Stories by behappyrightnow (5 matches)

Remembering My Father's Vest

As a child, I had a lot of pent-up anger and was not good at communicating constructively. Once, as I was getting ready for school, my mother accidentally handed me my father's vest instead of mine.  This was around the time that I was getting to be larger in size than my father, and so as I put the vest, I felt like I was being choked in it!  I realized that it was a small oversight on my mother's part, but somehow the feeling of being choked overwhelmed me and filled me with anger. Without thinking much, I took out my anger on my mother.  I was so upset that she had handed me the wrong vest, that I responded by violently ripping it apart from my chest! Later, my mother shared her own frustration with my father: "See what your son has done." Instead of scolding or abusing me, my father calmly  ... Read Full Story >>

A Life Lesson From A Farmer

My dad sent me a nice story forward, and here's an attempt to paraphrase the gist..

A certain farmer with the best crop yield was known to give away his seeds to other farmers in the area. When asked why he would give away his assets, he responded, "Well, you see, the wind blows seeds from all over into my land. If my neighbors have inferior seeds, then I will get an inferior crop. Therefore, to ensure that the wind brings me the best seeds, I must share my best seeds with others.

This is true about farming, and true about life. If we have an exquisite seed of happiness, why not give it away, so the wind blows it back to us.

Tuning 'Possessions' Into Inventory to Share

Ever since my new laptop arrived, I held on to my older one thinking it would serve me some day. In the last few months, every time I opened the closet and saw it, I felt depressed. Here was a perfectly good laptop gathering dust, and I had turned it into inventory. Cutting-edge inventory control systems encourage us to shed our inventory because it  takes up space without creating any value. :)  I got the chance to change that a few days back, when we had a visitor who was having a crummy time in life. After helping this friend with ideas on how to start a massage business and spread the word,  I suggested, "You need to get out there on the Internet and set up your homepage." My friend replied, "For that, I need a good machine. My machine is so slow that I can't really do anything on it." ... Read Full Story >>

Gratitude For Finding A Recipient of Our Intended Act of Kindness

My wife and I took an unscripted vacation to Carmel. On the way, we stopped at a Chinese restaurant for dinner. The food was great, but there was too much of it. We decided to get it packed and find a homeless person to give it to. After dinner, my wife went into World Market which was in the same mall, while I walked around scouting for homeless people. Walking up and down, I couldn't spot a single homeless person. Then, I prayed that a hungry person may receive the food in my hand. As my mind calmed down, it occurred to me that the folks at the check-out counter might appreciate a dinner. I went in and asked my wife to check if the person at the counter was hungry. Then, I walked away. I saw her talking but not asking me to come over to give the food. So I ... Read Full Story >>

Warming The Car

I was in a workshop out of town with colleagues. One of them was much older, and had recovered from an illness. He didn't want  Asian food, so he stayed in the hotel while the rest of us ventured out. This may have affected his sense of community. One night I told him that I wanted to take him out wherever he wanted to eat. As I have vegetarian food preferences and he did not, he did not want to burden me by going to places where I would have very few options. I insisted it wasn't an issue, and we went to a place he would prefer. My other colleagues went out separately, so I was able to hang out with this colleague and practice deep listening. We had a great conversation together. As we ended our meal and conversation, I decided to drop him right to the door of the ... Read Full Story >>

A 15 Year Blessing From A Homeless Person