Don’t run with the crowd

I need to feel a part of the whole; however, the way in which I function is dependent, all too often, on the influence of other people. I lack that inner strength and courage to be able to make my own decisions. It is far easier to move with the crowd than to choose my own direction. But is the crowd always right? Can I justify a wrong act by counting the number of people performing that act? There seems to be a great deal of duality within me.

I do not want to feel left out, but yet there are many things I disagree with which are alien to my nature. I know that peace is important, and yet I give support to peace less and violent activities. I understand the value of happiness, but I cling with mindless abandon to that which causes sorrow. Anyway, who wants to be singled out as being different, as being weird?

To see what is right and not to do…is this how I want to live? Can I experience true stability if my mind tells me one thing and I do something else? I try to gather my thoughts every now and then, and to see what strength is there in virtue and how much virtue in strength of thought. I ask myself what I really want, that which is perishable or imperishable? The choice is mine.

Global Warming goes slowdown..!

Washington: Researchers said that they have discovered "missing heat" in the climate system, which has cast doubt on suggestions that global warming has slowed or stopped over the past decade.

Observational data on which climate records are based cover only 84 percent of the planet - with Polar regions and some parts of Africa excluded.

Now, Dr Kevin Cowtan, a computational scientist at the University of York, and Robert Way, a cryosphere specialist and PhD student at the University of Ottawa, have reconstructed the 'missing' global temperatures using a combination of observations from satellites and surface data from weather stations and ships on the peripheries of the unsampled regions.

The new research shows that the Arctic is warming at about eight times the pace of the rest of the planet.

The new research suggests that the addition of the 'missing' data indicates that the rate of warming since 1997 has been two and a half times greater than shown in the Met Office studies.

Evidence for the rapid warming of the Arctic includes observations from high latitude weather stations, radiosonde and satellite observations of temperatures in the lower atmosphere and reanalysis of historical data.

The research has been published in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Word of Wisdom

Once an astrologer went to a king. The king showed great reverence to the astrologer, made him sit and honoured him with gifts. The king then showed his palm and the charts to astrologer. The astrologer examined everything and then said to the king, ‘O King..! You will lose your entire family. Everybody is going to die before you. You will be the last to die’.

The king got very upset upon hearing this and put the astrologer in the jail. This news shook the entire astrologers’ community. They thought, ‘We cannot tell the truth to the king. If we do so, he will simply put us in jail. What do we do..?’


When someone hears some negative prediction, they don’t like it. They obviously want to hear something nice and positive instead. And so it was for the king as well. The king then called for another astrologer to appear before him. Many tried to escape this request but one senior astrologer agreed to meet the king. So, he went before the king, and the king welcomed him in the same way with gestures and gifts. The king  then showed his palm to the astrologer. The astrologer said, ‘Oh King..! What a great fortune you are blessed with..! You have a very good horoscope. Nobody in history has had such longevity of age as you are going to have. In fact, nobody in your dynasty has had such great longevity’.

The astrologer never said to the king that he was going to outlive everybody else in the royal family. Instead, he told the king that he was blessed with great longevity and that he had a great horoscope. The king was so flattered upon hearing the news of his long life and good health. He told the astrologer, ‘Ask whatever gift you want from me and I shall give’. The astrologer said, ‘Please release my colleague who is in the jail’.

Moral: How you represent the facts makes a big difference.

Your Attitude Is Your Destiny

Kishan was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say.

When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!" He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant.

The reason the waiters followed Kishan was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Kishan was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Kishan and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?" Kishan replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Kishan, you have two choices today.

You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.

Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life." "Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested. "Yes it is," Kishan said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life." I reflected on what Kishan said.

Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it. Several years later, I heard that Kishan did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Kishan was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Kishan was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. I saw Kishan about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?" I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Kishan replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die.

I chose to live." "Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked. Kishan continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed to take action." "What did you do?" I asked. "Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Kishan. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them, "I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead." Kishan lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.
Attitude, after all, is everything.

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE REMEMBERED..?

About a hundred years ago, a man looked at the morning newspaper and to his surprise and horror, read his name in the obituary column. The news papers had reported the death of the wrong person by mistake. His first response was shock. Am I here or there..?

When he regained his composure, his second thought was to find out what people had said about him. The obituary read, "Dynamite King Dies." And also "He was the merchant of death." This man was the inventor of dynamite and when he read the words "merchant of death," he asked himself a question, "Is this how I am going to be remembered?" He got in touch with his feelings and decided that this was not the way he wanted to be remembered. From that day on, he started working toward peace. His name was Alfred Nobel and he is remembered today by the great Nobel Prize. Just as Alfred Nobel got in touch with his feelings and redefined his values, we should step back and do the same.

>> What is your legacy..?

>> How would you like to be remembered? Will you be spoken well of..?

>> Will you be remembered with love and respect..?

>> Will you be missed..?