catch up with the flock.
When we have learned the value of teamwork, we too will stand by each other in challenging times. Let us fly in formation and remember to drop back to help those who read it.

With teamwork synergy, the total sum is greater than the individual parts.

No one can whistle a symphony.  It takes a whole orchestra to play it.  ~H.E. Luccock 

“There is no limit to what can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit”