Weekend Reading

Thanks to Udhaya Janani Rajkumar Secret Ears   “Can I see my baby?” the happy new mother asked. When the bundle was nestled in her arms and she moved the fold of cloth to look upon his tiny face, she gasped. The doctor turned quickly and looked out the tall hospital window. The baby had been born without ears. Time proved that the baby’s hearing was perfect. It was only his appearance that was marred. When he rushed home from school one day and flung himself into his mother’s arms, she sighed, knowing that his life was to be a succession of heartbreaks. He blurted out the tragedy. “A boy, a big boy… called me a freak.” He grew up, handsome for his misfortune. A favorite with his fellow students, he might have been class president, but for that. He developed a gift, a talent for literature and music. “But, you might mingle with other young people,” his mother reproved him, but felt a kindness i...

Thanks to Vidya Nair Power of Money By Adam Khoo, Singapore's youngest millionaire at 26 yrs   Some of you may already know that I travel around the region pretty frequently, having to visit and conduct seminars at my offices in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Suzhou (China). I am in the airport almost every other week so I get to bump into many people who have attended my seminars or have read my books.                                         Recently, someone came up to me on a plane to Kuala Lumpur and looked rather shocked. He asked, 'How come a millionaire like you is traveling economy?'  My reply was, 'That's why I am a millionaire’. He still looked pretty confused. This again confirms that greatest lie ever told about wealth (which I wrote about in my latest book 'Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires'). Many people have been brainwashed to think that m...

Thanks to Rostow Ravanan Non-Violence in Parenting   Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and founder of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Non-violence, in his June 9 lecture at the University of Puerto Rico, shared the following story as an example of "non-violence in parenting": "I was 16 years old and living with my parents at the institute my grandfather had founded 18 miles outside of Durban, South Africa , in the middle of the sugar plantations. We were deep in the country and had no neighbors, so my two sisters and I would always look forward to going to town to visit friends or go to the movies. One day, my father asked me to drive him to town for an all-day conference, and I jumped at the chance. Since I was going to town, my mother gave me a list of groceries she needed and, since I had all day in town, my father ask me to take care of several pending chores, such as getting the car serviced. When I dropped my father off that morning, he said...

Thanks to Vidya Nair A Brother’s Song   Like any good mother, when Karen finds out that another baby was on the way, she does what she can to help her 3-year-old son, Michael, prepare for a new sibling. They find out that the new baby is going to be a girl, and day after day, night after night, Michael sings to his sister in Mommy's tummy.   The pregnancy progresses normally for Karen. Then the labor pains come. Every five minutes, every minute. But complications arise during delivery. Hours of labor. A C-section is required. Finally, Michael's little sister is born but she is in serious condition. With sirens howling in the night, the ambulance rushes the infant to the neonatal intensive care unit. The days inch by. The little girl gets worse. The pediatric specialist tells the parents, "There is very little hope. Be prepared for the worst."   Karen and her husband contact a local cemetery about a burial plot. They have fixed up a special ...

Weekend Reading and Monthly Alarm   The Idea: Originally, it was a way of keeping in touch with my friends once in week through meaningful forwards. But it reached beyond my expectation. Now, the distribution list has grown to thousands over five years.   Many unknown people fell in love with Weekend Reading. It inspired me to send it even on my Wedding Day J . For those of you who do not have time for my Weekend reading, I wanted to give them a monthly message. Hence, the Monthly Alarm was kicked off J .  Ultimately, I set up a platform to share my ideas of life with the likeminded. Starting 2010, I am going to present my own write up on certain topics one of the weeks in Weekend Reading every month and also on Quarterly basis in Monthly Alarm.   Now I have started 2 new Google groups to facilitate universal subscription to these. From Jan 2010, you will receive these mails only thro’ Google groups from my personal email id.  You can ...

Thanks to Balaji Paulraj Holding Hands!!!   I was sitting on a beach one summer day, watching two children, a boy and a girl, playing in the sand. They were hard at work building an elaborate sandcastle by the water's edge with gates and towers and moats and internal passages. Just when they had nearly finished their project, a big wave came along and knocked it down, reducing it to a heap of wet sand. I expected the children to burst into tears, devastated by what had happened to all their hard work. But they surprised me. Instead, they ran up the shore away from the water, laughing and holding hands, and sat down to build another castle. I realized that they had taught me an important lesson. All the things in our lives, all the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy creating, are built on sand. Only our relationships endure. Sooner or later, the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up. When that happens, only...

Thanks to Balaji Paulraj Holding Hands!!!   I was sitting on a beach one summer day, watching two children, a boy and a girl, playing in the sand. They were hard at work building an elaborate sandcastle by the water's edge with gates and towers and moats and internal passages. Just when they had nearly finished their project, a big wave came along and knocked it down, reducing it to a heap of wet sand. I expected the children to burst into tears, devastated by what had happened to all their hard work. But they surprised me. Instead, they ran up the shore away from the water, laughing and holding hands, and sat down to build another castle. I realized that they had taught me an important lesson. All the things in our lives, all the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy creating, are built on sand. Only our relationships endure. Sooner or later, the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up. When that happens, only...