�Who Says You Can�t Teach an Old Dog a New Trick or Two�

As human beings we have the ability to adjust, we have the intelligence to choose and if we have the courage to overcome our ego we can make the right choice for the right reasons and conquer challenges that at first appear insurmountable.  But if we cannot adjust maybe it’s because we have accepted the same approach to life as a buzzard, a bat, and/or a bumblebee.

If you put a buzzard in a pen six or eight feet square and entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of his ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner. The reason is that a buzzard always begins a flight from the ground with a run of ten or twelve feet. Without space to run, as is his habit, he will not even attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner for life in a small jail with no top.

The ordinary bat that flies around at night, a remarkable nimble creature in the air, cannot take off from a level place. If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and, no doubt, painfully, until it reaches some slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then, at once, it takes off like a flash.

A Bumblebee if dropped into an open tumbler will be there until it dies, unless it is taken out. It never sees the means of escape at the top, but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides near the bottom. It will seek a way where none exists, until it completely destroys itself.

One day while working out in the fields the farmer’s son fell and broke his leg.

The villagers came to the farm and said, ‘My, that’s a great misfortune. Your son has broken his leg: now he can’t help you in the fields.’

The farmer said, ‘It is neither a fortune nor a misfortune.’

A day later, the government troops came to the village looking for young men to conscript into the army. They had to leave the boy behind because his leg was broken. Again, the villagers came to the farm and said, ‘My, that’s a great fortune.’

The farmer replied, ‘It is neither a fortune nor a misfortune.’

Then one day the farmer’s only horse jumped the fence and ran away. The villagers came to the farm and said, ‘What a great misfortune that your horse has run away. 

The farmer said, ‘It is neither a fortune nor a misfortune.’

Two or three days later, the horse came back with a dozen wild horses following behind him.

 The villagers came to him and said, ‘It’s a great fortune that your horse came back with twelve others.’

The farmer replied, ‘It is neither a fortune nor a misfortune.’

Lao Tzu

The farmer in this story understood that nothing is of greater importance than anything else until we give it importance.

When the great library of Alexandria burned, the story goes, one book was saved. But it was not a valuable book; and so a poor man, who could read a little, bought it for a few coppers. The book wasn’t very interesting, but between its pages there was something very interesting indeed. It was a thin strip of vellum on which was written the secret of the “Touchstone”!

The touchstone was a small pebble that could turn any common metal into pure gold. The writing explained that it was lying among thousands and thousands of other pebbles that looked exactly like it. But the secret was this: The real stone would feel warm, while ordinary pebbles are cold.

So the man sold his few belongings, bought some simple supplies, camped on the seashore, and began testing pebbles.

He knew that if he picked up ordinary pebbles and threw them down again because they were cold, he might pick up the same pebble hundreds of times. So, when he felt one that was cold, he threw it into the sea. He spent a whole day doing this but none of them was the touchstone. Yet he went on and on this way. Pick up a pebble. Cold – throw it into the sea. Pick up another. Throw it into the sea.

The days stretched into weeks and the weeks into months. One day, however, about mid-afternoon, he picked up a pebble and it was warm. He threw it into the sea before he realized what he had done. He had formed such a strong habit of throwing each pebble into the sea that when the one he wanted came along, he still threw it away.

So it is with opportunity. Unless we are vigilant, it’s easy to fail to recognize an opportunity when it is in hand and it’s just as easy to throw it away.

Author Unknown

Once upon a time, there was a king that ruled a prosperous country.

One day, he went for a trip to some distant areas of his country. When he came back to his palace, he complained that his feet were very sore. It was the first time that he had gone for such a long trip, and the road that he went on was very rough and stony.

So he ordered his people to cover every road of the entire country with leather.

Definitely, to do this job would require thousands of cows’ skin, and would cost a huge amount of money.

So one of his wise servants dared himself to suggest to the king, “Why do you want to spend all that unnecessary money? When you could just cut one little piece of leather and cover your feet?”

The king was surprised, but he later agreed to this suggestion, and made a “shoe” for himself.

The moral of the story: To make the world a better place – just change yourself. The world is just fine the way it is.

I am always pleasently surprised to see just how different others see life as compared to I.

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live.

They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, “How was the trip?”

“It was great, Dad.”

“Did you see how poor people live?” the father asked.

“Oh yeah,” said the son.

“So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?” asked the father.

The son answered: “I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.

“We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.

“We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs.

“We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.”

The boy’s father was speechless.

Then his son added, “Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are.”

STOP!

Take one quick look around. Your life is amazing and anything you want can and will become a reality if you are willing to focus on it and take action.

Ok now you are thinking of all the things that you can’t do and why I am wrong?  Up 2 U! For myself I know that that’s just the ego limiting your greatness – the ego is much happier when you are wallowing in “POOR ME.”.

Now take a second and think about why you do limit yourself? There is no good reason – That’s right there is no good reason – seriously what do you gain by limiting yourself – NOTHING!

So here’s a little tip that has served me well throughout my life: Find a greater purpose – by that I mean make your goals with the greater good of all mankind as the core.

Example: You want to travel the world – build a plan where you will stop at one orphanage per week and read a book to the children – it doesn’t matter if they understand – it only matters to the children that you care.

You don’t need to be Bill Gates and the boys to bring a ray of sunshine to the world – all you need to do is embrace your greatness – reach out to others and at the same time improve your own life!   

Here’s an interesting link I received today!

Volunteer Grandparents

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Volunteer+Grandparents+unite+generations/3328504/story.html

Why would we ever want to grow up when life can be so beautiful and pure through the eyes of a child.

1. She was in the bathroom, putting on her makeup, under the watchful eyes of her young granddaughter, as she’d done many times before.  After she applied her lipstick and started to leave, the little one said, “But Grandma, you forgot to kiss the toilet paper good-bye!”  I will  probably never put lipstick on again without thinking about kissing the toilet paper good-bye….

2. My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy Birthday.  He asked me how old I was, and I told him, 62.   My grandson was quiet for a moment, and then he asked,  “Did you start at 1?”

3. After putting her grandchildren to bed, a grandmother changed into old slacks and a droopy blouse and proceeded to wash her hair.  As she heard the children getting more and more rambunctious, her patience grew thin.  Finally, she threw a towel around her head and stormed into their room,  putting them back to bed with stern warnings.  As she left the room, she heard the three-year-old say with a trembling voice,
“Who was THAT?”

4. A grandmother was telling her little granddaughter what her own childhood was like.  “We used to skate outside on a pond.   I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a tree in our front yard.  We rode our pony.  We picked wild raspberries in the woods.”
The little girl was wide-eyed,  taking this all in.  At last she said, “I sure wish I’d gotten to know you sooner!”

5.  My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, “Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?” I mentally polished my halo and I said, “No, how are we alike?”  “You’re both old,” he replied.

6. A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather’s word processor. She told him she was writing a story.
“What’s it about?” he asked. 
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I can’t read.”

7.  I didn’t know if my granddaughter had learned her colors yet, so I decided to test her.  I would point out  something and ask what color it was.  She would tell me and was always correct.  It was fun for me, so I continued.  At last, she headed for the door, saying, “Grandma, I think you should try to figure out some of these colors  yourself!”

8. When my grandson Billy and I entered our vacation cabin,  we kept the lights off until we were inside to keep from attracting pesky insects.   Still, a few fireflies followed us in.  Noticing them before I did, Billy whispered, “It’s no use Grandpa.  Now the mosquitoes are coming after us with flashlights.”

9. When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly replied, “I’m not sure.”  “Look in your underwear, Grandpa,” he advised  “Mine says I’m 4 to 6.”

10. A second grader came home from school and said to her grandmother, “Grandma, guess what?  We learned how to make babies today.”  The grandmother, more than a little surprised, tried to keep her cool. “That’s interesting.” she said.  “How do you make babies?” 
“It’s simple,” replied the girl. “You just change ‘y’ to ‘i’ and add ‘es’.”

11. Children’s Logic: “Give me a sentence about a public servant,” said a teacher. The small boy wrote:  “The fireman came down the ladder pregnant.”   The teacher took the lad aside to correct him. “Don’t you know what pregnant means?” she asked.
“Sure,” said the young boy confidently. ‘It means carrying a child.”

12. A grandfather was delivering his grandchildren to their home one day when a fire truck zoomed past.  Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog.  The children started discussing the dog’s duties.
“They use him to keep crowds back,” said one child.
“No,” said another. “He’s just for good luck.”
A third child brought the argument to a close.”They use the dogs,” she said firmly, “to find the fire hydrants.”

13. A 6-year-old was asked where his grandma lived.  “Oh,” he said, “she lives at the airport, and when we want her, we just go get her.  Then, when we’re done having her visit, we take her back to the airport.”

14. Grandpa is the smartest man on earth!  He teaches me good good things, but I don’t get to see him enough to get as smart as him!

15. My Grandparents are funny, when they bend over,  you  hear gas leaks and they blame the dog.

Let’s go back to my blog on Friday when I commented that Darwin stated our primary purpose was to survive and evolve.

That’s a pretty interesting comment when you get right down to it.

But – does it apply to everyone. Because there are people out there that at least in my eyes appear not overly interested in surviving, let alone evolving.

Or would smoking, over eating and alcohol or drug consumption be just another form of surviving?

Then I ask myself would a person like Donald Trump be doing a better job of surviving that a starving child in Africa? And will his ability to survive in corporate America contribute more to the evolution of man than that starving child in Africa?

The more I think about it – the Ego and Religion aren’t such a bad things – after all they keep us important now and they give us a target to shoot for after death and without that – well the future looks kind of boring – doesn’t it????

Last week I was reading an article by Philip Zimbardo where he suggested that our school system was now obsolete. He suggested that for children of today the hierarchal system of teacher – student was unproductive and in most cases boring for the students. I don’t think that point would be challenged by to many students today.

Does this make the idea of school wrong – I don’t think so, but the existing system certainly needs to be updated a heck of a lot quicker than in the past and the old ways of thinking, what “WAS” important must now be released a lot quicker.

In fact just yesterday I listened to a presentation by Dr. David Anderson on the physics of time travel and how there are no less than 10 methods available that show how time travel is actually possible and not to far off into the distant future. http://www.andersoninstitute.com/. It’s an exciting time for futuristic thinkers.  

But then I watched a movie called “Creation” about the life of Charles Darwin and how his views of evolution were considered a negative challenge to God and the church. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin Darwin’s view was that our only purpose was to exist and to evolve. Now that’s a pretty open ended comment but I guess depending on how important you think you are will determine how you choose to process it. 

In any case take a moment to think about it – are you existing, evolving, focused on your past or looking to the future – what is your purpose here on earth.

In any case – Happy 4^th of July.

A firefighter was working on the engine outside the station, when he noticed a little girl nearby in a little red wagon with little ladders hung off the sides, and a garden hose tightly coiled in the middle.

The girl was wearing a firefighter’s helmet. The wagon was being pulled by her dog and her cat. The firefighter walked over to take a closer look.

‘That sure is a nice fire truck,’ the firefighter said with admiration… ‘Thanks,’ the girl replied. The firefighter looked a little closer. The girl had tied the wagon to her dog’s collar and to the cat’s testicles.

‘Little partner,’ the firefighter said, ‘I don’t want to tell you how to run your rig, but if you were to tie that rope around the cat’s collar, I think you could go faster.’

The little girl replied thoughtfully, ‘You’re probably right, but then I wouldn’t have a siren.’

Enjoy your weekend