being the state of negetive comments with a couple threads in the SV i thought i would start a thread on the positive things going on in here and in life post your thoughts,Quotes,good deeds etc. here... this one crowy posted in the bitch thread so heres a start.
'Mirrors reflect what's on the outside, our imagination reflects us.'
A great note for all to read it will take just 37 seconds to read this and
change your thinking.
Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was
allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the
fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The other
man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on
end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their
involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.
Every afternoon when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he
would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could
see outside the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those
one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all
the activity and colour of the world outside.
The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on
the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm
in arm amidst flowers of every colour and a fine view of the city skyline
could be seen in the distance.
As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on
the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque
scene.
One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by.
Although the other man couldn't hear the band - he could see it. In his
mind's eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive
words.
Days and weeks passed. One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water
for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window,
who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the
hospital attendants to take the body away.
As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved
next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after
making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.
Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first
look at the real world outside. He strained to slowly turn to look out the
window beside the bed.
It faced a blank wall. The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his
deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this
window. The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see
the wall. She said, "Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you."
Epilogue:
There is tremendous happiness in making others happy, despite our own
situations. Shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness when shared, is
doubled.
If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money
can't buy.
"Today is a gift, that's why it is called the present."
Hey aabbccdd, I decided that I would post on something postive for me that is going on. Well I currently am getting my Real Estate License and the support from my fellow co-workers (some whom I have known sense my childhood) as well as my parents is really helping push though the schooling (its not real hard, its just kind of boring) as well as driving me to put 100% into working and getting started.
It made me realize that as small as the support may seem to outsiders it really does make a difference.
So I guess in summary its that no matter how small of a boost it may seem to someone, it can really make a great positive impact on someone if you give postive support when they are going though the daily things in life.
@Pop_Smith,
It's amazing how a "thankyou" or "well done" or "your doing a fantastic job encourages you.To many employers are to quick to find there workers faults yet never take the time to say "thanks for a job well done".
I've got lots of little stories like this. I'll try and post them often.
That's Why I Am Here
My children have always been involved in 4-H. Heavily into the animal divisions, with a few other projects, they took their county fair presentations very seriously. I was a professional dog trainer and handler and one year, my two youngest children entered our registered dogs in the Beginner Obedience class. My fourteen-year-old son, Jeremy, wanted to do something with the dogs too, but he was very independent and didn't want something that everyone else was doing. He came to me in the spring, several months before fair, and said, “I’ve decided to make my dog project count." He proceeded to show me his detailed plan for his Citizenship project, providing canine therapy dog visits to local nursing homes.
In the north central portion of Minnesota where we lived, this was an unheard of concept. Jeremy told me he had already done some of the legwork by asking his brother, sister, and two members of the 4-H club to come along and assist. What he needed from me most was to choose the appropriate dogs and teach the handlers how to present a dog to an elderly and perhaps bedridden person. We contacted several nursing homes and finally found one that agreed to allow our therapy dogs to visit. Jeremy called his buddy 4-Hers and set up a training schedule. When all five kids were comfortable presenting the dogs, we made an appointment with the nursing home.
The first day we visited, I went along as the driver, photographer and supervisor. We went from room to room, sharing our smaller trained therapy dogs and puppies with as many as possible. Each child carried a dog and a towel to place on the bed in case someone wanted the dog there. We were a hit! The joy these folks exhibited was genuine and wonderful. They all asked us to visit again.
On our next outings, we left earlier so we could visit more residents. Jeremy enjoyed watching people’s faces light up as we entered a room, but there seemed to be something disturbing him. I asked if he was having a problem with the project. He became solemn. “I love coming here but I want to make an even bigger difference. I’m not sure how, but I know there is something more I can do.”
Each time we visited, the residents anticipated it with greater enthusiasm. Some even had family members bring in photos of their own dogs to share with us. We listened to stories about their pets, their families, and their lives when they were young. Each sat constantly petting one of the dogs, gaining the comfort and unconditional love only an animal can give so freely.
One day we ventured into an area we hadn’t been to before. As a nurse’s aide led the way, we came upon several rooms that were quieter than most and not decorated. The aide motioned for us to continue following her to the residents who requested visits further down the hall. Jeremy stopped and peered into one of the rooms. The aide reprimanded, “There is no use going into that room; that lady hasn’t moved or spoken in months. She is unresponsive and pretty much alone.”
Jeremy looked at her and then at the French bulldog he held in his arms. Calmly he replied, “That’s why I am here.” He proceeded into the room and stood hesitantly. The woman was ghostly white and showed no signs of life. She lay prone and didn’t move so much as her eyes when we entered. Jeremy took a deep breath and moved to the side of the bed. “My name is Jeremy and I am here with my therapy dogs. I brought a dog to see you. Since you can’t come to see the dog, I’d like to place it on your bed. I have a towel so no hair will get on your blankets.”
The woman did not move. Jeremy looked to me for approval. I nodded. He moved to the side of the bed where her arm was exposed and placed the towel on the bedspread. While all this was happening, the aide left to get a nurse. By the time Jeremy was ready to put the dog beside the woman, two nurses and the aide were in the doorway. As one began to tell me we were wasting our time, I raised my hand to silence her. She huffed, but remained quiet.
Jeremy placed the dog against the woman’s arm. He spoke softly, “She won’t hurt you. She came here just to see you.” As he spoke, the woman’s head shifted slightly. The glaze in her eyes seemed to disappear. Jeremy allowed the dog to nestle in close. The woman raised a weak arm and placed it on the dog’s back. Although she had no words, she began to make sounds. Tears brimmed her eyes as she moved her hand along the hair. The nurses rushed to the bedside and began pressing the nurse call button. More people rushed into the room. There was not a dry eye in the group. Jeremy looked at the aide and reiterated, “This is why I am here.” Then he looked at me, tears flowing unashamedly down his face and he said, “I made a difference.” I hugged him and acknowledged that he certainly had. When it was time to leave, Jeremy gathered up the dog and the towel and said to the woman, “Thanks for letting us come into your room and into your life.” She smiled at him and touched his arm.
Jeremy received the highest award for his Citizenship project, and went on to the state level where he earned Grand Champion. But for Jeremy, the ribbons were nothing compared to his biggest award: the touch of a hand and the smile from a woman who was said to be a waste of time.
dolphin2 , thats a great story
Ive always said if your feeling down or sorry for yourself just go out and help someone in need or do a good deed. its help you and everyone in the process.
i really believe staying positive as you can in life is very beneficial. for instanct my dad had lung cancer went though treatment stayed positive, and put it in gods hands and his now cancer free !!!!
That's not my story. I just thought it fit and posted it. As I said, I've got a bunch of stories that will fit this topic. All written by different people. I'll try to remember to post one every couple of days.
It was one of the hottest days of the dry season. We had not seen rain in almost a month. The crops were dying. Cows had stopped giving milk. The creeks and streams were long gone back into the Earth. It was a dry season that would bankrupt several farmers before it was through.
Every day, my husband and his brothers would go about the arduous process of trying to get water to the fields. Lately this process had involved taking a truck to the local water rendering plant and filling it up with water. But severe rationing had cut everyone off. If we didn't see some rain soon, we would lose everything.
It was on this day that I learned the true lesson of sharing and witnessed the only miracle I have seen with my own eyes. I was in the kitchen making lunch for my husband and his brothers when I saw my six-year-old son, Billy, walking toward the woods. He wasn't walking with the usual carefree abandon of a youth, but with a serious purpose. I could only see his back.
He was obviously walking with a great effort, trying to be as still as possible.
Minutes after he disappeared into the woods, he came running out again, toward the house. I went back to making sandwiches, thinking that whatever task he had been doing was completed.
Moments later, however, he was once again walking in that slow purposeful stride toward the woods. This activity went on for an hour: walk carefully to the woods, run back to the house. Finally, I couldn't take it any longer and I crept out of the house and followed him on his journey (being very careful not to be seen, as he was obviously doing important work and didn't need his mommy checking up on him).
He was cupping both hands in front of him as he walked, being very careful not to spill the water he held in them, maybe two or three tablespoons were held in his tiny hands. I sneaked close as he went into the woods.
Branches and thorns slapped his little face, but he did not try to avoid them. He had a much higher purpose.
As I leaned in to spy on him, I saw the most amazing site. Several large deer loomed in front of him. Billy walked right up to them. I almost screamed for him to get away. A huge buck with elaborate antlers was dangerously close. But the buck did not threaten him. He didn't even move as Billy knelt down. And I saw a tiny fawn laying on the ground, obviously suffering from dehydration and heat exhaustion, lift its head with great effort to lap up the water cupped in my beautiful boy's hand.
When the water was gone, Billy jumped up to run back to the house and I hid behind a tree. I followed him back to the house to a spigot to which we had shut off the water. Billy opened it all the way up and a small trickle began to creep out. He knelt there, letting the drip, drip slowly fill up his makeshift "cup," as the sun beat down on his little back. And it came clear to me: The trouble he had gotten into for playing with the hose the week before. The lecture he had received about the importance of not wasting water. The reason he didn't ask me to help him.
It took almost twenty minutes for the drops to fill his hands. When he stood up and began the trek back, I was there in front of him. His little eyes just filled with tears. "I'm not wasting," was all he said.
As he began his walk, I joined him with a small pot of water from the kitchen. I let him tend to the fawn. I stayed away. It was his job. I stood on the edge of the woods watching the most beautiful heart I have ever known working so hard to save another life. As the tears that rolled down my face began to hit the ground, they were suddenly joined by other drops, and more drops, and more. I looked up at the sky. It was as if God, himself, was weeping with pride.
Some will probably say that this was all just a huge coincidence. That miracles don't really exist. That it was bound to rain sometime. And I can't argue with that. I'm not going to try. All I can say is that the rain that came that day saved our farm, just like the actions of one little boy saved another.
I don't know if anyone will read this, but I had to send it out. To honor the memory of my beautiful Billy, who was taken from me much too soon.
But not before showing me the true face of God, in a little, sunburned body.
this is good ...
I Think I Can
If you think you are beaten you are;
If you think you dare not, you don't;
If you want to win but think you can't;
It's almost a cinch you won't.
If you think you'll lose you're lost;
For out of the world we find
Success begins with a fellow's will;
It's all in a state of mind.
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger and faster man,
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can.
After Fred Astaire’s first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, said, “Can’t act! Slightly Bald! Can dance a little!” Astaire kept that memo over the fireplace in his Beverly Hills home.
An expert said of Vince Lombardi, “He possesses minimal football knowledge. Lacks Motivation.”
Socrates was called, “An immoral corrupter of youth.”
When Peter J. Daniel was in the fourth grade, his teacher, Mrs. Phillips, constantly said, “Peter J. Daniel, you’re no good, you’re a bad apple and you’re never going to amount to anything.” Peter was totally illiterate until he was 26. A friend stayed up with him all night and read him a copy of Think and Grow Rich. Now he owns the street corners he used to fight on and just published his latest book, Mrs. Phillips, You Were Wrong.
Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women, was encouraged to find work as a servant or seamstress by her family.
Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him hopeless as a composer.
The parents of the famous Opera singer Enrico Caruso wanted him to be an engineer. His teachers said he had no voice at all and could not sing.
Charles Darwin, father of the Theory of Evolution, gave up a medical career and was told by his father, “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat catching.” In his autobiography, Darwin wrote, “I was considered by my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect."
Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor for lack of ideas. Walt Disney also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.
Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was too stupid to learn anything.
Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old and didn’t read until he was seven. His teacher described him as “mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.” He was expelled and refused admittance to Zurich Polytechnic School.
Louis Pasteur was only a mediocre pupil in undergraduate studies and ranked 15 out of 22 in chemistry.
Isaac Newton did very poorly in grade school.
The sculptor Rodin’s father said, “I have an idiot for a son.” Described as the worst pupil in the school, Rodin failed three times to secure admittance to the school of art. His uncle called him uneducable.
Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace, flunked out of college. He was described as “both unable and unwilling to learn.”
Playwright Tennessee Williams was enraged when his play, Me, Vasha was not chosen in a class competition at Washington University where he was enrolled in English XVI. The teacher recalled that Williams denounced the judges’ choices and their intelligence.
F. W. Woolworth’s employers at the dry goods store said he had not enough sense to wait upon customers.
Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he finally succeeded.
Babe Ruth, considered by sports historians to be the greatest athlete of all time and famous for setting the home run record, also holds the record for strikeouts.
Winston Churchill failed sixth grade. He did not become Prime Minister of England until he was 62, and then only after a lifetime of defeats and setbacks. His greatest contributions came when he was a “senior citizen.”
Eighteen publishers turned down Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, before Macmillan finally published it in 1970. By 1975 it had sold more than seven million copies in the U.S. alone.
Richard Hooker worked for seven years on his humorous war novel, M*A*S*H, only to have it rejected by 21 publishers before Morrow decided to publish it. It became a runaway bestseller, spawning a blockbusting movie and highly successful television series.
The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance, and even our very existence depends on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to our lives. -Albert Einstein
1 large grassy field
6 children-all sizes
3 small dogs
a narrow strip, a brook (pebbly if possible)
a blue sky
a hot sun
Flowers
Mix children with dogs and then empty into field, stirring constantly. Sprinkle field with flowers. Pour gently over pebbles in the shallow brook. Cover all with deep blue sky and bake in the hot sun. When children are browned, they may be removed and placed in a cool tub.
Ok i moved this from my other thread...aabbccdd beat me to it. Oh well Enjoy :)
the purpose of this thread is to promote relaxation and relieve the burns of the wild, wild web. So please, pick a calm tune from the selection and just enjoy life with others.....relax
the following sections are:
1.rules
2.relaxing pics
3.calm tunes
section 1: RULES
just some small rules. I cant really enforce them, but i hope you guys will follow them.
first rule:this is a relaxing thread, if you want to bitch, go to Ireland's forum..not this one. It spoils the atmosphere im trying to set up.
second rule: please try to stay ontopic here. Just talk about relaxing things (for example, your good dreams, nice experiences, etc..Post some relaxing music, too if you want.
third rule: this is a calm thread, not a happiness thread, although they are both quite the same please post that in aabbccdd's forum. (for example, you want to scream to the world how happy you are that you bought a brand spanking new TV...thats great but do it in the other threads not here,!)
fourth rule: think of this as a library and you are not allowed to scream. Same here No CAPS, please? well, thats that. On to the rest of the stuff. Enjoy :)
Section 2 Relaxing pics..
these are just some that i found. If you would like to put one up, by all means go ahead. They can be humourous, just keep it calm.
here are my pics
Section 3 Calm tunes..
These songs are to help you calm down. Listen to them while your posting, or just lie down a while. Whatever you want.
i had a strange dream last night...It was strange. I dreamt i was in my girlfriend's body, and she was in my body. I went through the day in her body and saw all the things she was thinking that she wouldn't want to tell me, and vice versa for my body. (of course it was just a dream) but it felt so real!
He never complained, at least not when we kids were around, but I could tell his job was rough. Every morning he grabbed his lunch bag and kissed my mom. Then I would stand at the window waving as he backed out of the driveway in that old, beat-up truck. He would always give me a smile, wave back and blow a kiss before turning down the road to work.
Late in the evening, I would hear the truck rattle up the drive and look out to see a weary man drag his way up the walkway to the door. As he entered the house, a bright smile would flash across his face and he would gather us up for a big hug. It was during these hugs that I first noticed the stained, rough hands and the wrinkled signs of hard work.
Every day our ritual continued. Every day we had food on the table and a warm home to live in. Every day he showed me the results of hard work and the joy of a loving home.
Now I am older and my father has passed on. Whenever I feel like complaining about my job, or how tough things are; I just get back to work, smile, and realize how much I learned from him.
Hmmm....I'm having a very nostalgic moment and didn't know where else to put it so aabbccdd's new thread seemed a good place...and a good idea this thread was my friend.
I was watching the beginning of a Anthony Hopkins / Brad Pitt movie entitled "Meet Joe Black" and the very opening sequences rather took my breath away ... they were on an elaborate flagstone terrace which I recognized at once without seeing anything else of the place...I'd lived there for nearly eight years in my younger and more ideological years when I thought I could singlehandedly change the world ... the aspirations of youth. Here is a pic of the place:
Quite a place to live, eh? It was a boarding school at the time; I lived my high-school and college years there. I was an idealistic young man then ... a very religious kid good ol' Gerry1 was. Would you believe I actually went to mass everyday until I was in my early twenties LOL! It was a seminary then and good ol gerry1 was studying to be a priest. The problem with organized religion is that it is, by virtue of its very organization, a secular institution and has little to do with the spirituality which brought it into being in the first place ... the very complaint Paul had in his letter to the Romans for those of you who read such stuff. Ah, but I easily digress! While the organized religious life (or organized religion for that matter) proved to be something considerably less than a divinely inspired institution, I often think I should get back in touch with the very deepest things which brought me to those rather elaborate and decadant doors; it is from those indescribable yet immeasurably spansive ideals from which the true and important matters in life are comprised ... a little too cerebral, I suppose. Such is the nature of nostalgia, I guess!
It was a cool place to live though. Secret passages everywhere, secret tunnels that spanned acres and acres down to the bay where they'd offload booze during the prohibition. The Narragansett bay would freeze in winter (not anymore....but global warming doesn't exist LOL!) and we'd sled from that very terrance in Meet Joe Black down acres and acres of downhill rolling lawns right over the wall and onto the frozen bay ...which no longer freezes. The pic is limited....there is a boathouse the likes of which you couldn't believe, huge stables, gatehouses and forest everywhere. It was a neat place to spend one's youth. I still want to get in touch with those feelings that brought me there though. Probably the most genuine I've ever had.
So, good ol' use to be a wanna be Padre Gerry1 urges everyone today to get in touch with those youthful passions that can get lost by the wayside ...protestant, catholic, jewish, muslim, democrat or republican...in youth, we seem to approach so many things with a genuine passion for the well being of others which seems to lose its way as the passion morphs into a passion for an empty institution which, inself, is capable of nothing.
