Vision

Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life. This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new. At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable. Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill. By Rabindranath Tagore

One day all the employees reached the office and they saw a big advice on the door on which it was written: “Yesterday the person who has been hindering your growth in this company passed away. We invite you to join the funeral”. In the beginning, they all got sad for the death of one of their colleagues, but after a while they started getting curious to know who was that man who hindered the growth of his colleagues and the company itself. The excitement in the gym was such that security agents were ordered to control the crowd within the room. The more people reached the coffin, the more the excitement heated up. Everyone thought: “Who is this guy who was hindering my progress? Well, at least he died!” One by one the thrilled employees got closer to the coffin, and when they looked inside it they suddenly became speechless. They stood nearby the coffin, shocked and in silence, as if someone had touched the deepest part of their soul. There was a mirror inside the coff...

No one can hurt you without your consent. On the first day, as President Abraham Lincoln entered to give his inaugural address, just in the middle, one man stood up. He was a rich aristocrat. He said, “Mr. Lincoln, you should not forget that your father used to make shoes for my family.” And the whole Senate laughed; they thought they had made a fool of Abraham Lincoln. But Lincoln --- and that type of people are made of a totally different mettle. Lincoln looked at the man and said, “Sir I know that my father used to make shoes in your house for your family, and there will be many others here…. Because the way he made shoes; nobody else can. He was a creator. His shoes were not just shoes; he poured his whole soul in it. I want to ask you, have you any complaint? Because I know how to make shoes myself. If you have any complaint I can make another pair of shoes. But as far as I know, nobody has ever complained about my father’s shoe...

“Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I can’t do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end up really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi  What I believe for myself is true for me. It doesn’t matter if it is positive or negative. What my belief is, so my persona is. Here is a wonderful poem about self-belief. It says that success lies in the quality of a will and the state of mind. If I think repeatedly that I am a loser; surely I will lose. If I think I am a winner; surely I will win.  If I want to rise in life, I must elevate my attitude. I must make sure of myself to win a prize. If I have weak beliefs; the result will be feeble. If I have strong beliefs; the result will be powerful. It is not true that stronger and faster always wins. Sooner or later he win...

Long ago an eastern monarch, plagued by many worries, harassed on every side, called his wise men together. He asked them to invent a motto, a few magic words that would help him in time of trial or distress. It must be brief enough to be engraved on a ring, he said, so that he could have it always before his eyes. It must be appropriate to every situation, as useful in prosperity as in adversity. It must be a motto wise and true and endlessly enduring, words by which a man could be guided all his life, in every circumstance, no matter what happened. The wise men thought and thought, and finally came to the monarch with their magic words. They were words for every change or chance of fortune, declared the wise men… words to fit every situation, good or bad… words to ease the heart and mind in every circumstance. And the words they gave the monarch to engrave on his ring were : This, too, shall pass away. The words are wise and true and endlessly enduring. They have giv...

The sun cut sharply across one corner of the room. The young man on the cot gazed at the brightness for a moment, then turned and faced the wall. He had been in the Edinburgh Infirmary nearly two years now, while Dr. Lister tried desperately to save his remaining foot. He had been subjected to so many operations he had lost count, twenty at least, in the last twenty months! But he was not beaten yet. He turned and faced the sun again, and smiled. Words rang through his mind, sang through his mind: “In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud.” The man on the cot was William Ernest Henley. Few in this world are called upon to endure all he had in his brief twenty-five years. He had suffered since childhood from an agonizing tubercular infection of the bones, for which the usual victorian remedy was amputation. One foot had already been removed, and the other was threatened. It was in the hope of avoiding a second amputation that he had submitted to this lo...