Saturday, November 14, 2015
Thursday, November 12, 2015
I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world.
In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success.
However, aside from work, I have little joy. In the end, wealth is only a fact of life that I am accustomed to.
At this moment, lying on the sick bed and recalling my whole life, I realize that all the recognition and wealth that I took so much pride in, have paled and become meaningless in the face of impending death.
In the darkness, I look at the green lights from the life supporting machines and hear the humming mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of god of death drawing closer…
Now I know, when we have accumulated sufficient wealth to last our lifetime, we should pursue other matters that are unrelated to wealth…
Should be something that is more important:
Perhaps relationships, perhaps art, perhaps a dream from younger days ...
Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me.
God gave us the senses to let us feel the love in everyone’s heart, not the illusions brought about by wealth.
The wealth I have won in my life I cannot bring with me.
What I can bring is only the memories precipitated by love.
That’s the true riches which will follow you, accompany you, giving you strength and light to go on.
Love can travel a thousand miles. Life has no limit. Go where you want to go. Reach the height you want to reach. It is all in your heart and in your hands.
What is the most expensive bed in the world? - "Sick bed" …
You can employ someone to drive the car for you, make money for you but you cannot have someone to bear the sickness for you.
Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost – "Life".
When a person goes into the operating room, he will realize that there is one book that he has yet to finish reading – "Book of Healthy Life".
Whichever stage in life we are at right now, with time, we will face the day when the curtain comes down.
Treasure Love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends...
Treat yourself well. Cherish others.
Which is why in my household, we eat to live. Thanks Steve for the powerful words!!! #RIP
Monday, November 9, 2015
That a child should die in this country because the house it was living in was too damp and cold and a heater couldn't afford to be run is a shocking state of affairs. This is the kind of thing we associate with Third World countries.
The other thing we connect with those places are children going hungry, where poverty reaches such levels of deprivation that there is not enough food to go round.
New Zealand as a place where children go hungry in a welfare state, where large sums of money are spent each year on aid and assistance, suggests something is radically wrong here.
An equivalent time in this country's history where such conditions pertained would be post 1929 and the Depression. I'm not sure if any child died because of those dire circumstances, but the welfare state had not yet been invented.
So something just doesn't add up.
Today, charity organisations are working flat out just to keep up with demand, feeding multiple hungry mouths. St Vincent de Paul is one of them, doing sterling work, despite thieves stealing over $1000 worth of its food, and more lately other thieves or the same ones damaging the ignition on the charity's food van in an attempt to hotwire and steal that.
It beggars belief, of course. The charity is now forced to build a security fence to keep things secure and safe.
When St Vincent de Paul Waikato manager Mike Rolton was asked why such things were happening in New Zealand and what the solutions might be, he was at a loss to say, although he did mention that homeware trucks targeting poorer areas were part of the problem.
So the poor are buying stuff they can't afford, perhaps don't need, on layby, running up debt and then find they can't feed their children. This is self-inflicted poverty.
I have a simple answer to the conundrum. What if people stopped having children they aren't able to adequately feed and clothe and keep warm? It seems self-evident that if you are not in a position to financially support a family, put adequate food on the table, put warm clothes on any children's backs, then it is highly irresponsible to have them. In fact it is dissolute. You are endangering a child's life.
Stop having them if you cannot afford to look after them properly. It's screamingly obvious. Stop breeding.
Nowadays, it is not too difficult to prevent breeding. You simply swallow a pill, get an injection or get the snip. Science has made life so easy and convenient. Ironically, the people who are breeding the most are the ones least likely to be able to feed their offspring. Do the maths, people. It's not rocket science. You don't need a degree in physics to work it out. Children are expensive items. Not enough food to go round? Then minimise the mouths.
Back in the day, people did seem to comprehend this; or some did, at least. If you couldn't afford to get married, you didn't. The first question the father might enquire of a young man attempting to secure the hand of his daughter would be about his financial capacity to support a family.
The famous American artist Edward Hopper married his sweetheart when he was 40 because, before that, he was a poor struggling artist with few prospects. He couldn't afford to marry. In 1925, his career took off and he felt confident to announce the nuptials.
Of course all that sort of thing is old fashioned these days. But the same logic surely applies. And whether married or not, the advent of contraception has made it even easier to secure a financially positive outcome. No "waiting" is now required, because the fear of pregnancy and fear of penury has been alleviated.
The answer to child poverty is blindingly obvious. Stop having them if you can't afford to feed them. Take control of matters into your own hands and rise above the fickle fortune of global economics, the dearth of unskilled jobs and other outside factors.
Of course, we all know that this is unlikely to happen.
So here's a novel idea. Why not give all males at birth the snip? Then reverse it later when they can prove they are financially capable of feeding any children who might result from a stable partnership or marriage.
Too radical? Too sensible? I can already hear howls of protest from the Libertarian party. People should be entitled to have as many children as they like, when they like, even if they are incapable of feeding them.
People who work in budgeting services and really know the score tell me that dire poverty is often a result of crippling debt. The poor have bought stuff they cannot afford and do not need on credit that accrues high interest rates. You cannot run and service a car, for example, if you are on welfare, but apparently many do, resulting in no food for their numerous children.
Here's another solution. Welfare payments should be paid direct to power companies and landlords, while the provision of food stamps are made for food (excluding alcohol and cigarettes). After that, you'd not see a single child turning up to school without breakfast or a lunch pack.
originally Published in www.stuff.co.nz/
A woman goes into a store to buy a fishing rod and reel. She doesn't know which one to get so she just grabs one and goes over to the register. There is a store employee standing there with dark shades on.
She says, "Excuse me sir... can you tell me anything about this rod and reel?"
He says, "Ma'am I'm blind but if you drop it on the counter I can tell you everything you need to know about it from the sound that it makes."
She didn't believe him, but dropped it on the counter anyway.
He said, "That's a 6' graphite rod with Zebco 202 reel and 10 lb. test line... It's a good all around rod and reel and it's $20.00."
She says, "That's amazing that you can tell all that just by the sound of it dropping on the counter. I think it's what I'm looking for so I'll take it."
He walks behind the counter to the register. And in the meantime the woman farts. At first she is embarrassed but then realizes that there is no way he could tell it was her... being blind he wouldn't know that she was the only person around.
He rings up the sale and says, "That will be $25.50."
She says, "But didn't you say it was $20.00?"
He says, "Yes ma'am, the rod and reel is $20.00, the duck call is $3.00, and the catfish stink bait is $2.50!"
Monday, November 2, 2015
There was this beautiful woman, who wanted to get married, but she wanted a very pious husband, so she said that she’ll marry the man who recites the whole Quran every single day, fasts for the whole year and stays awake and worships Allah all throughout the night.
Be yourself
Ask a flower in the field: ‘Do you feel useful?
After all, you do nothing but produce the same flowers over and over?’
And the flower will answer:
‘I am beautiful, and beauty is my reason for living.’
Ask the river: ‘Do you feel useful?,
given that all you do is to keep flowing in the same direction?’
And the river will answer: ‘I’m not trying to be useful,
I’m trying to be a river.’
Don’t try to be useful.
Try to be yourself: that is enough, and that makes all the difference.
Walk neither faster nor slower than your own soul.
Because it is your soul that will teach you the usefulness of each step you take.
Sometimes taking part in a great battle
But sometimes you can do that simply by smiling,
for no reason,
at someone you happen to pass in the street.
Without intending to,
you might have saved the life of a complete stranger,
who also thought he was useless and might have been ready to kill himself,
until a smile gave him new hope and confidence.
... Dr Mahesh
