Handwriting on The Wall

A weary mother returned from the store,
Lugging groceries through the kitchen door.
Awaiting her arrival was her 8 year old son,
Anxious to relate what his younger brother had done.

While I was out playing and Dad was on a call,
Chintu took his crayons and wrote on the wall
It's on the new paper you just hung in the den.
I told him you'd be mad at having to do it again.

She let out a moan and furrowed her brow,
Where is your little brother right now?
She emptied her arms and with a purposeful stride,
She marched to his closet where he had gone to hide.

She called his full name as she entered his room.
He trembled with fear--he knew that meant doom
For the next ten minutes, she ranted and raved
About the expensive wallpaper and how she had saved.

Lamenting all the work it would take to repair,
She condemned his actions and total lack of care.
The more she scolded, the madder she got,
Then stomped from his room, totally distraught

She headed for the den to confirm her fears.
When she saw the wall, her eyes flooded with tears.
The message she read pierced her soul with a dart.
It said, I love Mommy, surrounded by a heart.

Well, the wallpaper remained, just as she found it,
With an empty picture frame hung to surround it.
A reminder to her, and indeed to all,
Take time to read the handwriting on the wall.

Guest House.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi ~

(The Essential Rumi, translations by Coleman Barks)

I'll meet you there

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
-Rumi

What Is Love To You?

What is love to you?
This is what it means to me.

LOVE
how do you measure love, by a word or a deed .By the way someone looks at you or makes you feel when you are near them. Or is it by the things they buy you. Do you measure love by a by how much they do for you.

Love is measured by the husband that is happy to sit on the porch swing and talk with his wife. Love is the husband who bring flowers home for no reason at all. Love is the husband that is faithful in word and deed to his wife. Love is the husband that sits in the room of his aging wife and sings to her and holds her hand and remembers even then why he fell in love with her.

Love is measured by the wife who cleans, irons and provides for her husband and her children without complaint. Love is the wife that does not compare her husband to anyone else but loves him for who he is. Love is the wife that shares her most hidden secrets with her husband. Love is the wife that sits in the room of her aging husband and share memories of their life together and brushes his hair and remembers all the reasons she married him even when he doesn’t remember her.

Love is measured by the mother that teaches her children how to love and to be love, it is a mother who cleans the cuts on the knees and elbows for her children. Love is kissing their boo boo’s and looking for the monsters under their bed at night. Love is the mother that tucks you in at night and tells her children a bedtime story. Love is the mother that wipes away your tears and assures you everything is alright.

Love is the father that teaches his daughter how to dance and that talks to her about love and life . Love is the father that watches her grow and that gives her wings to fly when she is ready. Love is walking her giving a kiss on her wedding day , then giving her away .

Love is the father that that sets aside time to take his son fishing, and the father who teaches his son how to drive. Love is the father that listens as his children share their life with him. Love is the father that teaches by example.

Love is measured by the children that when they are young that show respect for their parents. Love is the child that listens to the instruction of his mother and father. Love is the child that takes the hand of an aging parent that no longer can do for themselves. Love is the child that pushes the wheelchair of their aging parent and talking to them. love is the child that sits by the bedside of their parent and calms their fears and wipes away their tears .

Love is measured by someone who reaches out to help someone whose car is broke down, giving bread to the hungry. Love is caring for someone that cannot care for themselves any more. Love is freely giving without expecting anything in return. Love is a simple smile a kind word and a hand that reaches out to offer help to those in need. Love is touching a life and giving of yourself without reservation.

What is love to you? please comment.

Are You Writing The Story Of Your Life?

Are you writing the story of your life, or are you letting other people and circumstances write it for you? You might not consider yourself a follower, but here are a few signs you aren’t in control:

You don’t like your job – Maybe you picked something because it was easier or safer than your ideal career. Worse, maybe you’re just doing what your family pressured you to do.

You’re living paycheck to paycheck – The problem usually isn’t money, but your priorities. It isn’t hard for the stuff you own to turn around and own you.
You feel obligated to do things you don’t want to do. Your first duty is to yourself. You can’t save the world while you’re miserable.
Leading your life isn’t easy. It means freeing yourself from many different assumptions. That freedom can be initially terrifying and painful, which is why so few people do it. It is far easier to just follow the assumptions of society, even if it leaves you unfulfilled.

Here are 7 rules that can help you start building a life worth living:

Rule One: Never let another person dictate the terms for living your life.
Not your parents. Not your spouse. Not your kids. Leading your life means you can accept the input of other people, but the final decision is yours. This means that career choice, relationships, beliefs and way of life are to be judged by you, not anyone else.
This rule holds especially when you have doubts. Don’t let your moment of doubt become a weakness to be exploited by others. Not sure what you want to do with your life? Don’t sit passively and let other people decide for you.

Rule Two: Don’t allow yourself to be chained by consumerism.
The world is filled with stuff. Don’t let stuff get in the way of what is important. When you become chained to your stuff, you are no longer leading your life. Ask yourself: if you had to give up 90% of your net worth tomorrow to pursue your dream, could you do it effortlessly? If you hesitated, perhaps your ability to lead your own life has been weakened by your attachment to stuff.

Rule Three: Rule money. Don’t let money rule you.
Money is a resource that can be applied when leading your life. You can use it to reduce discomforts, focus on meaningful work and apply it to help you learn and improve. But if you’re living paycheck to paycheck, the money is in control.
Here are some goals to put yourself in a position to rule the money in your life:
• Maintain one year of emergency funds in the bank.
• Your lifestyle should expand at a slower rate than your income grows.
• Be able to drastically reduce your expenditures if needed.
Financial freedom doesn’t mean the ability to buy everything you could desire or live in luxury. It means that money becomes a tool and not a distraction in leading your life.

Rule Four: You come first in relationships.
Do you know people that can’t stand being single? They get out of one bad relationship only to jump into the next.
Why? Because they put too much of their needs dependent on that other person. Without emotional and possibly financial support, they can’t survive.
In any relationship you need to be the person that comes first. That means that while you might enjoy the relationship, it doesn’t become the major purpose in your life.
Your purpose and leading your life must come before any relationship you enter. The surprising fact is that when you do this, you are able to have healthier personal and intimate relationships because there is no need for jealousy or possession.

Rule Five: Never outsource your thinking.
“You can split up food between men, but each man must digest it individually.” – Howard Roark in The Fountainhead.
Leading your own life means leading your own beliefs. It means never accepting anything unless you can filter it through your reasoning and find it to be true. Think critically about everything in life. Chances are there are a lot of indigested thoughts floating around trying to bypass your mind and go straight to your gut.

Rule Six: Anything you lack can be trained.
Never accept a fatalistic view of life. So you’ve been told you lack the intelligence, willpower, strength or charisma to do something? Ignore them. So you’ve told yourself that you lack the talent? Ignore yourself.
Begin with the assumption that anything can be trained and you’ll find few exceptions. I used to be a shy, introverted kid. Recently some friends described me as an extreme extrovert, being unafraid to meet new people and having honed my abilities to speak in front of crowds. Begin with the belief that you have no idea where your talents are until you train them.

Rule Seven: Purpose comes from your creative faculties.
Want to know what your purpose in life is? Simple. Hold your hands in front of you. Now look at them. There is your purpose and means to do it.
Purpose is your ability to take the creative energies you have and communicating them with the world. You and I might pick different mediums, but the act of purpose is exactly the same. You could be a manager crafting the art of dealing with people, a programmer crafting the knowledge of algorithms or an entrepreneur crafting the art of a business.
Don’t worry if you haven’t found the right medium. Once you feel that great purpose for your life and it comes from within, that is your greatest asset. With that belief you are the leader of your own life.

So, What is your Life story? If this blog makes a difference in writing your life story please leave your comment.

What Are Friends For?

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”—Anais Nin

Friends add meaning to our life, they enrich our experiences, bring joy, and share our problems. If there were a fourth need besides food, water, and shelter, we could say it would be the need for human interaction, closeness, and friendships. After all, what if great things happen in your life—you got a new job, a promotion, or fall in love—and there is no one to share the news with? What is the use of getting that new dress, purse, dress, car, or house if there is no one to tell you, “I’m so happy for you!” And what can give you more relief in time of frustration, grief, sadness, or “the blues” than talking to a friend? Our friends are an important part of our lives, and also a necessary part; they are our mirrors, and our sounding boards.

Choosing a friend is not an easy task, for we all had one or two experiences in our life when a person who we thought was our friend let us down. Those lessons were hard to swallow, yet necessary to our inner growth. Later we learned that it is better to be alone than to be in wrong company.

It is of utmost importance to carefully choose the people we will associate with, for they will have great influence on our life. ‘‘Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are.’’(Assyrian proverb). We are the average of the five people closest to us, and that relates to their lifestyle, manners, income, etc. If you make friends with someone who is always looking for an easy way out, tells “white lies,” makes excuses, is envious, sarcastic, and avoids taking responsibility it is only a matter of time before you start slacking off in those areas and justifying your own behavior as acceptable. Somehow what seemed unthinkable before, will gain a new perspective and become the norm, for if you run with the wolves you too will learn how to howl, and just like a mirror you will start to reflect the behavior of your friends—the good and the bad.

Stop for a moment now, and take a little inventory of the person you are right now compared to the person you were a year or two years ago. What qualities have you adopted from the people you surround yourself with? What character traits, attitudes, vocabulary, even quality of your self-esteem, confidence, acceptance of yourself and others? How did your friends (consciously or unconsciously) influence you in those areas? If the change is positive, and you feel yourself moving toward more, that’s great! How about if the change is negative, slowly but surely getting you down, making you feel that you are less instead of being more?

It is up to you to make the change, for as long as you tolerate mediocrity from others, you too will find mediocrity in your own life acceptable. Know, however, that this will be one of the hardest changes you will have to make, for your friends will not want you to grow. They have spent months or sometimes years getting you to a point where they themselves are, and now they are feeling comfortable with you right there, and it will not be of benefit to them if you should decide to change that. They don’t want you to grow, for the result of your personal growth will be outgrowing them and their comfort zone. At all cost they will want you to stay where they are, where they can continue to influence you and will not have to worry that someday you may become better than them. Their intentions may not even be based on jealousy but rather on fear, so forgive them quickly so you can go on your way to become the person you are meant to be.

Sometimes you have to leave behind those who are not willing to climb the mountain with you, if they refuse to share your vision of personal growth, then they should not try to discourage you in reaching your dream. How will you know what their true intention is for you? Look at their own lives, in which areas have they already reached the success that you are striving for? If they tasted the victory, they will want the same for you, however if their life never left their personal comfort zone they will be eager to share thoughts of fear and discouragement with you. So on your travel to a greater you, only take counsel from those who have already been there. Surround yourself with friends who are models of something instead of experts of nothing, for if you share your problems with someone who is incapable of contributing to a solution dipping in their own life’s experiences, your time and energy is wasted.

Oftentimes though, it is those who never did anything who are the first with their ill-fitted advice. Know then, that at those times you can reserve the right that not everyone has the privilege to speak into your life. Instead of wasting your time with those people, invest in some time spending a few hours with people who have ‘‘been there and done that’ AND came out of it successfully.

It is said that there are three kinds of people in this world:
• Those who watch things happen
• Those who make things happen
• Those who wonder “What happened?”

So let’s make things happen! Start today!

I wish you good friendships in your life, I wish you the kind of friends who will enrich your life, pull you up when you are down, and push you when you can’t go on by yourself, who will be generous with praise at your successes and eager with encouragement at your struggles, those who will not patronize you to make you feel good for a moment, but those who will tell you the truth and help you get better for a lifetime.

To friendship!

Fire Up Your Life

Yippee! It’s Monday. I am dying to get started with this exciting week.
Do you utter these words while making your way out of the bed on Monday mornings? Do you jump out of bed every morning in the state of excitement?
If your answer to this is “ Yes” then let me tell you that you are already living a life full of passion.

But if you are like most of the other people who are sleepwalking through life your answer to this would be “No! I would prefer to stay in the state of slumber. My dream world is far more alluring than my real world.”

We all go through life dealing with mundane matters. There are times when we feel that there is something missing in life, that there is something more to life. We might even try to dismiss this feeling of inner void by saying “How could I be so greedy? My life is just fine. I should stop asking for more and be happy with what I have.” With this notion deeply rooted in our mind, we consider ourselves to be happy. But deep down our heart we are still craving for a life that is more joyous and more exciting.

Whether we realize it or not, this kind of superficial living is self –destructive. We are sabotaging our growth and falling prey to our circumstances. Our life is meant to be colorful and enthralling and passion is what makes our life fulfilling in the true sense. Everyone is capable of pursuing their passion. All we need is a little effort towards creating our dream life.

What is “Passion”?
The word passion has lost its charm and true meaning these days. We find people using this word when they are vaguely referring to a desire or hobby. Passion goes beyond the realms of wants and desires. We all wish for several things in our life. But are we really passionate about them? Are we ready to go out of our way to achieve them? We need to ponder over these questions to identify our passions and discern them from mere wants.

Why is passion so imperative in life?
A source of motivation
On windy days we often notice leaves tossing and turning around, acting according to the whims of the wind. The wind says “Go east”. The leaf goes east. The wind says “ Go west”. The leaf goes west. The wind says “Stop”. The leaf stops flying. Without passion we are like this leaf. We might know where we want to go but our lack of motivation will easily derail us from our track. Our Passion transforms us into an arrow. The storm might knock the arrow off course but it would keep flying. Passion provides us motivation to keep moving whenever life tries to knock us down.

The secret of success
Have you ever noticed that most of the millionaires and successful entrepreneurs are high school drop outs. Almost none of them finished college. What makes it possible for these people who might seem ordinary to have an extraordinary life? The answer is passion. Think of all great achievers and you will be struck by their passion. Mahatma Gandhi’s passion for human rights, Winston Churchill’s passion for freedom, Bill Gates’s passion for technology. All these successful people have proved the fact that “The only path leading to success is the path paved with passion.”
Now that you know why passion is so relevant in life, let us look into some ways to nurture passion in life.

Ways to rekindle passion in life:

LOOK WITHIN
“I just can’t find my passion” I often hear people say. In this world where we are tuned in, logged on or dialed in virtually non- stop, taking time to let ourselves contemplate is very rare. But quiet reflective time is all it takes to find our passion. Try taking a trip down memory lane. What was that one thing you could for hours and hours when you were a child? It gave you so much pleasure that you lost track of time. I discovered most of my passions by ruminating over the things I loved to do as a child.

BEWARE OF THE THIEF
Our passion is like a precious pearl we possess. There is a thief who goes around stealing our passions. This thief of passion is nothing but fear. Fear of change, fear of failure, fear of stepping out of our comfort zone. This fear is what deters most people from pursuing their passion. If you want to live a more fulfilling life then you have to let go of your fears. Never let your passion get stolen by your fears.

SHIELD YOUR PASSION FROM NAYSAYERS
“Have you gone crazy” “Forget it you will never make it” This is what we get to hear when we decide to go off the beaten path to pursue our passion. Do not let these pessimistic people derail you from your path. Following the herd will not get you anywhere but following you heart will surely take you to your dreams. So shield yourself form the outer noise and just tune into your heart.

ALIGN YOUR PASSION WITH YOUR PROFESSIONS
Your passion need not be restricted to your weekends. Many people have found ways to turn their passion into rewarding career. I recently read an article about a bus driver in Chicago who sings while he drives. Apart from attracting passengers his unique style of driving attracted even the media. When he was being interviewed on television, he said “Don’t call me a driver. I am a professional singer. My passion is singing not driving. I only drive to get a captive audience every single day”. Here is a person who has found a creative way to align his passion with his occupation. Like this “Singing driver” you too can find ways to align your job with your passion.

MINGLE WITH PASSIONATE PEOPLE
Ever noticed that person who always seems to have spring in his step and a spark in his eyes. Passionate people can easily be spotted in a flock of people. They have an aura of positivity and charm that draws other people to them. And what more their passion is contagious so that the people who interact with them also get infected with it. Whenever you feel that you have lost your fire get around these fire lighters. By spending time with passionate people you can’t help getting infected with their passion.

KEEP YOUR EYES WIDE OPEN
Explore for new passions when you feel that the old ones have just faded away. Do not hesitate to experiment. You never know when you would stumble upon a new one that can rekindle the joy in life. I personally believe in having a variety of passions in life. I feel each of my passions add a new color to my life thereby making it more colorful.