Kahlil Gibran said, “Love one another, but make not a bond of love… Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together; For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
Today I have been reminding my staff that what we perceive as the most challenging painful client is actually an opportunity for us to fine tune our systems, services and skills. So today Pushworth is fine tuning and growing exponentially!
“Economics is the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses” Lionel Charles Robbins
Lewis Carroll said "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." In life there are times when none of us have a clue where we are going or what is happening. Isn't it nice to know that no matter what you do or where you go, you WILL get there. :-)
I am chuckling to myself as I realise that I seem come to life whenever things f**k up around me! You see, they don't actually f**k up, I am simply being given new information. So that pain I think I am feeling is actually just someone I have never met before holding up a very large sign painted in red that says "Hey You - Look Over Here!".
"In gardens, beauty is a by-product. The main business is sex and death." Sam Llewelyn
"Traveling through the world produces a marvelous clarity in the judgment of men. We are all of us confined and enclosed within ourselves, and see no farther than the end of our nose. This great world is a mirror where we must see ourselves in order to know ourselves. There are so many different tempers, so many different points of view, judgments, opinions, laws and customs to teach us to judge wisely on our own, and to teach our judgment to recognize its imperfection and natural weakness.” Michel de Montagne
A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on the end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots was perfectly made and never leaked. The other pot had a crack in it and by the time the water bearer reached his master’s house it had leaked much of it’s water and was only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his master’s house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you.” “Why?” asked the bearer. “What are you ashamed of?” “I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master’s house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don’t get full value from your efforts,” the pot said. The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, “As we return to the master’s house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path.” Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some. But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again the pot apologized to the bearer for its failure. The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of your path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.” Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. But if we will allow it, God will use our flaws to grace his table. In God’s great economy, nothing goes to waste. Don’t be afraid of your flaws. Acknowledge them, and you too can be the cause of beauty. Know that in our weakness we find our strength.
"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Lewis Carroll
"If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation. If I got any comfort as I set out on my first story, it was that in nearly every story, the protagonist is transformed. He's a jerk at the beginning and nice at the end, or a coward at the beginning and brave at the end. If the character doesn't change, the story hasn't happened yet. And if story is derived from real life, if story is just condensed version of life then life itself may be designed to change us so that we evolve from one kind of person to another. " — Donald Miller (A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life)
There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. - Albert Einstein
Is the Glass half empty or half full? The optimist says the glass is half full. The pessimist says the glass is half empty. The project manager/engineer says the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. The realist says the glass contains half the required amount of liquid for it to overflow. And the cynic... wonders who drank the other half. The school teacher says it's not about whether the glass is half empty or half full, it's whether there is something in the glass at all. Anyway... Attitude is not about whether the glass is half full or half empty, it's about who is paying for the next round. The professional trainer does not care if the glass is half full or half empty, he just knows that starting the discussion will give him ten minutes to figure out why his powerpoint presentation is not working. The ground-down mother of a persistently demanding five-year-old says sweetheart it's whatever you want it to be, just please let mummy have five minutes peace and quiet. The consultant says let's examine the question, prepare a strategy for an answer, and all for a daily rate of... The inquisitive troublemaker wants to know what's in the glass anyhow... and wants the rest of it. The homebuilder sees the dirty glass, washes and dries it, then puts it away in a custom oak and etched glass cabinet that he built himself using only hand tools. The worrier frets that the remaining half will evaporate by next morning. The fanatic thinks the glass is completely full, even though it isn't. The entrepreneur sees the glass as undervalued by half its potential. The computer specialist says that next year the glass capacity will double, be half the price, but cost you 50% more for me to give you the answer. The engineer says (when the half is tainted) he's glad he put the other half in a redundant glass. (Based on a Dilbert cartoon by Scott Adams) The computer programmer says the glass is full-empty. The Buddhist says don't worry, remember the glass is already broken. The logician says that where the glass is in process of being filled then it is half full; where it is in the process of being emptied then it is half empty; and where its status in terms of being filled or emptied is unknown then the glass is one in which a boundary between liquid and gas lies exactly midway between the inside bottom and the upper rim, assuming that the glass has parallel sides and rests on a level surface, and where it does not then the liquid/gas boundary lies exactly midway between the upper and lower equal halves of the available total volume of said glass. The scientist says a guess based on a visual cue is inaccurate, so mark the glass at the bottom of the meniscus of the content, pour the content into a bigger glass; fill the empty glass with fresh content up to the mark; add the original content back in; if the combined content overflows the lip, the glass was more than half full; if it doesn't reach the top, the glass was more than half empty; if it neither overflows nor fails to reach the top then it was either half-full or half-empty. Now what was the question again? The Dutchman would suggest to both pay for the glass and share the content. Then tells you he will have the bottom half. The personal coach knows that the glass goes from full to empty depending on the circumstances, and reminds the drinker that he can always fill the glass when he wishes. The grammarian says that while the terms half-full and half-empty are colloquially acceptable the glass can technically be neither since both full and empty are absolute states and therefore are incapable of being halved or modified in any way. The auditor first checks whether the empty half is material and then designs the audit procedures to obtain sufficient evidence to conclude that the glass is indeed empty. The waiter will hurry to replace it with a full one. For him there are no doubts: the glass was empty when he took it away; it is full in the bill that he brings you. The magician will show you the glass with the full half at the top.
Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits. ~Samuel Butler
