Emperor's Seed

Once there was an emperor in the Far East who was growing old and knew it was coming time to choose his successor. Instead of choosing one of his assistants or one of his own children, he decided to do something different.

He called all the young people in the kingdom together one day. He said, "It has come time for me to step down and to choose the next emperor. I have decided to choose one of you." The kids were shocked! But the emperor continued. "I am going to give each one of you a seed today. One seed. It is a very special seed. I want you to go home, plant the seed, water it and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from this one seed. I will then judge the plants that you bring to me, and the one I choose will be the next emperor of the kingdom!"

There was one boy named Ling who was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly told his mother the whole story. She helped him get a pot and some planting soil, and he planted the seed and watered it carefully. Every day he would water it and watch to see if it had grown.

After about three weeks, some of the other youths began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow. Ling kept going home and checking his seed, but nothing ever grew. Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by. Still nothing.

By now others were talking about their plants but Ling didn't have a plant, and he felt like a failure. Six months went by, still nothing in Ling's pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Ling didn't say anything to his friends, however. He just kept waiting for his seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the youths of the kingdom brought their plants to the emperor for inspection. Ling told his mother that he wasn't going to take an empty pot. But she encouraged him to go, and to take his pot, and to be honest about what happened. Ling felt sick to his stomach, but he knew his mother was right. He took his empty pot to the palace.

When Ling arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by all the other youths. They were beautiful, in all shapes and sizes. Ling put his empty pot on the floor and many of the other kinds laughed at him. A few felt sorry for him and just said, "Hey nice try."

When the emperor arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted the young people. Ling just tried to hide in the back. "My, what great plants, trees and flowers you have grown," said the emperor. "Today, one of you will be appointed the next emperor!"

All of a sudden, the emperor spotted Ling at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered his guards to bring him to the front. Ling was terrified. "The emperor knows I'm a failure! Maybe he will have me killed!"

When Ling got to the front, the Emperor asked his name. "My name is Ling," he replied. All the kids were laughing and making fun of him. The emperor asked everyone to quiet down. He looked at Ling, and then announced to the crowd, "Behold your new emperor! His name is Ling!" Ling couldn't believe it. Ling couldn't even grow his seed. How could he be the new emperor?

Then the emperor said, "One year ago today, I gave everyone here a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds which would not grow. All of you, except Ling, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grown, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Ling was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new emperor!"

A blind boy

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign
which said: ‘I am blind, please help.’ There were only a few coins in the hat.
A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat.
 He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back
  so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.
Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy..
That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were.
 The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, ‘Were you the one who changed my sign
  this morning? What did you write?’
The man said, ‘I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.’
What he had written was: ‘Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it.’
Do you think the first sign and the second sign were saying the same thing?
Of course both signs told people the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the
 boy was blind. The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind.
  Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the Story:

Be thankful for what you have. 
 
Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively.
Invite others towards good with wisdom.
 Live life with no excuse and love with no regrets.
 When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile.
 
 Face your past without regret.
 Handle your present with confidence.
 Prepare for the future without fear. 

* Keep the faith and drop the fear.
 
* Great men say, ‘Life has to be an incessant process of repair and reconstruction,
 of discarding evil and developing goodness…. In the journey of life,
 if you want to travel without fear, you must have the ticket of a good conscience.’
 
* The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling…And even more beautiful is, knowing that you are the reason behind it!!!

Growing Good Corn

There was a Nebraska farmer who grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won a blue ribbon...
One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors.
"How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?" the reporter asked.
"Why sir," said the farmer, "didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn."
He is very much aware of the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbor's corn also improves.
So it is in other dimensions. Those who choose to be at peace must help their neighbors to be at peace. Those who choose to live well must help others to live well, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all.
The lesson of the story:
if you want to grow good corn, you must help others grow good corn. If you want to be happy, you must help others become happy. If you want to be successful, you must help others become successful, and so on.
Unknown Author.

The Carpenter's House

An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family.
He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They could get by. The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.
When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter. "This is your house, " he said, "my gift to you."
What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well.
So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way, reacting rather than acting, willing to put up less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort. Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized that we would have done it differently.
Moral of the Story

Think of yourself as the carpenter. Think about your house. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or erect a wall. Build wisely.

It is the only life you will ever build. Even if you live it for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived graciously and with dignity.

The plaque on the wall says, "Life is a do-it-yourself project." Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices you make today.

The Tip

In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10-year-old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table.

A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. "How much is an ice cream sundae?"

"Fifty cents," replied the waitress.

The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied a number of coins in it.

"How much is a dish of plain ice cream?" he inquired.

Some people were now waiting for a table and the waitress was a bit impatient. "Thirty-five cents," she said brusquely.

The little boy again counted the coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream," he said.

The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and departed.

When the waitress came back, she began wiping down  the table and then swallowed hard at what she saw. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies - her tip.

- Author Unknown

Lessonn: Always remember those who serve.

Sand and Stone!

  A story tells of two friends who were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, she wrote in the sand:

"TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE"

They kept on walking, until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but her friend saved her. After she recovered from the near drowning, she wrote on a stone:

"TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE"

The friend, who had slapped and saved her best friend, asked her, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now, you write on a stone, why?"

The other friend replied: "When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand, where the winds of forgiveness can erase it, but when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone, so no wind can ever erase it."

LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND AND TO CARVE YOUR BLESSINGS IN STONE.

A True Story

A True Story

 

 

A sweet grandmother telephoned St. Joseph 's Hospital.

She timidly asked, "Is it possible to speak to someone who can tell me

how a patient is doing?"

 

The operator said, "I'll be glad to help, dear.

What's the name and room number of the patient?"

The grandmother in her weak, tremulous voice said,

 "Norma Findlay, Room 302."

 

The operator replied, "Let me put you on hold while I check

with the nurse's station for that room."

 

After a few minutes, the operator returned to the phone and said,

 "I have good news. Her nurse just told me that Norma is doing well.

 Her blood pressure is fine; her blood test just came back normal and

 her physician, Dr. Cohen, has scheduled her to be discharged tomorrow."

 

The grandmother said, "Thank you. That's wonderful. I was so worried.

God bless you for the good news."

 

The operator replied, "You're more than welcome.

 Is Norma your daughter?"

The grandmother said, "No, I'm Norma Findlay in Room 302.

No one tells me at all"TRUE STORY