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Far from the walls of academe, I looked back and said to myself, "Tsk! Should've learned these rules back before..."

  1. Life is not fair; get used to it
  2. The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
  3. You will not make 40k a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.
  4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure.
  5. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.
  6. If you mess up, it’s not your parents fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
  7. Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning your clothes, and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So, before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your room.
  8. Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they’ll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.
  9. Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
  10. Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
  11. Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.
 

Never – never – never – never – never- give up!!

      In 1969, magazine editor T. George Harris took a little-known magazine, put it in black, and made it into one of the outstanding magazines of its time. In 1976, soon after his magazine was bought by a major chain, Harris learned that his wife had breast cancer. Eight months later, he lost his job as a magazine editor. He then watched the magazine he had worked so hard to build suffer hard times and slowly decline until it was ultimately sold at a give-away price.

     At age fifty-five he found himself alone (his wife by then in the Sloan-Kettering Hospital), out of work, and with four children to clothe and feed. He began growing vegetables in his backyard to help feed his family and took occasional carpentry jobs to earn a little more. In all these however, Harris says the most significant part of his struggle was taking over the responsibilities of a working “mother”.

     His sons helped him run the house and shared in the chores. He bought a gross of white athletic socks and a gross of maroon socks so he wouldn’t have to “sort and match” the laundry. He’d just leave a basket of socks on the stairs. “Maroon is a universal color,” he says “It goes just as badly with blue, gray and black as with brown and green.”

     Harris couldn’t afford riding the taxi, so he began jogging to and from freelance jobs and then to the hospital to be with his wife during her meals. He gave up junk food and that, along with his daily jogging, resulted in a weight loss of thirty pounds. His hectic schedule continued for months. Some evening he wouldn’t get home until nine of ten. In January 1987 his wife died of cancer.

     Harris’s busy schedule continued for four years. In 1982 the combination improved his health, his struggle to survive and his will to succeed led him to take a risk. With little money, he and a partner launched a new, magazine from a seedy office in New York City. In a few short years, “American Health” has attracted a circulation approaching a million subscribers and has received a National Magazine Award. T. George Harris obviously didn’t get “the breaks” he made his own.

 

One of my life's principles is this... "if you'll never try you'll never know..."

Read this...

          One day, a king placed a boulder on the middle of the road. He then hid a pouch behind the bounder, and waited in the bushes to see what will people do.
          Many noble men, knights, priests, and soldiers saw the boulder and complained why it was blocking the path. That was all they did—complained, complained, and complained some more.
          But later in the afternoon, a farmer walked on the road, saw the boulder, put down his stuff—and pushed it out of the way. When he did that, he saw the king’s purse underneath. He opened it and found it filled with the purest gold, including a note from the king. It said, “This is your reward. Because behind every boulder on the road of life is pure gold.”
 

 

We are all conscious of what people say about us. Our neighbors, friends, relatives, and officemates always has something about us. Here's a story about a neighbor who knows much more about you than what you expect...

A small town prosecuting attorney called his first witness to the stand – a grandmotherly, elderly woman. He approached her and asked, “Mrs. Jones, do you know me?” She responded, “Why, yes, I do know you Mr. Williams.

I’ve known you since you were a young boy. And frankly, you’ve been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, you manipulate other people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you’re a rising big shot when you haven’t the brains to realize you never will amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you.”

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do he pointed across the room and asked, “Mrs. Williams, do you know the defense attorney?” She again replied, “Why, yes I do. I’ve known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster too. I used to baby-sit him for his parents. And he, too, has been a real disappointment to me. He’s lazy, bigoted, he has drinking problem. The man can’t build a normal relationship with anyone and his law practice is one of the shoddiest in the entire state. Yes, I know him.”

At this point, the judge rapped the courtroom to silence and called both counselors to the bench. In a very quite voice, he said with menace, “If either of you asks her if she knows me, you’ll be jailed for contempt!”


"A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches." Proverbs 22:1

 

One day, a guy calls up his Boss at home, but gets the bosses' wife instead. She said, “I’m sorry, but he died last week.”

The next day, the man calls up again and asks for his boss. She said, “I told you, he died last week.”

The third day, the guy calls up again and asks for his boss. The wife was mad and shouted, “Don’t you understand? I already told you twice—MY HUSBAND, YOUR BOSS, DIED LAST WEEK! Why do you keep on calling?”

 The guy laughed and said, “Because I just love hearing it…”

 

Sometimes people's way of thinking affects us. Here's a story depicting one, and I tell you, stay away from these people...

A story is told of an avid duck hunter who was in the market for a new bird dog. His search ended when he found a dog that could walk on water to retrieve a duck. Shocked by his discovery, the man wondered how he would break the news to his hunting friends, one of whom happens to be perennial pessimist. The hunter decided to invite him to go along with him to see the phenomenon for himself. The two hunters made their way to the field the next morning and waited. When a team of ducks flew nearby, they shouldered their guns and fired. The dog responded by running across the water and retrieving the bird. The hunter’s friend remained silent. He didn’t say a word about his amazing dog. On the drive home, the hunter asked his friend, “Did you notice anything unusual about my dog?” “I sure did,” responded the friend. “The problem with your dog is that he can’t swim, can he?”

 

Here's a cute story that made me "awwwwwww..." in awe!

One day a fisherman was lying on a beautiful beach with his fishing pole propped up in the sand and his solitary line cast out into the sparkling blue surf.

He was enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun and the prospect of catching a fish.

About that time, a businessman came walking down the beach trying to relieve some of the stress of his workday. He noticed the fisherman sitting on the beach and decided to find out why this fisherman was fishing instead of working harder to make a living for himself and his family.

“You aren’t going to catch many fish that way,” said the businessman to the fisherman, “you should be working rather than lying on the beach!”

The fisherman looked up at the businessman, smiled and replied, “And what will my reward be?”

“Well, you can get bigger nets and catch more fish!” was the businessman’s answer.

“And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman, still smiling.

The businessman replied, “You will make money and you’ll be able to buy a boat which will then result in larger catches of fish!”

“And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman again.

The businessman was beginning to get a little irritated with the fisherman’s questions.

“You can buy a bigger boat and hire some people to work for you!” he said.

“And then what will my reward be?” repeated the fisherman.

The businessman was getting angry. “Don’t you understand? You can build up a fleet of fishing boats, sail all over the world, and let all your employees catch fish for you!”

Once again the fisherman asked, “And then what will my reward be?”

The businessman was red with rage and shouted at the fisherman, “Don’t you understand that you can become so rich that you will never have to work for your living again! You can spend all the rest of your days sitting on this beach looking at the sunset. You won’t have a care in the world!”

The fisherman, still smiling, simply looked up, nodded and said: “And what do you think I am doing now?”

Important lesson: always ask yourself...

"What will my reward be?"