Positives in Negatives

A young woman was sitting at her dining table, worried  about taxes to be paid, house-work to be done and to top it all, her family was coming over for Thanks giving the next day. She was not feeling very thankful at that time.

As she turned her gaze sideways, she noticed her young daughter scribbling furiously into her notebook.

“My teacher asked us to write a paragraph on “Negative Thanks giving” for homework today..” said the daughter.

“She asked us to write down things that we are thankful for, things that make us feel not so good in the beginning, but turn out to be good after all.”

With curiosity, the mother peeked into the book. This is what her daughter wrote:

“I’m thankful for Final Exams, because that means school is almost over.
I’m thankful for bad-tasting medicine, because it helps me feel better.
I’m thankful for waking up to alarm clocks, because it means I’m still alive.”

It then dawned on the mother, that she had a lot of things to be thankful for!

She thought again..

She had to pay taxes but that meant she was fortunate to be employed. She had house-work to do but that meant she had her own home to live in. She had to cook for her family for Thanks giving but that meant she had a family with whom she could celebrate.

Moral: We generally complain about the negative things in life but we fail to look at the positive side of it. What is the positive in your negatives?

Look at the better part of life

Flawed Pot

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck.

One of the pots had a crack in it, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.

At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water.

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 could only do half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself,because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house."

The old woman smiled, "Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side?"

"That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them."

"For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table.

Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house."

Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.

You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.

So, to all of my crackpot friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path!

STORY -- DIRTY LAUNDRY

A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning, while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hang the wash outside.

"That laundry is not very clean", she said, "she doesn't know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap."

Her husband looked on, but remained silent. Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.

About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband:

"Look! She has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this."

The husband said: "I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows!"

And so it is with life:

"What we see when watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look. Before we give any criticism, it might be a good idea to check our state of mind and ask ourselves if we are ready to see the good rather than to be looking for something in the person we are about to judge."

Short but very deep Thought...