Holiday Time

Dear Friends,

If you have not already know, I will be away for a month. Going to Florida for holidays. I will try to keep up on the blog but otherwise, I should be back again in May.

Cheers！

Job At The Zoo

Times were tough so when a job came up at the zoo, Jon was the first one there. On arrival he was told that the gorilla had just died and he was to wear a gorilla suit and pretend to be a gorilla until another one could be found.

Jon loved his job - eating bananas, swinging from branch to branch, entertaining visitors, lying about in the sun. Then one day he swung a bit too far and ended up in the lion enclosure. He jumped to his feet when he saw two lions growling fiercely and ran to the fence and screamed for help.

Then as he turned back to face the lions, one said, “If you don't stop screaming and shouting we’ll all lose our bloody jobs!”

The secret of success

The secret of success is constancy of purpose. - Benjamin Disraeli

The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows. - Aristotle Onassis

The secret to success is setting your mind to the task. Eventually persistence and determination will triumph. Unknown

Self-trust is the first secret of success. Unknown

The secret to success is never to give up. Unknown

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. - Colin Powell

The measure of success

To a large extent, the measure of your success is also your definition of success. We all use different yardstick to measure success. Let’s take a look at how other people measure success.

Success has always been easy to measure. It is the distance between one’s origins and one’s final achievement. - Michael Korda

If you can achieve ten significant things, you are not successful when you only achieved two. Success should be measured against your ability. - Unknown

The man is indeed a success who can look back and say not that he has accomplished more than any man, but who can look back and say “I have inspired more men to accomplish.” - Unknown

You are successful the moment you start moving toward a worthwhile goal. - Chuck Carlson

Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal. - Earl Nightingale

Success is not measured by what a man accomplishes, but by the opposition he has encountered, and the courage with which he has maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds. - Orison Swett Marden

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed. - Booker T. Washington

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting - in the trying, not the triumph, Success is a personal standard - reaching for the highest that is in us - becoming all that we can be. If we do our best, we are a success. Success is the maximum utilization of the ability that you have. - Zig Ziglar

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task, who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of earth's beauties, nor failed to express it; who has always looked for the best in others and given the best he had; whose life is an inspiration; whose memory a benediction. - Robert Luis Stevenson

The ultimate of being successful is the luxury of giving yourself the time to do what you want to do - to be able to spend your life in your own way. - Unknown

Requisites For Success

How does one achieve success? Whatever you say about success and however you define success, no one will succeed unless he is ready to face and overcome difficulties, and prepared to assume responsibilities.

Perseverance

The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary. - Unknown

Most successful men fail time and time again, and it is a measure of their strength that failure merely propels them into some new attempt at success. - Michael Korda

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go. - William Feather

I realized early on that success was tied to not giving up. Most people in this (show) business gave up and went on to other things. If you simply did not give up, you would outlast the people who came in on the bus with you. - Harrison Ford

Even the woodpecker owes his success to the fact that he uses his head and keeps pecking away until he finishes the job he starts. - Unknown

Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success. - Napoleon Hill

Have the ability to recognize an opportunity when it presents itself and to seize it

Most successful men have not achieved their distinction by having some new talent or opportunity presented to them. They have developed the opportunity that was at hand. - Bruce Barton

The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem and turned it into an opportunity. - Joseph Sugarman

To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions. - Benjamin Franklin

Set realistic goals

If you want a certain type of fruit, you must choose to climb the right tree. If you want real success, choose the right path to walk or the right wall to climb. - Unknown

The successful person is not only goal-directed; he chooses the right goal to pursue in the first place. - Unknown

There are those who travel and those who are going somewhere. They are different and yet they are the same. The success has this over his rivals: he knows where he is going. - Mark Caine

Do not be not afraid to fail

Successful people are not afraid to fail. They have the ability to accept their failures and continue on, knowing that failure is a natural consequence of trying. The law of failure is one of the most powerful of all the success laws because you only really fail when you quit trying. - Unknown

The men who have done big things are those who were not afraid to attempt big things, who were not afraid to risk failure in order to gain success. - B. C. Forbes

No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure. - Napoleon Hill

The guy who takes a chance, who walks the line between the known and unknown, who is unafraid of failure, will succeed. - Gordon Parks

Do what you enjoy doing

No one ever attains very eminent success by simply doing what is required of him; it is the amount and excellence of what is over and above the required that determines the greatness of ultimate distinction. - Charles Kendall Adams

Success follows doing what you want to do. There is no other way to be successful. - Malcolm Forbes

Enthusiasm

A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm. - Charles M. Schwab

The first step toward success in any occupation is to become interested in it. - Sir William Osler

Work Hard

Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you have not planted. - Unknown

A successful person is one who went ahead and did the thing the rest of us never quite got around to. - Unknown

Do not give up

Most people give up just when they're about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown. - H. Ross Perot

When you feel like giving up, hold on just a little longer. Many a times, success come to those who held on a little longer. - Unknown

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. - Thomas Edison

About Success

Success is not a destination that you ever reach. Success is the quality of your journey. The journey towards success should be enjoyed as much as success itself. - Unknown

Success is achieved by those who try. Where there is a lot to gain and little to lose, try. - Unknown

The ladder of success is never crowded at the top. - Florence Griffith Joyner

Real success is not an outward show but an inward feeling. It begins inside, and probably its first inkling is the feeling, even the knowledge, that one is worthwhile. That is quite a discovery. Regardless of how the rest of the world may value us, there is no fooling the inner Bureau of Standards. - Howard J. Whitman

The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places. - Unknown

The sure way to miss success is to miss the opportunity. - Victor Chasles

Success is often achieved by those who do not know that failure is inevitable. - Coco Chanel

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. - Henry David Thoreau

The road to success starts when you are inspired to make the effort. Inspiration starts when you are motivated to dissatisfaction with things as they are. Therefore, inspirational dissatisfaction is the strongest single force in your success system. It never fails. - Unknown

When people say they learned more from failure than success, they have forgotten that the success already included many failures – hence a better teacher. - Unknown

Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. - Unknown

Success is based on imagination plus ambition and the will to work. - Unknown

Success is more dependent on the backbone than the wishbone. - Unknown

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom. - George Patton

For success, attitude is equally as important as ability. - Sir Walter Scott

Success is sweet and sweeter if long delayed and gotten through many struggles and defeats. - Amos Bronson Alcott

Success is the sum of small efforts - repeated day in and day out. - Robert Collier

Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius. - An Wang

Success in life comes not from holding a good hand, but in playing a poor hand well. - Denis Waitley

A successful man is one who is able to build a solid foundation with the bricks that have been thrown at him. - Unknown

Success without honour is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good. - Joe Paterno

Success in your life or business isn't magic or luck - it is the result of knowledge of the right things to do. - Stephen A. Matuszak

The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity. - Ayn Rand

Those who have attained things worth having in this world have worked while others idled, have persevered when others gave up in despair, have practiced early in life the valuable habits of self-denial, industry, and singleness of purpose. As a result, they enjoy in later life the success so often erroneously attributed to good luck. - Grenville Kleiser

The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them. Even the most tedious chore will become endurable as you parade through each day convinced that every task, no matter how menial or boring, brings you closer to fulfilling your dreams. - Og Mandino

Everyone who achieves success in a great venture, solves each problem as they came to it. They helped themselves. They keep going regardless of the obstacles they met. - W. Clement Stone

No matter how well informed he may be, no person can make an entirely accurate estimate of your chance for success in any understanding. Success depends so much upon your optimism and steadfast determination. Don’t pay too much attention to the eternal pessimists, whether a close friend or an eminent authority, who assures you that you are doomed to failure. If you put your very best into an attempt to reached your goal, who says you can’t make it? - Henry N. Gerguson

For true success, it matters what our goals are. And it matters how we go about attaining them. The means are as important as the ends. How we get there is as important as where we go. - Tom Morris

Success

Our society place a lot of emphasis on success. Hence, everyone of us strive to succeed in whatever we undertake to do. No one dares to fail, no one wants to be known a failure, and certainly, no one wants to be left behind in this rat race.

Inadvertently we created a very competitive climate for ourselves. We are pressured to excel. We feel the stress of competing, of having to be amongst the top, if not the best in our field. However, not everyone can be number one. And success is more than being the best in your field, or being number one.

Basically, success is working towards a goal and attaining it. But, the measure of success does not end once the goal is attained. When one goal is attained, another should be set, and worked towards. This means that we are daily engaged in striving towards a goal that we have chosen and feel is worthy of us as persons. Hence, a person’s success is the objectives he set for himself and the way he attained these objectives.

In this respect, as long as we have not taken our last breath, as long as we do not give up trying, we can still be successful. Just bear in mind that success does not come to us unless we work hard for it. If we seek success, we have to make things happen.

There is no such thing as a born successful-man. One is born rich – yes, but one cannot be born successful. To be successful we must have a goal, and we need to accomplish that goal.

The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.

Many men and women succeed in a big way, yet do not possess extraordinary intelligence or ability. If we take a closer look at their success, we can usually see that they are startlingly different from others, even those far more gifted than themselves, in that they have the utmost confidence in their ability to accomplish whatever they set out to do.

Success comes in many facets. Success does not necessarily mean that we must earn a great deal of money and live in a big house. Success is living up to your potential. Some would say the man who has done his level best is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.

I guess all of us have our own definition of success, and it will reflect in our outlook, in the way we live our live. Our own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.

Personally, I feel the biggest success is one who has lived well - one who is contented, happy and has peace of mind.

Satan And Santa Claus

Two boys were walking home from Sunday school after hearing a strong preaching on the devil. One said to the other, “What do you think about all this Satan stuff?”

The other boy replied, “Well, you know how Santa Claus turned out. It’s probably just your dad."

The Ant Philosophy

Ants never quit

When they’re headed somewhere and you try to stop them, they’ll look for another way. They will climb over, climb under, or they will climb around. They keep looking for another way.

Lesson. Never quit looking for a way to get where you’re supposed to go.

Ants think Winter all Summer

You can’t be so naïve as to think summer will last forever. So ants are gathering their winter food in the middle of summer.

Lesson. It is important to be realistic. Think ahead.

Ants think Summer all Winter

During the winter, ants remind themselves, ‘This wont’ last long; we’ll soon be out of here.’ At the first warm day, the ants are out. If it turns cold again, they’ll dive back down, but then they come out the first warm day.

Lesson. Stay positive at all times.

Ants do all they possibly can

How much will an ant gather during the summer to prepare for the winter? All that he possibly can.

Lesson. Do all you can… and more.

In a nut shell, there is this four part philosophy:-

Never give up

Look ahead

Stay positive

Do all you can

Eight Gifts That Do Not Cost A Cent

The Gift of Listening

Really listen. No interrupting, no daydreaming, no planning your response. Just listen.

The Gift of Laughter

Share jokes, articles and funny stories. Spread some humour and laughter around.

The gift of a Compliment

A simple and sincere, “You look great in….,” “You did a super job” or “That was a wonderful meal,” can make someone’s day.

The Gift of Solitude

There are times when we want nothing better than to be left alone. Be sensitive to these times and give the gift of solitude to others.

The Gift of a Cheerful Disposition

The easiest way to feel good is to extend a kind word to someone. Really, it is not that hard to say “Hello”, or “Thank You.”

The Gift of Appreciation

We all need to feel we are appreciated. A simple, “Thanks for the help” or "Your concern meant a lot to me" will make a person feels he is appreciated.

The Gift of Affection

Be generous with appropriate hugs, kisses, pats on the back and handholds. Let the small actions demonstrate the love you have for family and friends.

The Gift of a Smile

Nobody needs a smile so much as the one who has none to give. So, smile. Spread some sunshine as you go about your day.

Mary Lou

Guy is sitting quietly reading his newspaper when his wife whacks him on the head with a frying pan.

“What was that for?” he asks.

“That was for the piece of paper in your pants pocket with the name Mary Lou written on it,” she replies.

He explains: “Two weeks ago when I went to the races, Mary Lou was the name of one of the horses I bet on.”

Three days later, he’s again sitting in his chair when she hits him with an even bigger frying pan, knocking him out cold.

When he comes to, he says: “What the hell was that for?”

The wife replies: “Your horse phoned.”

Love on the Rocks

Unfortunately not all marriages work out. Some marriages ended in divorce. There are many reasons why marriages failed - incompatibility, clash of personalities, differences of opinion, unrealistic expectations, irreconcilable differences, jealously, intolerable behaviour, extra-marital affairs … the list goes on.

Some marriages die a natural death. The passion died. Both parties begin to feel bored with each other and with the relationship. They feel the fun going out of life. They feel the need for change and to move on.

Whatever reasons people may have in wanting to end their marriage, when the time comes to go their different ways, couples should part amicably. Some couples become bitter with each other. This need not be so. The ending of a relationship could mean that you were not meant for each other, and that the time has come to move on.

There is no point in continuing a loveless marriage, and people should not stay in a marriage that is physically or mentally abusive. Better to get a divorce and move on with their life. The prospect of a future on your own might seem gloomy and frightening, but forcing yourself to stay married - there is no future at all.

Besides, who knows, maybe someone more worthy of you is waiting round the corner for you.

- Source Unknown

When it is time to part, then it is time to part. There should be no regrets. The beauty of marriage is like the fleeting perfection of a snowflake. - Deng Ming-Dao

Love and Marriage

Romantic love is an illusion. True love is usually very sensible and very unromantic. 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.

In the beginning of the relationship, couples see their object of love through rose tinted glasses. They see their love as perfect. They experience this warmth fuzzy feeling of loving and being loved. They feel blissful, and mistakenly think that the rest of their lives together will be like that.

This illusion can be sustained for a while. But when the warm fuzzy feeling wears off, and with increasing familiarity and complexities of daily life, differences emerge and grow. Aspects of the other person which were once invisible or overlooked become obvious. Personality quirks that were once endearing become only tolerable, then annoying.

When the flame of passion dwindles, couples begin to feel disillusioned. They begin to wonder if they have chosen the wrong person to fall in love with. This disenchantment could wear down the marriage, if they do not wise up to it in time, to do something about it.

What most people do not realize is that the real test of love and commitment starts after marriage. It is after marriage that the real work begins. Couples learn to love, to cherish, to accept each other for who they are. They learn to build a life, a family together. To do so they need to constantly rekindle the flame of passion, and where the passion is missing, to ignite it again.

It takes two people to make a marriage works, and the first thing that needs to be done is for both to work at keeping the love alive in the marriage.

People have to be realistic. When you love someone, you do not love him or her all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. But just because someone does not love you the way you want them to, does not mean they do not love you with all they have. And marriage is not only about finding the right partner, it is also about being the right partner.

Communication is very important in a marriage. If something is not right, if you are not happy with certain things, talk about it. Talk, discuss the situation in a logical manner. Make sure your partner gets the message loud and clear. Gentle hints do not always work and never rely on your partner’s ability to read your mind.

Learn to compromise. We all experienced the difficulty of getting along with people at times. And, for two people to come together, and to live as one, there is bound to be some major changes in their lives. There are bound to be differences, disagreement or even argument. But just because two people argue, it does not mean they do not love each other. However, it is important that you do not take radical steps when you are angry. Wait to cool down before you tackle the problems.

Trust is another very important factor for all relationships. Love is more than staring lovey-dovey into each other’s eyes. And if you have to be with each other every minute of the day or otherwise, you start wondering what your partner is up to, or demanding to know what he or her is up to, that’s a sure sign of insecurity and immaturity.

Some degree of mild jealousy experienced when it is clear that your partner inspires affection in other people - this is normal and understandably human. But fierce jealously over his or her every move and word and thought is not a sign of genuinely being in love. Rather it is a sign of possessiveness, insecurity and immaturity.

Humans are freedom seeking people. We need time for solitude and to grow. Couples should give each other space, time and solitude to grow.

Reaffirm your love and feelings for each other now and again. Let your partner knows that you love him or her. Say the three magic words, “I love you”. Say ‘sweet little nothings’. Do something out of the ordinary together. Plan little surprises. Spice up your lives. Let your partner know that you care, that you cherish your life together.

Love is a growing, developing emotion that takes time to flower. It has its deepest roots within oneself, not in the loved one. Love can and will grow. But perhaps it is better to be absolutely sure of yourself, of each other before committing yourself to marriage. It is essential to ask yourself whether you can see yourself living with your partner “till death do us part”; to ask yourself is it true love that you are feeling, before tying the knot, for that means all the difference between happiness and heartache.

When you have made your decision, you must cherish this almost divine and spiritual union. And with a little patience and a little forbearance the marriage will go a long way.

- Source Unknown

A Lot Of Smoke

“You sure do smoke a lot.”

“True.”

“How many cigarettes a day?”

“About forty.”

“That’s expensive. Let’s see. At eleven dollars a pack, that’s about a hundred and fifty-four dollars a week!”

“That’s about right.”

“How many years have you been smoking?”

“Oh, about twenty five.”

“Do you realize the amount of money you’ve spent?”

“Have a fair idea.”

“See that restaurant across the street. If you hadn’t smoked, it might have been yours!”

“Do you smoke?”

“No.”

“Do you own that restaurant?”

“No.”

“Well, I do.”

Relationship

On a cold winter's day, a group of porcupines huddled together to stay warm and keep from freezing. But soon they felt one another's quills and moved apart. When the need for warmth brought them closer together again, their quills again forced them apart. They were driven back and forth at the mercy of their discomforts until they found the distance from one another that provided both a maximum of warmth and a minimum of pain.

In human beings, the emptiness and monotony of the isolated self produces a need for society. This brings people together, but their many offensive qualities and intolerable faults drive them apart again. The optimum distance that they finally find that permits them to coexist is embodied in politeness and good manners. Because of this distance between us, we can only partially satisfy our need for warmth, but at the same time, we are spared the stab of one another's quills.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Love and relationships

Love and relationships are truly one of the most paradoxical aspects of being human. For it is in love that we find the greatest of strengths and the deepest of sorrows. Love can seem to be so fleeting and unachievable yet it remains well within our reach if we only learn how to embrace it's power. To experience true love, we must be willing to open ourselves up and sacrifice part of our heart and part of our soul. We must be willing to give of ourselves freely, and we must be willing to suffer. It is only when we expose our inner selves to the white hot flame of rejection, that love can burn so brightly as to join to souls, melding the two into one, creating a bond that joins forever. It is from this bond that we draw strength eternal and power ever lasting. It is in this thing that we call love that we find the means to achieve greatness, both in ourselves and in our lives. - Unknown

All our young lives, we search for someone to love, someone who makes us complete. We choose partners and change partners. We dance to a song of heartbreak and hope, all the while, wondering if somewhere and somehow there is someone searching for us. - Unknown

Not So Long Ago …

An application was for employment.

A program was a television show.

A cursor used profanity.

A keyboard was a piano!

Memory was something that you lost with age.

A CD was a bank account.

Log on was adding wood to a fire.

Hard drive was a long trip on the road.

A mouse pad was where a mouse lived.

Cut you did with a pocket knife.

Paste you did with glue.

A web was a spider’s home.

A virus was the flu!

If you unzipped anything in public you would be in jail for awhile!

Compress was something you did to garbage, not something you did to a file.

And if you had a three and a half inch floppy you hoped nobody found out!

I hear nobody has been killed in a computer crash but when it happens they wish they were dead!

I guess I will stick to my pad and paper.

And the memory in my head.

Perfect Love

Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain. - Leo Buscaglia

We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists in the loved one, perfection. - Sidney Poitier

We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love. - Tom Robbins