Make a Difference

We are all gifted with a unique set of skills and abilities. With those abilities we can make extra-ordinary things happen in the world around us, or not.

It is completely up to you whether you want your life to make a difference and what difference you want your life to make.

Many people set lofty goals for their lives and want to be remembered as visionaries, they want to change and save the world.

Others want to be remembered as the kind man or women down the street who always helped and always listened if you needed help.

Who do you think is the better person?

The one who changes the world or the one who saves the individual?

Do what not have to do incredible things; just being there for the people around you can save someone from a meaningless life and help them lead the life they were meant to live.

Small things matter

Changing the life of another person is an incredible feeling and it is completely within your grasp. You can do this by deciding to become a mentor for a young ambitious person. You can help them avoid the mistakes you have made and help them learn from the ones they will inevitably make themselves.

Fight for someone's rights

You will often see someone get treated unfairly. It happens both professionally and socially, individuals who deserve recognition do not get it.

By taking up the fight and making sure others get what they deserve and earned you will be a true hero. You will make a lasting impact on their lives and you will be rewarded with love and help in the future when you are in need.

The law of karma says that whatever you do you will get back three fold, helping others is therefore a selfish act, but still a good act, one that you should do without fear, with love and with the knowledge that you will one day be rewarded.

Go the distance

Compromise is the enemy of long term commitment, if you have committed to helping someone by being their mentor or by fighting for their rights, doesn't stop half way. Go the distance and see it through. Make sure something happens so all your work doesn't end up as only talk.

Conclusion

In truth we might all be here to help each other, we might all be a part of a machine that fosters cooperation, or were not. We might just be here to make the best of the situation for ourselves.

In any case, helping others brings happiness and prosperity into your own life, so for whatever reason you chose to help others, it will always help you in return.

The difference between stopping half way and finishing isn't much in terms of the work you put in, but worlds apart in the difference for the individual you are helping.

THIS IS THE LIFE

THIS IS THE LIFE By Annie Dillard from the Fall issue ofImage: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, published by the Center for Religious Humanism at Seattle Pacific University. Dillard's most recent book is For the Time Being. Any culture tells you how to live your one and only life: to wit as everyone else does. Probably most cultures prize, as ours rightly does, making a contribution by working hard at work that you love; being in the know, and intelligent; gathering a surplus; and loving your family above all, and your dog, your boat, bird-watching. Beyond those things our culture might specialize in money, and celebrity, and natural beauty. These are not universal. You enjoy work and will love your grandchildren, and somewhere in there you die. Another contemporary consensus might be: You wear the best shoes you can afford, you seek to know Rome's best restaurants and their staffs, drive the best car, and vacation on Tenerife. And what a cook you are! Or you take the next tribe's pigs in thrilling raids; you grill yams; you trade for televisions and hunt white-plumed birds. Everyone you know agrees: this is the life. Perhaps you burn captives. You set fire to a drunk. Yours is the human struggle, or the elite one, to achieve... whatever your own culture tells you: to publish the paper that proves the point; to progress in the firm and gain high title and salary, stock options, benefits; to get the loan to store the beans till their price rises; to elude capture, to feed your children or educate them to a feather edge; or to count coup or perfect your calligraphy; to eat the king's deer or catch the poacher; to spear the seal, intimidate the enemy, and be a big man or beloved woman and die respected for the pigs or the title or the shoes. Not a funeral. Forget funeral. A big birthday party. Since everyone around you agrees. Since everyone around you agrees ever since there were people on earth that land is value, or labor is value, or learning is value, or		title, necklaces, degree, murex shells, or ownership of slaves. Everyone knows bees sting and ghosts haunt and giving your robes away humiliates your rivals. That the enemies are barbarians. That wise men swim through the rock of the earth; that houses breed filth, airstrips attract airplanes, tornadoes punish, ancestors watch, and you can buy a shorter stay in purgatory. The black rock is holy, or the scroll; or the pangolin is holy, the quetzal is holy, this tree, water, rock, stone, cow, cross, or mountain and it's all true. The Red Sox. Or nothing at all is holy, as everyone intelligent knows. Who is your "everyone"? Chess masters scarcely surround themselves with motocross racers. Do you want aborigines at your birthday party? Or are you serving yak-butter tea? Popular culture deals not in its distant past, or any other past, or any other culture. You know no one who longs to buy a mule or be named to court or thrown into a volcano. So the illusion, like the visual field, is complete It has no holes except books you read and soon forget. And death takes us by storm. What was that, that life? What else offered? If for him it was contract bridge, if for her it was copyright law, if for everyone it was and is an optimal mix of family and friends, learning, contribution, and joy of making and amelioratingwhat else is there, or was there, or will there ever be? What else is a vision or fact of time and the peoples it bears issuing from the mouth of the cosmos, from the round mouth of eternity, in a wide and parti-colored utterance. In the complex weave of this utterance like fabric, in its infinite domestic interstices, the centuries and continents and classes dwell. Each people knows only its own squares in the weave, its wars and instruments and arts, and also the starry sky. Okay, and then what? Say you scale your own weft and see time's breadth and the length of space. You see the way the fabric both passes among the stars and encloses them. You see in the weave nearby, and aslant farther off, the peoples variously scandalized or exalted in their squares. They work on their projects they flake

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	spear points, hoe, plant; they kill aurochs or one another; they prepare sacrifices as we here and now work on our projects. What, seeing this spread multiply infinitely in every direction, would you do differently? No one could love your children more; would you love them less? Would you change your project? To what? Whatever you do, it has likely brought delight to fewer people than either contract bridge or the Red Sox. However hypnotized you and your people are, you will be just as dead in their war, our war. However dead you are, more people will come. However many more people come, your time and its passions, and yourself and your passions, weigh equally in the balance with those of any dead who pulled waterwheel poles by the Nile or Yellow rivers, or painted their foreheads black, or starved in the wilderness, or wasted from disease then or now. Our lives and our deaths count equally, or we must abandon one-man-one-vote dismantle democracy, and assign six billion people an importance-of-life ranking from one to six billiona ranking whose number decreases, like gravity, with the square of the distance between us and them. What would you do differently, you up on your beanstalk looking at scenes of all peoples at all times in all places? When you climb down, would you dance any less to the music you love, knowing that music to be as provisional as a bug? Somebody has to make jugs and shoes, to turn the soil, fish. If you descend the long rope-ladders back to your people and time in the fabric, if you tell them what you have seen, and even if someone cares to listen, then what? Everyone knows times and cultures are plural. If you come back a shrugging relativist or tongue-tied absolutist, then what? If you spend hours a day looking around, high astraddle the warp or woof of your people's wall, then what new wisdom can you take to your grave for worms to untangle? Well, maybe you will not go into advertising. Then you would know your own death better but perhaps not dread it less. Try to bring people up the wall, carry children to see it to		what end? Fewer golf courses? What is wrong with golf? Nothing at all. Equality of wealth? Sure; how? The woman watching sheep over there, the man who carries embers in a pierced clay ball, the engineer, the girl who spins wool into yarn as she climbs, the smelter, the babies learning to recognize speech in their own languages, the man whipping a slave's flayed back, the man digging roots, the woman digging roots, the child digging roots what would you tell them? And the future people what are they doing? What excitements sweep peoples here and there from time to time? Into the muddy river they go, into the trenches, into the caves, into the mines, into the granary, into the sea in boats. Most humans who were ever alive lived inside one single culture that never changed for hundreds of thousands of years; archaeologists scratch their heads at so conservative and static a culture. Over here, the rains fail; they are starving. There, the caribou fail; they are starving. Corrupt leaders take the wealth. Not only there but here. Rust and smut spoil the rye. When pigs and cattle starve or freeze, people die soon after. Disease empties a sector, a billion sectors. People look at the sky and at the other animals. They make beautiful objects, beautiful sounds, beautiful motions of their bodies beating drums in lines. They pray; they toss people in peat bogs; they help the sick and injured; they pierce their lips, their noses, ears; they make the same mistakes despite religion, written language, philosophy, and science; they build, they kill, they preserve, they count and figure, they boil the pot, they keep the embers alive; they tell their stories and gird themselves. Will knowledge you experience directly make you a Buddhist? Must you forfeit excitement per se? To what end? Say you have seen something. You have seen an ordinary bit of what is real, the infinite fabric of time that eternity shoots through, and time's soft-skinned people working and dying under slowly shifting stars. Then what? (posted with the permission of the author)

50 Interesting questions

When you have a little spare time to think, review these interesting and thought provoking questions! 

 Then if you still have a little more spare time, share with us your thoughts, answers, and questions!

If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake? 

What is the difference between being alive and truly living? 

Why do religions that support love cause so many wars? 

Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend? 

Does love equal sex? 

If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich? 

Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing?

If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently? 

Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things? 

If you knew that everyone you know was going to die tomorrow, who would you visit today? 

If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be? 

What one thing have you not done that you really want to do? 

What’s holding you back? 

Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton? 

Has your greatest fear ever come true? 

Would you rather have less work to do, or more work you actually enjoy doing? 

When was the last time you noticed the sound of your own breathing? 

Decisions are being made right now. The question is: Are you making them for yourself, or are you letting others make them for you? 

If you had all the money in the world but still had to have some kind of job, what would you choose to do? 

When you’re 90 years old, what will matter most to you? 

What do you regret most so far in life?

If you were at heaven’s gates, and God asked you “Why should I let you in?”, what would you say? 

What small thing could you do to make someone’s day better? 

What impact do you want to leave on the world? 

When was the last time you tried something new? 

What life lesson did you learn the hard way? 

What do you wish you spent more time doing five years ago? 

What is the difference between living and existing? If not now, then when? 

Have you done anything lately worth remembering? 

If you had to teach something, what would you teach? 

What would you regret not fully doing, being or having in your life? 

Is stealing to feed a starving child wrong? 

What lifts your spirits when life gets you down? 

Have you ever regretted something you did not say or do? 

Why do we think of others the most when they’re gone? Is it more important to love or be loved? 

If a doctor gave you five years to live, what would you try to accomplish? 

Can there be happiness without sadness? 

What’s the one thing you’d like others to remember about you at the end of your life?

Is there such a thing as perfect? 

What does it mean to be human? 

Are you happy with yourself? 

Can you think of a time when impossible became possible? How do you spend the majority of your free time? 

How have you helped someone else recently? 

What did you learn recently that changed the way you live? 

What is the nicest thing someone has ever done for you? 

What will you never do? In your lifetime, what have you done that hurt someone else? 

When was the last time you were nice to someone and did NOT expect anything in return for it?

What goes around comes around

One day a man saw an old lady, stranded on the side of the road, but even in the dim light of day, he could see she needed help. So he pulled up in front of her Mercedes and got out. His Pontiac was still sputtering when he approached her.

Even with the smile on his face, she was worried. No one had stopped to help for the last hour or so. Was he going to hurt her? He didn’t look safe; he looked poor and hungry. He could see that she was frightened, standing out there in the cold. He knew how she felt. It was those chills which only fear can put in you. He said, “I’m here to help you, ma’am. Why don’t you wait in the car where it’s warm? By the way, my name is Bryan Anderson.”

Well, all she had was a flat tire, but for an old lady, that was bad enough. Bryan crawled under the car looking for a place to put the jack, skinning his knuckles a time or two. Soon he was able to change the tire. But he had to get dirty and his hands hurt.
As he was tightening up the lug nuts, she rolled down the window and began to talk to him. She told him that she was from St. Louis and was only just passing through. She couldn’t thank him enough for coming to her aid.

Bryan just smiled as he closed her trunk. The lady asked how much she owed him. Any amount would have been all right with her. She already imagined all the awful things that could have happened had he not stopped. Bryan never thought twice about being paid. This was not a job to him. This was helping someone in need, and God knows there were plenty, who had given him a hand in the past. He had lived his whole life that way, and it never occurred to him to act any other way.
He told her that if she really wanted to pay him back, the next time she saw someone who needed help, she could give that person the assistance they needed, and Bryan added, “And think of me.”
He waited until she started her car and drove off. It had been a cold and depressing day, but he felt good as he headed for home, disappearing into the twilight.

A few miles down the road the lady saw a small cafe. She went in to grab a bite to eat, and take the chill off before she made the last leg of her trip home. It was a dingy looking restaurant. Outside were two old gas pumps. The whole scene was unfamiliar to her. The waitress came over and brought a clean towel to wipe her wet hair. She had a sweet smile, one that even being on her feet for the whole day couldn’t erase. The lady noticed the waitress was nearly eight months pregnant, but she never let the strain and aches change her attitude. The old lady wondered how someone who had so little could be so giving to a stranger. Then she remembered Bryan.

After the lady finished her meal, she paid with a hundred dollar bill. The waitress quickly went to get change for her hundred dollar bill, but the old lady had slipped right out the door. She was gone by the time the waitress came back. The waitress wondered where the lady could be. Then she noticed something written on the napkin.

There were tears in her eyes when she read what the lady wrote: “You don’t owe me anything. I have been there too. Somebody once helped me out, the way I’m helping you. If you really want to pay me back, here is what you do: Do not let this chain of love end with you.”
Under the napkin were four more $100 bills.

Well, there were tables to clear, sugar bowls to fill, and people to serve, but the waitress made it through another day. That night when she got home from work and climbed into bed, she was thinking about the money and what the lady had written. How could the lady have known how much she and her husband needed it? With the baby due next month, it was going to be hard….
She knew how worried her husband was, and as he lay sleeping next to her, she gave him a soft kiss and whispered soft and low, “Everything’s going to be all right. I love you, Bryan Anderson.”

There is an old saying “What goes around comes around.”

Things change, keep up your faith!

For most people, graduation is an exciting day – the culmination of years of hard work. My graduation day… was not.

I remember that weekend two years ago. Family and friends had flown in from across the country to watch our class walk across that stage. But like everyone else in my graduating class, I had watched the economy turn from bad to worse my senior year. We graduates had degrees, but very limited prospects. Numerous applications had not panned out and I knew that the next day, when my lease ended, I would no longer have a place to call home.

The weeks ahead weren’t easy. I gathered up everything I couldn’t carry and put it into storage. Then, because I knew my small university town couldn’t offer me any opportunities, I packed up my car and drove to Southern California to find work. But what I thought would take a week dragged into two, and then four, and 100 job applications later, I found myself in the exact same spot as I was before. And the due date to begin paying back my student loans was creeping ever closer.

You know that feeling when you wake up and you are just consumed with dread? Dread about something you can’t control – that sense of impending failure that lingers over you as you hope that everything that happened to you thus far was just a bad dream? That feeling became a constant in my life.

Days felt like weeks, weeks like months, and those many months felt like an unending eternity of destitution. And the most frustrating part was no matter how much I tried, I just couldn’t seem to make any progress.

So what did I do to maintain my sanity? I wrote. Something about putting words on a page made everything seem a little clearer – a little brighter. Something about writing gave me hope. And if you want something badly enough… sometimes a little hope is all you need!

I channeled my frustration into a children’s book. Beyond the River was the story of an unlikely hero featuring a little fish who simply refused to give up on his dream.

And then one day, without any sort of writing degree or contacts in the writing world – just a lot of hard work and perseverance – I was offered a publishing contract for my first book! After that, things slowly began to fall into place. I was offered a second book deal. Then, a few months later, I got an interview with The Walt Disney Company and was hired shortly after.

The moral of this story is… don’t give up. Even if things look bleak now, don’t give up. Two years ago I was huddled in my car drinking cold soup right out of the can. Things change.

If you work hard, give it time, and don’t give up, things will always get better. Oftentimes our dreams lie in wait just a little further upstream… all we need is the courage to push beyond the river.

P.S:- This is not my personal story..Story has been taken from some sources.

I have learned…

I’ve learned- that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them. 

I’ve learned- that no matter how much I care, some people just don’t care back. 

I’ve learned- that it takes years to build up trust, and only seconds to destroy it. 

I’ve learned- that no matter how good a friend is, they’re going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that. 

I’ve learned- that it’s not what you have in your life but who you have in your life that counts. 

I’ve learned- that you should never ruin an apology with an excuse. 

I’ve learned- that you can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes. After that, you’d better know something. 

I’ve learned- that you shouldn’t compare yourself to the best others can do. I’ve learned- that you can do something in an instant that will give you heartache for life. 

I’ve learned- that it’s taking me a long time to become the person I want to be. 

I’ve learned- that you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them. 

I’ve learned- that you can keep going long after you can’t. I’ve learned- that we are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel. 

I’ve learned- that either you control your attitude or it controls you. 

I’ve learned- that regardless of how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, the passion fades and there had better be something else to take its place. 

I’ve learned- that heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences. 

I’ve learned- that money is a lousy way of keeping score. 

I’ve learned- that my best friend and I can do anything or nothing and have the best time. 

I’ve learned- that sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you’re down will be the ones to help you get back up. 

I’ve learned- that sometimes when I’m angry I have the right to be angry, but that doesn’t give me the right to be cruel. 

I’ve learned- that true friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. Same goes for true love. 

I’ve learned- that just because someone doesn’t love you the way you want them to doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have. 

I’ve learned- that maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you’ve had and what you’ve learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you’ve celebrated. 

I’ve learned- that you should never tell a child their dreams are unlikely or outlandish. Few things are more humiliating, and what a tragedy it would be if they believed it. 

I’ve learned- that your family won’t always be there for you. It may seem funny, but people you aren’t related to can take care of you and love you and teach you to trust people again. Families aren’t biological. 

I’ve learned- that it isn’t always enough to be forgiven by others. Sometimes you are to learn to forgive yourself. 

I’ve learned- that no matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesn’t stop for your grief. 

I’ve learned- that our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become. 

I’ve learned- that a rich person is not the one who has the most, but is one who needs the least. 

I’ve learned- that just because two people argue, it doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. And just because they don’t argue, it doesn’t mean they do. 

I’ve learned- that we don’t have to change friends if we understand that friends change. 

I’ve learned- that you shouldn’t be so eager to find out a secret. It could change your life forever. 

I’ve learned- that two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different. 

I’ve learned- that no matter how you try to protect your children, they will eventually get hurt and you will hurt in the process. 

I’ve learned- that even when you think you have no more to give, when a friend cries out to you, you will find the strength to help. 

I’ve learned- that credentials on the wall do not make you a decent human being. 

I’ve learned- that the people you care about most in life are taken from you too soon. 

I’ve learned- that it’s hard to determine where to draw the line between being nice and not hurting people’s feelings, and standing up for what you believe. 

I’ve learned- that people will forget what you said, and people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Believe in Yourself

There may be days when you get up in the morning and things aren’t the way you had hoped they would be. That’s when you have to tell yourself that things will get better. There are times when people disappoint you and let you down. But those are the times when you must remind yourself to trust your own judgments and opinions, to keep your life focused on believing in yourself. There will be challenges to face and changes to make in your life, and it is up to you to accept them. Constantly keep yourself headed in the right direction for you. It may not be easy at times, but in those times of struggle you will find a stronger sense of who you are. So when the days come that are filled with frustration and unexpected responsibilities, remember to believe in yourself and all you want your life to be. Because the challenges and changes will only help you to find the goals that you know are meant to come true for you.

                                
                                                    Keep Believing in Yourself!

Helpless love

Once upon a time all feelings and emotions went to a coastal island for a vacation. According to their nature, each was having a good time. Suddenly, a warning of an impending storm was announced and everyone was advised to evacuate the island. The announcement caused sudden panic. All rushed to their boats. Even damaged boats were quickly repaired and commissioned for duty. Yet, Love did not wish to flee quickly. There was so much to do. But as the clouds darkened, Love realized it was time to leave. Alas, there were no boats to spare. Love looked around with hope. Just then Prosperity passed by in a luxurious boat. Love shouted, “Prosperity, could you please take me in your boat?” “No,” replied Prosperity, “my boat is full of precious possessions, gold and silver. There is no place for you.” A little later Vanity came by in a beautiful boat. Again Love shouted, “Could you help me, Vanity? I am stranded and need a lift. Please take me with you.” Vanity responded haughtily, “No, I cannot take you with me. My boat will get soiled with your muddy feet.” Sorrow passed by after some time. Again, Love asked for help. But it was to no avail. “No, I cannot take you with me. I am so sad. I want to be by myself.” When Happiness passed by a few minutes later, Love again called for help. But Happiness was so happy that it did not look around, hardly concerned about anyone. Love was growing restless and dejected. Just then somebody called out, “Come Love, I will take you with me.” Love did not know who was being so magnanimous, but jumped on to the boat, greatly relieved that she would reach a safe place. On getting off the boat, Love met Knowledge. Puzzled, Love inquired, “Knowledge, do you know who so generously gave me a lift just when no one else wished to help?” Knowledge smiled, “Oh, that was Time.” “And why would Time stop to pick me and take me to safety?” Love wondered. Knowledge smiled with deep wisdom and replied, “Because only Time knows your true greatness and what you are capable of. Only Love can bring peace and great happiness in this world.” “The important message is that when we are prosperous, we overlook love. When we feel important, we forget love. Even in happiness and sorrow we forget love. Only with time do we realize the importance of love. Why wait that long? Why not make love a part of your life today?”