Crossing the Line of Fear

By John Assaraf

I remember when I was younger and in school, fear stopped me from asking out a girl I wanted to date. I can remember all the thoughts of different things I wanted to say and how I would ask her out. But as quickly as the thoughts to ask her out popped in my head, I came up with all the reasons why she might say no. I remember the "feeling" of rejection and embarrassment even though I didn’t even pick up the phone! It’s as real in my mind right now as it was then.

I didn’t understand it then but I certainly do today.

Do you ever have any thoughts of fear that cause you to not to move ahead with any of your dreams or goals?

Every human on earth at one time or another feels this "fear" and reverts back into their "safety" or comfort zone. The system was created to protect us in times of real danger but we must learn when danger is real or caused by our imagination of what may happen…again.

What ability causes one person to face and overcome possible rejection at work, in school or in a relationship? On the other hand what causes someone to be paralyzed by a mere thought? Consider the following:

• A man who goes after business like a tiger may be uncomfortable with women and therefore not be able to approach a woman for fear of rejection.
• A woman who is miserable in a relationship may be petrified at the thought of saying anything to her spouse in fear of the potential discussion or backlash.
• A child may not seek out other children to play with at school in fear of rejection.

The list can go on and on, from fear of leaving your job, to fear of hurting yourself if you try something new. So, what is really going on, and how can we stop this once and for all?

First and foremost, understand that fear is a very common feeling and we all have one fear or another. The "feeling" of fear is almost solely based on what we think may happen if we try and fail. It is different than actually knowing that we will hurt ourselves if we fall 20 stories from a building.

Most fears are illusions we create in our own head, based on past conditioning and not based on what is possible. As children we are natural born risk takers and for the most part we are fearless. The meaning we give an experiences when we do not achieve the result we want, determines how we "see" and "feel" the next opportunity that seems like the one we’ve experienced in the past.

If we experience rejection more times than we care to, we tend to mentally label the experience a negative one. Over time, this becomes our belief, and our beliefs, as you already know, becomes our reality.

But…:

• What would happen if we changed the meaning of an experience we didn’t like?
• What if we learned to label the experience a learning one or an interesting one?
• Do you think your tolerance level would increase for trying again?

I have learned that people who really succeed in various areas of life often frame their experiences differently than those who quickly label the experience as a negative one.

When we feel fear, we are playing a mental track that is not conducive to growth. All growth comes from stretching oneself past the comfort zone that limits us. Risk is a necessary part of the reward. You cannot have one without the other.

Let me suggest that you start to label your experiences in a way that serves you rather than limits you.

We have very few limits except the ones that we set on ourselves. And those are mostly out of fear from the past. Do not let your past control your present thinking. Step out and grow. Step out of your comfort zone and be free again!

Learning and Growing Despite Defeat

We’ve all had challenging situations that leave us feeling tired or discouraged. Here is something neat to ponder during those times. Take a look at this report and reflect on this man’s record of failure. It is a testament to how humans can learn and grow and win despite the losses and defeats.

Failed in business———————1831
Defeated for legislature————–1832
Failed in business again————–1833
Elected to legislature—————–1834
Sweetheart died———————–1835
Nervous breakdown——————-1836
Defeated for speaker—————–1838
Defeated for land officer————-1843
Defeated for congress—————-1843
Elected to congress——————-1846
Defeated for re-election————–1848
Defeated for senate——————-1855
Defeated for vice president———-1856
Defeated for senate——————-1858
Elected President———————-1860

Who was he? Abraham Lincoln.
He picked himself up no matter what and kept on going after his dream. He educated himself and did whatever it took to keep moving in the direction of his passions.
If you reflect back on your life, you can find patterns of the times you grew the most. Many of those times were probably a result of some kind of previous ‘failure,’ maybe even a series of them. Each failure is a learning experience.
With this in mind, choose the one thing that may not be going exactly as you wish right now and do one thing to move you closer to achieving the result you want. And remember, life is about learning and growing.

Extra Degree

Hey friends and welcome again to my blog,

I just came across a great piece I thought you’d love as I really think it’s what separates the cream from the crop. My whole life has been about doing that little bit extra to achieve success and this piece is a great visual.

Do you have what it takes to create a masterpiece with your life and business?

Sufiyan

Happiness in Life: You Deserve it!

Achieving your own happiness is the best measure of how well you are living your life and enjoying your relationships. You can learn how to be happier and more fulfilled in everything you do.

Everyone is Different

Happiness in life is like a smorgasbord. If 100 people went to a smorgasbord and each put food on their plate in the quantity and mix that each felt would be most pleasing to him, every plate would be different. Even a husband and wife would go up to the smorgasbord and come back with plates that looked completely different. Happiness is the same way. Each person requires a particular combination of those ingredients to feel the very best about him or herself.

Listen to Your Heart

And your mix is changing continually. If you went to the same smorgasbord every day for a year, you probably would come back with a different plateful of food each time. Each day-sometimes each hour-only you can tell what it takes to make you happy. Therefore, the only way to judge whether a job, a relationship, an investment, or any decision, is right for you is to get in touch with your feelings and listen to your heart.

Be True to Yourself

You’re true to yourself only when you follow your inner guiding light, when you listen to what Ralph Waldo Emerson called the “still, small voice within.” You’re being the very best person you can be only when you have the courage and the fortitude to allow your definition of happiness, whatever it may be, to be the guiding light of every part of your life.

There Are No Limits

A very important point on the subject of happiness is whether or not you feel that you “deserve” to be happy.

Accept the notion that you deserve all the happiness in life you can honestly attain through the application of your talents and abilities. The more you like and respect yourself, the more deserving you will feel of the good things in life. And the more deserving you feel, the more likely you will attain and hold on to the happiness you are working toward.

Make Happiness Your Key Measure

You should make finding happiness in life the organizing principle of your life. Compare every possible action and decision you make against your standard of happiness to see whether that action would make you happier or unhappier. Soon, you will discover that almost all of the problems in your life come from choices that you have made – or are currently making – that do not contribute to your happiness.

Pay the Price

Of course, there are countless times when you will have to do little things that don’t make you happy along the way toward those larger things that make you very happy indeed. We call this paying the price of success in advance. You must pay your dues. Sometimes these interim steps don’t make you happy directly, but the happiness you achieve from attaining your goal will be so great that it totally overwhelms the temporary inconveniences and dissatisfactions you have to endure in order to get there.

Action Exercises

Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, accept that you deserve all the joy and happiness you can possibly achieve through your own efforts.

Second, make your own happiness the chief organizing principle of your life and judge everything against that standard. Follow your inner guiding light.

Third, be willing to work hard and pay the price for the satisfaction and rewards you desire. Always go the extra mile and your success will be assured.

The Secrets to Peak Performance

The key to long term success is for you to dedicate yourself to continuous improvement. If you become one tenth of one percent more productive each day, that amounts to 1/1000th improvement per working day. Is that possible? Of course it is!

Improve A Little At A Time

If you become one tenth of one percent more productive each day, that amounts to one half of one percent more productive each week. One half of one percent more productive each week amounts to two percent more productive each month and 26% more productive each year.

The cumulative effect if becoming a tiny bit better at your field and more productive amounts to a tremendous increase in your value and your output over time.

How to Double Your Productivity

Twenty-six percent more productive each year, with compounding, amounts to doubling your overall productivity and performance every 2.7 years. If you become 26% more productive each year, with compounding, times 10 years, you will be 1004% more productive over the next decade. That is an increase of ten times over ten years.

The Reason For All Great Successes

This is called the Law of Accumulation, or the Principle of Incremental Improvement. It is the primary reason for all great success stories. By the yard, it’s hard. But inch by inch, anything’s a cinch!

5 Lies of Lucky

So easy to dismiss the success of The Great Ones in business, sports, science or the arts as “lucky”. But success doesn’t just show up. It’s always earned. High achievement isn’t the result of “destiny” but desire – and acute determination.
From Branson to Bono and from Mandela to Michael Dell, dive deep into the stories of the best of the best and you’ll see they’re are all thinking the same thoughts and doing strikingly similar things.

Don’t buy into the following 5 Lies of Lucky:

1. Successful people don’t work hard – they just happen to be at the right place at the right time. Sure, timing makes a difference (just ask Jobs or Brin). But business superstars not only out-think their competition – they outwork them. Few things are as mission-critical to leadership and winning as blood, sweat and tears.

2. Successful people had a smoother path and more lucky breaks. Nope. The people who have achieved the most are generally those who have failed the most. Success is a numbers game and those who have reached the mountaintop were those who simply refused to lose (and turned every stumbling block into a stepping stone). FedEx’s first day in business saw only about 15 packages moved. But rather than shutting down, they regrouped and reinvented.

3. Successful people are born motivated. Motivation is a learned sport. To play at peak and light a fire in your belly takes daily devotion. The best among us are up while the world around them sleeps, listening to inspirational cds, reading heroic biographies, planning their days/weeks/months/lives and basically preparing themselves to deliver their leadership best. We all need to refill the well of passion and inspiration every morning.

4. Successful people are “one person shows”. Behind GE’s Jack Welch lived a superb group of followers. Alongside Jeff Bezos walks a remarkable band of believers. Can’t do the dream without the right team. If you are really serious about getting to wow on each of your business and personal goals, make sure you have the right people and resources to help you get there. To paraphrase John Donne: “no person is an island”.

5. Successful people are geniuses. According to the latest research, genius isn’t a natural trait – it’s a learned skill. The “genius research” has found that every so-called “genius” invested the equivalent of 10 years singularly focused on their chosen sport/business/craft. As it is written in The Leader Who Had No Title: “Mediocrity occurs when we focus on many things. Mastery arrives when we focus on only a few.” Commit to being brilliant at just a few passions in your life and cut out all the rest. And then practice on these obsessions daily. In time, you too will be recognized as a master. And that’s my great wish for you.

Searching for meaning

“At such a moment it is not the physical pain which hurts the most (and this applies to adults as much as to punished children); it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all.”
 

Terrible as it was, Viktor Frankl’s experience in Auschwitz reinforced what was already one of his key ideas.
Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning.

The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life. Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning:
a] in work (doing something significant)
b] in love (caring for another person)
c] and in courage during difficult times.

Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it. At one point, Frankl writes that a person “may remain brave, dignified and unselfish, or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal.” He concedes that only a few prisoners of the Nazis were able to do the former, “but even one such example is sufficient proof that man’s inner strength may raise him above his outward fate.”

Finally, Frankl’s most enduring insight, one that I have called on often in my own life and in countless counseling situations: Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.

Guidelines to setup goals...

Recently, there was a young man who graduated from college and decided to seek employment. He hoped to find a job somewhere away from his home town. He walked into the local bus station, approached the ticket counter and asked the clerk for a bus ticket. What do you suppose the ticket clerk asked the young man? He said, "Where do you want to go?" The young man said, "I don't know. Just give me a ticket to somewhere." He didn't get a ticket! The moral of the story is that if you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. Jim Cathcart, a noted professional speaker, once said, "Most people aim at nothing in life and hit it with amazing accuracy." If we don't specify exactly what we want, we have no reason to complain about what we get or where we find ourselves.

Goal Setting Guidelines

1.Your goal must be conceivable. You must be able to imagine, conceptualize and understand the goal or desired result. Top athletes practice visualizing step-by-step actual success in their sports competition. By visualizing your success in great detail, you are conditioning your mind and preparing yourself to achieve your desired success.

2.Make your goal believable. Your goal should be consistent with your personal values system, and you must believe you can reach the goal. It is critically important that you believe in yourself. You must see yourself with the goal in hand.

3.Your goal must be achievable. You must have the mental and physical capacity to reach the goal. It would, however, be important for your goal to cause you to stretch beyond normal self-imposed limits. You will find a goal that causes you to stretch and grow will be the goal that gives you the most satisfaction. Don't be afraid to challenge yourself to go beyond old limits!

4.Make your goal measurable. Deciding to do better than last year or to be happy gives you no standard by which you can measure progress. Be sure to relate your goal to quantity, percentage increases, dollar volume, time or distance. This will allow you to measure your progress.

5.Your goal should be controllable. This means you must be able to achieve the goal yourself, or gain the willing cooperation of others to reach the goal. This emphasizes the importance of building team spirit. If you can have no control over the outcome of an event, it's not realistic to set a goal in this area. It would be like gambling in Las Vegas. Without a proven system that beats the odds, lack of control will lead to frustration - and cost you a lot of money!

6.Be sure you have singleness of purpose. Make sure your goal is not in conflict with other areas of your life. For instance, if you decide to travel extensively in your business or work 80 to 90 hours per week, this will interfere with your personal or family relationships. The travel and long hours could lead to poor health or family discord. Some goals become mutually exclusive and create conflict with other goals.

To be a competitive tri-athlete you must train for four to six or more hours daily. That leaves little time from career and family. You must then decide what is most important. Be sure to set priorities so you can focus on what is truly important; not just urgent. Too often we spend our time putting out brush fires. We handle daily crises instead of dealing with top-priority activities, which will contribute to reaching the goal.

When you set a goal, does it satisfy all of the above guidelines? If it does, you will be more likely to achieve success and will be more satisfied with your accomplishments! How does your goal help you personally? Most people find that a goal generates enthusiasm, gives meaning and purpose, and provides direction. I believe that a goal accomplishes all of these objectives plus gives focus to your thoughts.

Killing our dreams

The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams is the lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the Good Fight.

The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in our certainties. Because we don’t want to see life as a grand adventure, we begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in asking so little of life. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day existence, and we hear the sound of lances breaking, we smell the dust and the sweat, and we see the great defeats and the fire in the eyes of the warriors. But we never see the delight, the immense delight in the hearts of those who are engaged in the battle. For them, neither victory nor defeat is important; what’s important is only that they are fighting the Good Fight.

And, finally, the third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state, we think of ourselves as being mature; we put aside the fantasies of our youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams – we have refused to fight the Good Fight.

When we renounce our dreams and find peace, we go through a short period of tranquility. But the dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being.
We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves. That’s when illnesses and psychoses arise. What we sought to avoid in combat – disappointment and defeat – come upon us because of our cowardice.

And one day, the dead, spoiled dreams make it difficult to breathe, and we actually seek death. It’s death that frees us from our certainties, from our work, and from that terrible peace of our Sunday afternoons

Limiting Questions get garbage answers

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” - Albert Einstein

Regardless of your age, if you are breathing, than you are always ready for change. It might be in a relationship, career, an old habit, anger issue, or something that is really affecting your life. I want you to ask yourself, ‘Everything I have come to know in the last 18, 22, 45 or even 65 years, what impact has it had in this particular area of my life? Am I happy where I am? Have I attained fulfillment? Do I feel lost and confused? Now I want you to sit there and think back how many times you have asked yourself those same questions. Do you see a pattern with your previous answers and your current ones? Unfortunately most continue on that circular train track their whole life and are never able to implement real change. Firstly, they don’t build the belief system because they constantly remind themselves on why they think they can’t change, and secondly some people just don’t know how to approach it. It’s evident that we are always obtaining knowledge in this life, however learning requires rapid action. Now it seems a lot of us believe we are taking appropriate action yet still feel as if we have failed. This is why we must direct that energy in a way which is going to be effective and implement lasting change.

Society has made us believe that if we “change” then we are not being true to ourselves. There are two things that are neglected in this lie. They are- change is extremely powerful, but more importantly, it’s inevitable. Nothing remains the same. Every new moment, you are a new person, even physically. Not one single cell in your body has remained the same. This means we are always “becoming”. But what you are becoming depends on you. Essentially, something must change in order to grow, right? Whether it is financially, physically, emotionally or mentally, the same rule applies.Proper questioning is definitely the basis for directing change towards our immediate growth. It allows us to broaden the way we think and stop being be narrow minded to create a belief that “there is only one option.” We are constantly asking questions to ourselves; however we usually ask ones that result in answers that are of no real benefit and cause us to feel the same way. That usually results in creating the same experiences. Stay away from such questions, but ill give you the answers just this once…

Why can’t I do that?

Exactly, why cant you? Of course you can, I don’t think that person woke up one day and was 50kilos lighter, that couples relationship just sky rocketed for no real reason, or money just fell into that guys lap.

Why am I so unlucky?

There is no such thing as luck, as valuable information is found in every experience. We must also take sole accountability for our thoughts, words, and physical actions as they are the basis for creating things in our life.

Why does this always happen to me?

It doesn’t always happen to you, but when you think it does your mind will always tell you why you’re the victim. It doesn’t tell you that are also the perpetrator, because you aren’t letting it.

Why are all girls/guys the same?

They’re not all the same, your implying that you’re different by saying that. But how many people do you hear that from, so that means there is a lot of different people out there!  It’s only the attitude of thinking all girls/guys are the same that they seem that way, because with that mindset you’re not giving them any other chance.


All people with money have screwed someone over to get there?

Have they really, or is that just an excuse in the face of fear, for living a life that is under what you know you deserve?


Why can’t I enjoy life like others?

Of course you can…you just choose not to everyday. See things for what they really are, not for how they appear in an instant. Dig deeper…

Why am I the only one faced with so many challenges in life?

That’s garbage and we all know it. Be honest with yourself, as I’m sure there are a lot more people worse off with a lot more challenges in their way. Are you really the only one, or are you feeling sorry for yourself and not making any changes to turn it around?

“When you change the way you think, you change the way you feel. When you change the way you feel, you change the way you act. When you change the way you act, you change your life. It starts by changing the way you…”

False Harmony

SINCERE REPENTANCE

The monk Chu Lai was beaten by a teacher who did not believe anything he said. However, the professor’s wife was a follower of Chu Lai, and demanded that her husband had to apologize to him.
Displeased, but without the courage to deny his wife’s wishes, the man went to the temple with her and murmured some words of repentance.
“I do not forgive you,” replied Chu Lai, “go back to work.”
The woman was horrified. “My husband is humiliated, and you were not generous!”

And Chu Lai responded:
“Within my soul there is no rancor. But if he is not truly sorry, it is better for him to recognize now that he is mad at me. If I had accepted his apology, we would be creating a false state of harmony, and this would further increase the anger of your husband.”

I hate my job when (Own feeling)

I had a very hectic schedule last week and now managing to write on Sunday night  . So again finding a reason to get frustrated, feel helpless, get angry or many similar feelings. But when I think calmly for 2 minutes, temperature start to subdue. You might have seen forwards about  how your job is not the worst in the world and there are many jobs worse than yours. Here is my own version.

I Like My Job When …

1. I see from my office a person working on 12th floor of an underconstruction building both on a hot or rainy day.

2. I talk to a cab driver and he tells me he works throughout the night to get Rs. 200 inspite of all risks involved.

3. I see a cashier sitting in a closed 5*5 cabin for 12 hours in a honda showroom.

4. When I see security guards in various offices and societies trying to awake throughout the night when they have nothing that would help them to remain awake.

5. When I see salesman/saleswoman going from door to door trying to sell something in all kinds of weather and getting people’s harsh words on alternate doors.

Chalte Chalte :

You meet many people everyday and everyone has something to teach you. All you need is to pay attention and try to get some point from him. I met a person working for a privat bank and he said something that made me think. Each one of us get calls from people calling on behalf of banks and offering a credit card. We get disturbed and irritated and many of us reply with shouting.

This person said that just think about the preson who called you for credit card. This is his/her job and he/she has to do it. Don’t reply rude to them and make them feel bad about the job they are doing. You can just ask for their name and then say , ” Thanks XYZ for calling but I am not interested.” This small thing can make someone’s day a bit better. So next time when you get a call, get frustrated and about to yell, try this out. May be both their and your day becomes better.

Lessons from a Pencil

A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter. At one point he asked:
‘Are you writing a story about what we’ve done? Is it a story about me?’

His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson:
I am writing about you, actually, but more important than the words is the pencil I’m using. I hope you will be like this pencil when you grow up.’

Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn’t seem very special.
‘But it’s just like any other pencil I’ve ever seen!’

‘That depends on how you look at things. It has five qualities which, if you manage to hang on them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.’

‘First quality: you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. We call that hand God, and He always guides us according to His will.’

‘Second quality: now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpner. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he’s much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.

‘Third quality: the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.’

‘Fourth quality: what really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.’

‘Finally, the pencil’s fifth quality: it always leaves a mark. in just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action’

MARRIAGE

When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I've got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.

Suddenly I didn't know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly.

She didn't seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why?

I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn't talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn't love her anymore. I just pitied her!

With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company.

She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.

The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn't have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane.

When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.

In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn't want anything from me, but needed a month's notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month's time and she didn't want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.

This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day.

She requested that every day for the month's duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.

I told Jane about my wife's divorce conditions. . She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully.

My wife and I hadn't had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mommy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don't tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outsidethe door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.

On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn't looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.

On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me.

On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn't tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.

She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily.

Suddenly it hit me... she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.

Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it's time to carry mom out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day.

But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn't noticed that our life lacked intimacy.

I drove to office.... jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind...I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore.

She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Jane, I said, I won't divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn't value the details of our lives, not because we didn't love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart.

Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away.

At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I'll carry you out every morning until death do us apart.

That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed - dead.

My wife had been fighting CANCER for months and I was so busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon and she wanted to save me from the whatever negative reaction from our son, in case we push thru with the divorce.-- At least, in the eyes of our son--- I'm a loving husband....

The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves. So find time to be your spouse's friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. Do have a real happy marriage!

If you don't share this, nothing will happen to you.

If you do, you just might save a marriage.

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Do What’s Most Difficult

Sam Keen had a great line, “You are caught by what you are running from.” Genius.

We attempt to structure our lives to avoid our fears but that’s about as intelligent as straightening the deck chairs on the Titanic. The best way to overcome a fear is to face your fear. As a matter of fact, every time we do something we’ve been avoiding, we take back the power that seemingly scary or difficult thing had over us.

Every Leader Without a Title and world-class Productive runs toward what they are most resisting versus toward the exit door. They feel the fear of tackling a game changing project and do the project anyway. They acknowledge the sweaty palms before the high-stakes presentation, and give the presentation anyway. They experience the runaway heartbeats accompanying asking for the biggest order in the history of their company, and they ask anyway. And that’s what makes them great.

Precious Time

With a timid voice and idolizing eyes, the little boy greeted his father as he returned from work,"Daddy, how much do you make an hour?"

Greatly surprised, but giving his boy a glaring look, the father said,
"Look, son, not even your mother knows that. Don't bother me now, I'm tired."

"But Daddy, just tell me please! How much do you make an hour, " the boy insisted.

The father, finally giving up, replied: "Twenty dollars per hour."

"Okay, Daddy? Could you loan me ten dollars?" the boy asked.

Showing his restlessness and positively disturbed, the father yelled, "So that was the reason you asked how much I earn, right? Go to sleep and don't bother me anymore!"

It was already dark and the father was meditating on what he said and was feeling guilty? Maybe he thought, his son wanted to buy something.

Finally, trying to ease his mind, the father went to his son's room.
"Are you asleep, son?" asked the father.

"No, Daddy. Why?" replied the boy, partially asleep.

"Here's the money you asked for earlier," the father said.

"Thanks, Daddy!" rejoiced the son, while putting his hand under his pillow and removing some money. "Now I have enough!! Now I have twenty dollars!" the boy said to his father, who was gazing at his son, confused at what his son had just said.

"Daddy, could you sell me one hour of your time?"

Time is too precious to spend it all on work!
Appreciate your love ones and don't take them for granted.

--- Submitted by Gary Lee