Dont Waste your Life Believing You Can't

DON'T WASTE YOUR LIFE BELIEVING YOU CAN'T.

In 1977, in Tallahassee, Florida, Laura Shultz, who was 63 then, picked up the back end of a Buick to get it off her grandson's arm. Before that time, she had never lifted anything heavier than a 50-pound bag..

Dr. Charles Garfield, author of Peak Performance, interviewed her and got her to talk about "the event." She said she didn't like to think about it because it challenged her beliefs about what she could and couldn't do. She said, "If I was able to do this when I didn't think I could, what does that say about the rest of my life? How have I wasted it?"

Charlie convinced her that her life was not yet over and that she could still do whatever she wanted to do. He asked her what she wanted to do, what her passion was. She said she had always loved rocks. She had wanted to study geology, but her parents hadn't had enough money to send both her and her brother to college, so her brother had won out.

At 63, with a little coaching from Charlie, she decided to go back to school to study geology. She eventually got her degree and went on to teach at a local community college.

Don't wait until you are 63 to decide that you can do anything you want. Don't waste years of your life. Decide that you are capable of doing anything you want and start working toward it now.

- From "The Success Principles" by Jack Canfield:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am looking for a lot of men

who have an infinite capacity

not to know what can't be done.

– Henry Ford

Quick Beer on a Full Belly

The class was amazed to see on the Lecturer's desk a bag of sand, a bag of pebbles, some big rocks and a bucket. It was time for a pre-exam lecture on time management. He beacons an undergraduate to come on the platform and fill up the bucket.

A thoughtless novice starts with the sand, then the pebbles, then wastes lot of time pushing in the rocks, which not all fit in the bucket and makes a mess.

"Isn't that poor time and thought management" shrills the lecturer, "If you'd have put the rocks first, then the pebbles, then the sand, all three would have fit to the full. This is much like time management, in that by completing your biggest tasks first, you leave room to complete your medium tasks, then your smaller ones in given time. By getting lost into your smallest tasks first, you spend so much time on them, you leave yourself unable to complete either medium or large tasks satisfactorily.

And the lecturer re-fills the bucket, big rocks first, then pebbles, then sand, shaking the bucket between each so that everything fits. And heaves a sigh of anticipation of thunderous clapping.

"But Sir," Walks in one student, slouched at the back of the class, "you've forgotten one thing…..."

At which the student approaches the bucket, produces a can of lager, opens it, pours into the bucket and quips with a smile, "No matter, Sir, how much full, your bucket or belly is, there's always time, space and thought for a quick beer."

....................

A Health Officer drives into a village to check what precautions the villagers are taking for pure drinking water.

The Village Head assures the Bureaucrat that they chlorinate the village Pond, discourage activities like swimming, washing in the pond, collect water from the pond in clean utensils and boil water. Even then for the sake of safety, they drink beer only!

deBARred POWER of a PRAYER

In a small town in India, an enterprising fellow decided to open a Bar right opposite the Temple. The Temple priest and local community were outraged and started a campaign to block the coming up of the Bar with daily congregation and prayers against the evils of a Drinking Hole. They even filed a petition in the local court.

Work however continued to progress. By the time the whole structure came up, a lightning struck the edifice and it was razed to the ground.

The temple folks and devotees were simply delighted by the benevolent act of God. The Bar owner filed a counter petition now in the same court and sued the Temple authorities for the damage and destruction caused to his property on the grounds that but for their congregations and prayers, God would not have come down mercilessly on his fate.

Scared of heavy compensation in case so decreed by the court, the temple authorities vehemently denied any responsibility for the kind act of God through their prayers.

As the case progressed, the Judge remarked, "I don't know how I'm going to decide this case, but it appears from the proceedings conducted so far that we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer and we have an entire temple and its devotees who don't.!"