Face of God.

A newspaper photographer was sent to Ecuador in 1987 to cove the earthquake that devastated much of the country. In midst of such catastrophic suffering, he witnessed a scene of compassion that moved him so deeply that he wrote a story about it. Here is his account:


" The line was long but moving briskly and in that line, at the very end, was a young girl about twelve years of age. She waited patiently as all those up front of that long line received a little rice, some canned food and a little fruit. Slowly but surely, she was getting closer to the front of the line, closer to the food that was being distributed.

The young girl did not notice the growing despair on the faces of those distributing the food. The food was running out. Instead, the young girl's attention seemed to be riveted on three younger children who were standing at a distance, across the street."

At long last she stepped forward to get her share of the food. All that was left was a solitary banana.
Quitely she took the precious gift and smiled her gratitude.
Then she ran across the street to the three younger children. She peeled the banana very carefully and divided it into three equal parts.She placed one part of the food into the hands of each famished child.
Then she sat down and with a smile, licked the inside of the banana peel."

"At that moment", the photographer concluded, "I swear I saw the face of GOD!"

Successful or Useful?

When asked what he wished to become, as a young man, Nobel Laureate Albert Einstein was reported to have said, "I want to become a useful person, not a successful person."

Asked what he meant by it, the eminent physicist replied, "A successful person is one who takes from society more than what he gives it. A useful person is one who gives the society more than what he takes from it."

The Starfish

A little boy playing on the beach saw this solitary grey haired veteran walking on the sands close to where the waves ebbed and flowed. Every few steps, the old man would pick up something and throw it back into the sea. The boy ran up and saw to his surprise that the old man was, in fact, throwing starfish back into the sea. His little brown eyes wide open, the boy asked,


“What are you doing, Grandpa?”

“What do you think?” replied the old-timer, a twinkle in his blue eyes.

“Throwing… starfish… into the… sea?” asked the lad, scratching his head.

“Yup!”

“But, Grandpa, there are so many,” the boy looked up and down the beach.

Hundreds of starfish lay beached on the sands at low tide. He bent down, picked up a small fish and threw it back; then another, and yet another. He stopped and looked up.

“Are you going to throw all of them in? The sea will drop them back again tomorrow at low tide. How many can we save?” he continued.

“What do you figure? Can we save all of them?” asked the old man sending an orange star splashing into deep blue.

“I guess not! Well! Not all of them anyway!”

The old man picked up another and sent it flying into the ocean.

“But definitely that one! Right!”

“Right!”

“You see, kid,” he continued straightening his back with a sigh. “It’s not how many we were able to save, but the ones we have saved that matter.” He swept his gnarled palm expansively at the shore line and continued. “I may not be able to make a difference to all of them.” He paused, picked up a starfish, flicked it out to sea and looked into innocent eyes, three score years younger, “But, it definitely makes a difference to that one…”

The sun sinking into a fiery red ocean smiled at the two figures throwing starfish into the sea.

Anne's Song - John Denver

I'm so in love with this song...This seems to sum up the meaning of the word LOVE...

You fill up my senses
Like a night in the forest
Like the mountains in springtime
Like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert
Like a sleepy blue ocean
You fill up my senses
Come fill me again

Come let me love you
Let me give my life to you
Let me drown in your laughter
Let me die in your arms
Let me lay down beside you
Let me always be with you
Come let me love you
Come love me again

Let me give my life to you
Come let me love you
Come love me again

MSN Chat with God!

My chat with GOD on MSN... the times...they sure are changing!!!

God: Hello. Did you call me?

searchin4u : Called you? No, who is this?

God: This is GOD. I heard your prayers. So I thought I will chat.

searchin4u: I do pray. Just makes me feel good. I am actually busy now. I
am in the midst of something.

God: What are you busy at? Ants are busy too.

searchin4u : Don't know. But I can't find free time. Life has become
hectic. It's rush hour all the time.

God: Sure. Activity gets you busy. But productivity gets you results.
Activity consumes time. Productivity frees it.

searchin4u: I understand. But I still can't figure out. By the way, I was
not expecting YOU to buzz me on instant messaging chat.

God: Well I wanted to resolve your fight for time, by giving you some
clarity. In this net era, I wanted to reach you through the medium you are
comfortable with.

searchin4u : Tell me, why has life become complicated now?

God: Stop analyzing life. Just live it. Analysis is what makes it
complicated.

searchin4u: Why are we then constantly unhappy?

God: Your today is the tomorrow that you worried about yesterday. You are
worrying because you are analyzing. Worrying has become your habit. That's
why you are not happy.

searchin4u : But how can we not worry when there is so much uncertainty?

God: Uncertainty is inevitable, but worrying is optional.

searchin4u : But then, there is so much pain due to uncertainty.

God: Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.

searchin4u : If suffering is optional, why do good people always suffer?

God: Diamonds cannot be polished without friction. Gold cannot be purified
without fire. Good people go through trials, but don't suffer. With that
experience their life becomes better not bitter.

searchin4u : You mean to say such experience is useful?

God: Yes. In every term, Experience is a hard teacher. She gives the test
first and the lessons afterwards.

searchin4u: But still, why should we go through such tests? Why can't we be
free from problems?

God: Problems are "Purposeful Roadblocks Offering Beneficial Lessons to E
nhance Mental Strength". Inner strength comes from struggle and endurance,
not when you are free from problems.

searchin4u : Frankly in the midst of so many problems, we don't know where
we are heading.

God: If you look outside you will not know where you are heading. Look
inside. Looking outside, you dream. Looking inside, you awaken. Eyes
provide sight. Heart provides insight.

searchin4u : Sometimes not succeeding fast seems to hurt more than moving
in the right direction. What should I do?

God: Success is a measure as decided by others. Satisfaction is a measure
as decided by you. Knowing the road ahead is more satisfying than knowing
you rode ahead. You work with the compass. Let others work with the clock.
!

searchin4u : In tough times, how do you stay motivated?

God: Always look at how far you have come rather than how far you have to
go. Always count your blessing, not what you are missing.

searchin4u : What surprises you about people?

God: When they suffer they ask, "why me?" When they prosper, they never ask
"Why me". Everyone wishes to have truth on their side, but few want to be
on the side of the truth.

searchin4u : Sometimes I ask, who am I, why am I here. I can't get the
answer.

God: Seek not to find who you are, but to determine who you want to be.
Stop looking for a purpose as to why you are here. Create it. Life is not a
process of discovery but a process of creation.

searchin4u : How can I get the best out of life?!

God: Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence.
Prepare for the future without fear.

searchin4u: One last question. Sometimes I feel my prayers are not
answered.

God: There are no unanswered prayers. At times the answer is NO.

searchin4u : Thank you for this wonderful chat. I am so happy to start the
day with a new sense of inspiration.

God: Well, Keep the faith and drop the fear. Don't believe your doubts, and
doubt your beliefs. Life is a mystery to solve, not a problem to resolve.
Trust me. Life is wonderful if you know how to live.
Best wishes for a good day.
Warmest Regards --- GOD

You've got to find what you love

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.

So addictive.....

Eminem is always so good! And these particular set of lyrics from "When i'm gone" have gotten me engrossed.....

And when I’m gone, just carry on, don’t mourn
Rejoice every time you hear the sound of my voice
Just know that I’m looking down on you smiling
And I didn’t feel a thing, So baby don’t feel no pain
Just smile back
And when I’m gone, just carry on, don’t mourn
Rejoice every time you hear the sound of my voice
Just know that I’m looking down on you smiling
And I didn’t feel a thing, So baby don’t feel no pain
Just smile back…