TEST KHALIL

Life is for the
Living
Life with Computer
Problems

The great prophet Khalil Gibran
once said that computer problems are the bane of one’s exist.

“Life sucks and then
you die.” – Anonymous

Gibran would have frowned upon this
statement but it is the truth when you are dealing with an insurmountable obstacle.

What can be done to solve it?

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LIVING WITH LOVE-Lessons from the life of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

….“Well, on that fated
morning of their meeting (a morning that

would change him for the rest of his
life) he met her as she

was working out in the streets with sick and poor
people

in a ghetto like he had never seen before, amid stench,

filth, garbage,
disease, and poverty that was just unbelievable.

But what struck Muggeridge
more than anything else,

even there in that awful squalor and decadence, was the deep, warm glow on Mother Teresa’s face and the deep, warm love in her eyes.”

The above quotation taken from the writings of Rowland Croucher, relates to the experience of Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge, the famous English author, satirist,
left wing intellectual and committed life-long agnostic, after an encounter
with Blessed Teresa of Calcutta about
whom he was doing a documentary in 1970 . Muggerdge was a formidable figure who
commanded prodigious literary and rhetorical skills and the respect of the
world’s leaders, famous and infamous, and who up to that point, was a vocal and
committed non-religious. Yet, he was so overwhelmed by this experience that
subsequently in 1982, at the age of 79 years he converted to Catholicism and
became a dedicated disciple of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. In
everything he subsequently wrote or spoke of, he never hesitated to credit this
decision directly to his encounter with Mother Teresa.

This experience is by no means unique or unusual. It is

but one of many thousands of examples of how this

gentle, simple, caring lady of Albanian origin, who was

born in a small obscure town in Macedonia in 1910 and

who from a very early age decided to devote her life in

the service of God through caring for the least cared,

most helpless, and neediest of people. After traveling to

various centers including a short stay in Ireland to

learn English, she went to India in 1929 and entered

the Convent of Loreto where she began her novitiate

and taught at the school, taking her vows in 1937.
1937. She continued to teach at the school for more than

10 years with great success but felt compelled to

do something to alleviate the abject poverty

all around her. In 1947, she gave up the security

of the convent and the school to “answer the call

to help the poor by living among them” and began

her activities in streets of Calcutta, India. By 1950,

her efforts were so successful, she founded the

Missionaries of Charity, and by the time she died

in 1997 it had expanded to 123 countries where

there were in excess of 600 missions devoted

to the poor, sick, orphaned and dying.

For over 45 years she devoted her life to this

service, driven by her love for her fellow humans

and her service to her God.

Even when she gained international acclaim as

a humanitarian and a universal advocate for

the poor, the sick and the helpless, and was awarded

all the most prestigious awards from nations around

the world, she never lost the humility of spirit and the

all consuming love for her God and his people that

had been the driving force of her entire life.

I personally, can attest to this, as a result of a very

brief and fleeting encounter. The aura of love and

caring that surrounded this beautiful spirit was all

consuming and has remained with me for more than

thirty years after the episode. Indeed she was

someone who had truly found deep and profound

peace and was not afraid to share her vision

of unconditional love and service.

To me, Mother Teresa was the absolute pinnacle

of the meaning of pure love. She expressed this

simply and most dramatically, in the following terms:

“The success of love is in the loving;

- it is not in the result of loving.”

Too often have we all tended, consciously or unconsciously

to associate sharing for king of reward or

gain. We invariably attempt to place a value on it

and expect some kind of meaningful return. If we

offer our love to someone, we expect, at

minimum, an acknowledgement or

appreciation of our efforts. We become upset

and disappointed when there is no response.

The lesson from Moither Teresa is clear and

unambiguous. Love, to be truly effective

must be given unconditionally, without

strings attached, and no expectation of a response.

Anything less than this is not true love and

should not be categorized as such.

The Greeks refer to this form of love as Agape,

which literally means unconditional love,

a unique expression that is clearly distinguished

by its nature, its character and its intention.

It has strong roots in the Holy Bible and its

prominent reference in the words of

John 3: 16:

l

For God so loved the world, that he sent his only
begotten Son;

That whosoever believes in him, shall never perish,

But have everlasting life.”

If
God, in his infinite mercy, is willing to sacrifice his Son, Jesus Christ, to save the world, how
could there be any greater expression of love? And how could any one who truly
believes in God and who is genuinely determined to serve him and his people in
need, in his holy name can afford to do otherwise?

This is the fundamental reasoning
that has sustained and reinforced Mother Teresa’s commitment and has driven her
to try harder and harder to carry out her vocation. In fact, despite all her
amazing record of service and success, there were times when she became despondent
and depressed because of her concern that she was not fully complying with God’s
expectation and in fact, that God was displeased with her actions. But to the
rest of the world, she will always be respected for the work she performed, the
service to the sick and needy she provided, and above all, the message that she
taught us all that:

“It is not how much we do,

but how much love we put in the doing.

It is not how much we give,

but how much love we put in the giving.”

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QUOTATIONS ON LOVE BY BLESSED
TERESA OF CALCUTTA:

The greatest science in the world;

In heaven and on earth; is love.

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove

than the hunger for bread.

It is not how much you do,

but how much Love

you put into the doing that matters.

Love is repaid by love alone!

I have found the paradox that if I
love until it hurts,

then there is no hurt, but only
more love.

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

Spread love everywhere you go:

first of all in your own home.

Give love to your children, to your wife or husband,

-to your nextdoor neighbor.

Love is a fruit in season at all times,

and within the reach of every hand.

We can do no great things;

only small things with great love.

Spread love everywhere you go.

Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

Intense love does not measure,

it just gives.

It is easy to love the people far away.

It is not always easy to love those
close to us.

It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of
love

that is put into them that matters.

Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be
extraordinary.

What we need is to love without getting tired.

Be faithful in small things, because it is in them that
your strength lies.

Let us always meet each other with smile,

for the smile is the beginning of
love.

What can you do to promote world peace?

Go home and love your family.

If you think well of others,

you will also speak well of others and to others.

From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

If your heart is full of love, you will speak of love.

LIVING WITH YOUR DREAMS

“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die,

Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly
Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go

Life is a barren field, frozen with snow.”

The above quotation,
published in 1941 by Langston Hughes, one of the most prolific and respected African-American authors and
poets, is to my mind, one of the most poignant and sensitive expression of the
importance of our dreams in our lives. It speaks for every one of us who, at
some time in our lives, have felt the urgings of a “dream” but for one reason
or another have hesitated to move forward. It describes exquisitely, the
feelings we all have experienced after we made the decision to hold back and
allow the dream to fade into oblivion. It points to the pain and the suffering
and the regret we harbor by not achieving the fullness of the rewards because
of our actions. And whenever this happens, you can be sure that these feelings
will never leave us for as long as we live and despite any other successes we
may achieve, this will always be an area of desert in our psyche.

Throughout
the ages, in every society, and under every conceivable condition, progress has
been achieved and changes have occurred as a direct result of actions taken by
someone who chose to follow his dream, often against objections from others,
and against the prevailing conventional wisdom. When the great African-American
civil rights leader Martin Luther King,
Jr. in 1963, mesmerized the nation from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
with the declaration “I have a dream”, he
described behavior which at the time would have been inconceivable, but which,
only a few years later have become completely normal. And when President John F. Kennedy in 1962 dreamt
of putting a man on the moon within 10 years, no one believed this was possible
until Neil Armstrong stepped on the
surface of the moon in 1969. We tend to marvel at these people and place them
on pedestals when in fact their actions, to them at least, was indeed quite
natural, for “they were just following
their dreams!”

George Bernard Shaw, the great Irish
playwright, author and journalist, described this phenomenon in a most simple
but eloquent way in the following quotation which has become a global standard:

“Some men see things as they are and ask, Why?

Others dream of things that never were and ask, "Why
not?"

In a few well chosen words he was
able to define the fundamental difference between those who just live out their
lives, and those who seek out their dreams. Anywhere you turn, in whatever
setting you find yourself, you will not fail to see this principle in action
all around you and in every aspect of living. When a small group of young
American Ice Hockey players, drawn together from a few college teams,
eventually defeated the mighty Russian world-beating team in the 1980 Winter
Olympics held in Lake Placid, New York, the experts called this “the Miracle on Ice”, but to the
players, it was a case of “believing in
themselves and their dreams.” Similarly, when a young Polish woman Scientist
was honored with two Nobel awards in Physics and in Chemistry for her great,
life-changing research on Radioactivity, she received world-wide acclamation.
But to Madame Marie Sklodowska-Curie, it
was the culmination of her unwavering commitment to chasing her dreams at all
cost.

But
these are but two dramatic and outstanding examples of events that are
constantly taking place around us every minute of every day. Any one of us who is
willing to spend the time and effort to follow our dreams will always be
rewarded. It really does not matter what we actually do or how complex and
difficult the task is, or the degree of success achieved, so much as the inner
satisfaction that accompanies the knowledge that we have indeed taken up a
challenge and moved forward. This applies equally to the any one of us who
aspires to achieve beyond our present state, and has no preference for age,
experience or social standing or the amount of time we have tried and failed.
What truly matters is that special inner strength that allows us to focus on
the prize and not on the road to be travelled, with all its perceived obstacles.

The concept of pursuing your dreams has existed
as far back as man’s existence on earth. In fact, as early as the 6^th
century BCE, the principle that "we are
born to pursue our dreams" was considered to be one of the basic Ethics of Taoism, the great movement
founded by the Chinese philosopher, Lao-tsu,
and which has continued and prospered throughout the ages, to become a
worldwide institution. I, personally, subscribe to this view and to the idea
that we are all born with an innate drive to follow our dreams, which left
alone, is responsible for our successful growth and development into maturity.
Unfortunately, the great majority of us, influenced by the negative pressures
and resistances in our immediate environment tend to quickly lose the
confidence for change, choosing instead the security of ‘the status quo”. As
parents and adults, we have the unfortunate tendency to teach our children to
seek out the safety and security of our conventional environment and directly
or indirectly, discourage their natural inclination for taking risks. This
inevitably leads to a loss of any initiative and an unwillingness to follow the
dream. It is a state that is completely described by the well known quotation:

“Better to have a bird in hand,

than two in the bush.”

In so doing, we succeed in
smothering the natural inclination of our children on the altar of conformity,
and end up with a society afraid of failing or of dealing with change, and
therefore reluctant to encourage or endorse the individual who wants to follow
his dream.

But I do not believe
that it is really a case of being afraid of failing, so much as a fear of not
being able to accept or deal with, our potential strength. In my mind this
paradox explains why we have such resistance to the risk taker and are often
antagonistic to their ideas and intentions. The late Steve Jobs, undoubtedly one of the greatest and most visionary men
the world has ever seen, is a classic example of this principle. At a very
early age, he rejected conformity and searched for his identity. This search caused
him to leave university early, and even carried him to India in 1974 where he spent a year
visiting several Ashrams essentially to learn about himself. It is no surprise
that he was able to search out his dreams, bring them to reality, stand up to a
barrage of criticisms and personal attacks and become the most admired and also
the most vilified visionary in modern times.

Failure has nothing
to do with being a visionary. The great inventor, Thomas Edison, is said to have had a large number of failed inventions before
he developed the first phonograph in 1897. Henry
Ford, the great American industrialist and inventor of the assembly line, was
not successful until age 43years, and Col.
Harland Saunders, founder of The
Kentucky Fried Chicken Chain was almost 50 years old. In no different way
was my friend, who we all affectionately called “Pipe man”. Having failed miserably in two previous business
ventures, at the age of almost 60 years he started an Insurance agency and
built it to one of the most successful in the area. To them, and to the
thousands and thousands of successful visionaries, it was the DREAM that
mattered at all cost, and not the effort expended or the chance of failure.

The main lesson to be
learnt in this context is that we must pay far more attention to our dreams,
not only for our own personal satisfaction, but much more important, for the benefit
of our children. To me, the teaching of children to follow their dreams ought
to be the paramount responsibility for
all parents, but unfortunately, this is seldom achieved. There is no better way
to teach your children than by example and by following your own dreams. You
cannot possibly do any better than to start early and devote your life and your
energies to resolutely and confidently following your own and your family
dreams. For in so doing, not only will your own life be enriched, but you would
have set in motion a series of events that will lead to fulfillment of the
lives of your children. Nothing you will ever do in your life will be as important
or as rewarding.

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I have a
dream that one day this nation

will
rise will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.

…..Martin
Luther King, Jr.

Trust in Dreams, for in them is
hidden the gate to eternity.

……Khalil Gibran

Dreams are the touchstones of our
character.

…….Henry David Thoreau

The future belongs to those who
believe in the beauty of their Dreams. ….Eleanor Roosevelt

Who looks outside, Dreams;

Who looks inside, Awakens

…………Carl Jung

The Dream of yesterday is the hope
of today,

….And the reality of tomorrow.

…..Robert H. Goddard

Dreams are the seeds of
change.

…..Debbie Boone

Those that do most, Dream
most.

…..Stephen Leacock