1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and

parents will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angr y with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
19.. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
25. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ”In five years, will this matter?”.
26. Always choose life.
27. Forgive everyone everything.
28. What other people think of you is none of your business.
29. Time heals almost everything. Give time, time.
30. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
31. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
32. Believe in miracles.
33. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
34. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
35. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.
36. Your children get only one childhood.
37. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
38. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
39. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d
grab ours back.
40. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
41. The best is yet to come.
42. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up an d show up.
43. Yield.
44. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

How is the German economy doing? Has it emerged from the worst of the economic crisis?

There is probably no one in Germany who can answer those questions—questions which are currently on everyone’s mind—quicker or more precisely than Norbert Räth. His response consists of a single number.

Räth, a white-haired economist in his late 50s, is sitting in his corner office on the eighth floor of the Federal Statistical Office in the German city of Wiesbaden. He is in charge of the agency’s Group III A, which addresses issues relating to the national accounts, used to measure the country’s economic activity. If the national accounts can be characterized as Germany’s balance sheet, then Räth is the country’s senior accountant.

His office compiles all key economic data relating to Germany, including figures on building permits and hotel stays, poultry slaughter and automobile repair, even data on the amount of tax paid on sparkling wine by wineries. “We have data on every payment made,” says Räth.

The sources of all this information include tax offices, associations and a monthly survey of 23,500 production companies. In the past, the data arrived in Wiesbaden on tons of paper, but today everything is done electronically. Once every three months, Räth recompiles the data and comes up with a figure representing the value of all goods and services produced in Germany: the gross domestic product, or GDP. In the second quarter of this year, German GDP amounted to €596.67 billion ($875 billion), up from the previous quarter’s figure of €593.3 billion.

While the absolute totals are only of interest to the professional world, what makes headlines is the rate at which GDP changes. According to Räth’s latest figures, Germany’s GDP increased in the second quarter of 2009 by 0.3 percent compared to the previous quarter. It’s a figure which is of vital importance to the country.

Everything revolves around this number, and everyone is fixated on it. Hardly any politician, whether they are from the center-right Christian Democrats or the center-left Social Democrats, much less the pro-business Free Democratic Party, would ever think to seriously question it. Growth generates jobs, growth produces social wellbeing, and growth creates affluence for all. This, at least, is the economic policy gospel, proclaimed and eulogized on every market square in Germany during the current election campaign. And at this week’s G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, the heads of state and government in attendance will once again be invoking the dynamics of growth. But the good news has lost some of its luster.

Not Just Cranks

There are now plenty of skeptics who seriously question the value of constantly rising economic output. And these critics are not simply cranks who are opposed to change in general. In fact, they are respected individuals who have the courage to reflect on whether growth is always synonymous with progress—and whether stagnation automatically implies regression.

“Our affluence has quadrupled in the last 40 years. But at what price?” asks Kurt Biedenkopf, a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the former governor of the eastern state of Saxony. The growth rate is “no longer a clear indicator of rising affluence,” Biedenkopf told SPIEGEL in a recent interview.

Even German President Horst Köhler is suspicious of politicians’ assurances that growth is indisputably beneficial to society. “We have convinced ourselves that permanent economic growth is the answer to everything,” Köhler said in March, in the midst of the financial crisis. It was an astonishing statement, coming as it did from a professional economist and former head of the International Monetary Fund. And yet Köhler did not reveal what the correct answer could be. Stagnation, perhaps? Or even contraction?

Apparent certainties are now beginning to falter, as a broad front of critics of the system develops. They question whether it is really necessary for consumers who already have everything they need, to consume—and throw away—more and more each year. And they are also searching for new methods of measuring well-being, applying criteria like healthcare and level of education. French President Nicolas Sarkozy attracted attention last week when he proposed such an alternative way of measuring wealth.

Bigger, Faster, More

We have become used to a constant thirst for growth. We constantly want more of everything, and we want it faster. But where does that all lead? From a purely mathematical perspective, a growth rate of 3 percent—a target for many industrialized nations—means that economic output doubles in just 24 years. To take a concrete example, if a German consumer currently buys six pairs of shoes a year, he or she would buy 12 pairs in 2033. Assuming the same rate of growth, does this mean that they would buy two dozen pairs in 2057?

Nowadays people in the West “have more food, more clothes, more cars, bigger houses, more central heating, more foreign holidays, a shorter working week, nicer work, and, above all, better health,” writes British economist Richard Layard in his book “Happiness: Lessons from a New Science.” “And yet they are not happier,” he continues. This raises a simple question: What is the purpose of growth in the first place? And why is there such a cult based around GDP?

To answer these questions, we simply have to imagine the consequences if there were to be a long period with no growth. If that happened, all of the vital functions of society would soon collapse. In other words, Germany is more or less doomed to continue growing.

The German economy has to grow to offset constantly rising productivity and the resulting decline in demand for labor, otherwise there is the risk of higher unemployment. It has to grow so that incomes can rise each year, or else societal conflicts over income distribution will intensify. It has to grow to pay for the social welfare state, or else society’s safety net against illness, unemployment and poverty in old age will become unaffordable. Finally, it has to grow so that the state can continue to service its debt, or it will lose its ability to manage its own affairs.

Banks, in particular, are dependent on growth. They are only willing to lend money to companies who want to invest if they can expect to be repaid with interest, so that they can then lend the money to others. This system of permanent money creation only functions in an expanding economy. For generations, everything in Germany has been geared toward constant growth and expansion.

Symbol of a Better Life

Rising GDP has served as a benchmark of performance for every German government since that of West Germany’s first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. Economic success not only provided postwar German society with material affluence—it also helped to shape its identity. Growth signified a better life, and the more the nation progressed economically, the more it could distance itself from its Nazi past.

The wealth creation machine continued along this path year after year until 1967, when the country experienced its first recession. That downturn came as such a shock that, without further ado, the parliament in Bonn wrote “constant and appropriate growth” into law as a goal of national economic policy. Legislators had imposed on the German economy, by decree as it were, a constant rise in the output of goods and services.

It was not until the famous report to the Club of Rome in 1972, titled “The Limits to Growth,” that many began to seriously reflect upon how far growth could go. The timing of the study, in the midst of the oil crisis and a recession, was perfect.

Sense of Unease

Today, once again, concerns over declining natural resources and the future of the global economy have revived that vague sense of unease over the concept of growth. For many, the world economic crisis comes as a wakeup call. In industrialized countries, faith in material wealth has been shaken since the financial markets almost collapsed and plunged the world into recession.

Many believe that unfettered capitalism, driven by a more-is-more philosophy, that values higher returns, more risk and more debt, is ultimately responsible for the debacle. The world has experienced the “elimination of upper limits on every scale,” writes Karlsruhe philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, describing the disastrous consequences of the convergence of greed and megalomania.

The critics of growth now advocate modesty, saying that affluence breeds contempt. Consumption, they argue, clouds our perspective on the important things in life. And it’s not just young, left-leaning members of society who feel this way. “Growth is a completely useless concept to describe well-being,” says Klaus Wiegandt, 70. For anyone familiar with Wiegandt’s past career, this statement is nothing short of astonishing.

Until 1998, Wiegandt was CEO of Metro (MEOG.DE), a diversified German retail group that included the Kaufhof department store chain and the Saturn and Media Markt consumer electronics retail chains. Before that, he was responsible for the rise of the Rewe supermarket chain, increasing its sales tenfold. Wiegandt set the pace in the industry, based on the principle that growth was essential to survival.

At the time, regional dairies and breweries were disappearing en masse in Germany as retail purchasing became increasingly globalized. Nowadays lamb is imported to Germany from New Zealand, flowers are flown in from Africa and German lumber is shipped to China, where it is made into furniture which is then shipped back to Europe. What is Wiegandt’s assessment of these developments today? “It’s completely idiotic!” he says indignantly. “Later generations will ask themselves: Who were these people?”

‘Quality of Life Doesn’t Mean Consuming More and More’

The former top executive readily admits that he has discovered his conscience in old age. He is sitting in the garden of his house near Seeheim-Jugenheim, a town in the German state of Hesse, sipping a glass of locally produced sparkling water. He refuses to drink Italian Pellegrino water, he says, and anyone who tries to serve him imported water in a restaurant is promptly told to take the bottle away.

Wiegandt is now an environmental activist and gives talks at universities on the scarcity of resources. He has published a well-regarded series of books on sustainability and subsidized the retail price so that each book costs less than €10 ($15). He turns down consulting contracts worth millions, a stance that lends him credibility when he says things like: “Quality of life doesn’t mean consuming more and more every day.” In the past, such a statement would have cost him his job.

Only in his final years as CEO of Metro, says Wiegandt, did he begin to have “this uncomfortable feeling” about the consequences of his growth strategy. He saw how his big-box stores threatened an old bazaar in Ankara, and how Western models of consumption swept away traditional cultures. In all the previous years, he says, he never thought about the consequences of his actions, and he did not even pay much attention to the Club of Rome report when it came out.

Scarce Resources

A full generation has passed since the publication of the Club of Rome study. The world has not collapsed, but it has changed. Since the Chinese, Indians and Russians have entered the market economy, the number of employed people worldwide has doubled, to about 3 billion. Vast new markets and low-wage production countries have developed, with serious consequences for the consumption of energy and water.

Oil consumption has increased by more than 25 percent since 1990, while the consumption of natural gas has grown by more than 50 percent. Fossil fuel production is becoming more and more difficult and costly.

The scarcity of water is even more serious. Global water use has doubled since 1950, and even as large segments of the world population lack adequate access to clean water, more and more water is being used in food production. For example, more than 1,000 liters of water are consumed to produce one kilogram (2.2 lbs.) of bread, while producing a kilo of beef uses up almost 16,000 liters of water.

The limits to growth are exemplified by the giant desalination plants between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, built to supply the new desert metropolises with water, by Vietnam’s hundreds of textile factories, where sewing machines hum day and night, and by the world’s largest coalfields in northern China, where fires blaze in the seams.

We have reached the point at which the Earth’s regeneration capacity is being stretched too thin. Theoretically, humanity today already needs 1.3 planets to maintain its lifestyle. If everyone were as wasteful as the Americas, five planets would be needed. To make matters worse, by 2050 the world’s population will have increased by 2 billion—people who will also need food, clothing and shelter. How is this even feasible?

The Contradictions of Growth

Given the Earth’s limited system, the economy clearly cannot grow indefinitely. From an ecological perspective, this is the fundamental contradiction within the logic of growth. But there is also another problem, a mathematical problem, as it were.

As economies mature, it automatically becomes more difficult for them to sustain their rates of growth. Essentially this is merely a question of mathematics, as a simple calculation serves to show.

The young Chinese market economy is expected to grow by about 8 percent this year. Because the standard of living in China is so low, however, this translates into $260 in per capita growth. On the other hand Germany, an established industrialized nation, would be more than pleased with 1 percent growth in crisis-ridden 2009.

To achieve this much growth in Germany, however, each and every citizen—in a population only one-16th the size of China’s—would have to produce an additional $447 worth of goods and services. In other words, the Germans need to make a tremendous effort to keep their economy growing. Does this mean that the growth rate is destined to decline to zero in the future, or perhaps even descend into negative figures?

New Innovations

Paul Welfens, an economist in the western German city of Wuppertal, considers this idea erroneous. He is convinced that “economic growth in Europe and worldwide can continue for centuries,” that is, for as long as the world continues to move, change and develop. And as long as competition continues to produce surprising innovations, like the shipping container, the computer, the satellite and the Internet.

Whenever people believed that humanity’s creativity had been exhausted once and for all, some groundbreaking new innovation emerged. These goods and services generate needs and desires, so that a saturation limit is never reached. This is the reason why companies, in order to survive, are constantly investing in new ideas. Progress is what allows the economy to grow to a practically unlimited extent.

And because the new and improved displaces the old and outdated in this productive process, manufacturers can usually charge higher prices for their innovations, thereby increasing GDP. The car manufacturer Daimler (DAI), for example, has charged more for each new model in its E Class series, because the new model always includes a qualitative improvement over the old model—features like airbags, ABS or, more recently, a warning system to combat driver fatigue.

Thus, growth does not stem solely from the fact that workers are producing more products, thereby increasing the volume of goods produced. Instead, the critical factor is the value of goods. This leads to an important realization: A growing economy does not necessarily need to consume more resources. In other words, our goal should not be to achieve less growth but better growth, and not to forego consumption but to improve the quality of that consumption.

Shifting Focus

A company like IBM (IBM) is an example of how this can work. IBM has radically changed its business, moving away from material products and the production of more and more powerful computers. Today, the company focuses on a non-material resource: knowledge. IBM has shifted its emphasis to consulting and IT services and, as a result, has seen its profits grow despite the economic crisis.

A less-is-more strategy also works on the national scale. German GDP has grown by close to a third since 1990. At the same time, however, the country’s energy consumption has declined by 7 percent. Cars are now more fuel-efficient, ships consume less heavy fuel oil and businesses use less electricity. However, one of the reasons Germany is in a relatively good position is that it has outsourced much of the dirtier aspects of its production to Eastern Europe or South-East Asia.

Of course, businesses and consumers have not changed their production and consumption behavior entirely on their own—government has given them a helping hand. To a certain degree, lawmakers can promote the desired kind of growth through the use of well-designed incentives.

For instance, they can require vehicle manufacturers to reduce average emissions to less than 120 grams of CO2 per kilometer driven, thereby stimulating the development of low-emission vehicles. Or they can attach suitable prices to a valuable resource like clean air which was previously available free of charge, by way of emissions trading—thereby forcing companies to invest in climate protection.

Better Recipes

The principle is clear: Resource consumption must be decoupled from growth. The respected US economist Paul Romer employs a kitchen metaphor to illustrate the concept. “Economic growth springs from better recipes,” he says, “not just from more cooking.”

This is effectively what representatives of the world’s governments will be discussing when they meet in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December. But the world is still a long way from this goal.

Emissions trading is still limited to Europe, and the system can only become fully effective once every country on Earth is included. The entire global economy still depends almost entirely on fossil fuels, as evidenced by the fact that seven of the world’s 10 biggest corporations are involved in the oil business. More importantly, most people probably couldn’t care less how their economies achieve growth, as long as the growth figures they see are in positive territory.

Wiesbaden economist Norbert Räth, at any rate, is amazed at the seemingly miraculous powers of the number he calculates each quarter. When he announced the most recent figure of 0.3 percent growth in GDP, which took many by surprise, politicians, business executives and academics promptly interpreted the number as clear evidence that Germany is now squarely on the road to recovery.

“We weren’t at all happy about that,” he says, sighing. He would feel more comfortable if his calculations were not used to support all kinds of different interpretations. “Growth is undoubtedly a central variable,” says Räth. “But it doesn’t explain everything.”

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

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09/22/2009 03:45 PM
Beyond GDP
Economists Search for New Definition of Well-Being
By SPIEGEL Staff

GDP may be an extremely useful economic indicator, but it ignores many factors important to the well-being of a society, such as health care or life expectancy. Economists like the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz are now trying to come up with a new, broader definition of prosperity.

It was an astonishing confession for a politician to make, particularly one like French President Nicolas Sarkozy. “The world over, citizens think we are lying to them,” the French president admitted last week to a stunned audience at the Sorbonne in Paris. “And they have reasons to think like that.”

Sarkozy was referring to the way in which government statistics measure economic growth. He believes that the current method is extremely questionable, perhaps even manipulative. This realization prompted the French president in 2008 to commission a number of prominent academics, including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, to come up with a new definition of prosperity.

“GDP has increasingly become used as a measure of societal well-being and changes in the structure of the economy and our society have made it an increasingly poor one,” Stiglitz told the news agency Bloomberg in a recent interview. “So many things that are important to individuals are not included in GDP.” In the model they unveiled last week in Paris, the academics recommend including other factors, such as sustainability and education.

Significant Shortcomings

Even the inventor of the gross domestic product measure, the late Russian-American economist Simon Kuznets, was aware that the classic method of computing GDP had significant shortcomings. “The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income,” he said in 1934.

This is because the growth rate says nothing about the distribution of wealth in a country, the state of health of its citizens or their life expectancy. The number provides no information about the cleanliness of rivers or the amount of air pollution. There is also no mention in the statistic of voluntary work or of domestic work like cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing — all things that are considered economically irrelevant.

When a nursing service attends to someone’s sick mother, the cost of that service is included in GDP. But if a daughter takes care of her sick mother, her work is not reflected in the GDP calculation. And when a mother nurses her baby, it may be beneficial for the child, but it would of course be more “valuable” economically if the mother bought milk and bottles for the baby in the supermarket.

The growth rate even increases when things are destroyed — that is, when natural disasters or wars plunge people into ruin — because construction firms and pharmaceutical companies profit from such events. In other words, the misfortunes of some create wealth for others.

Footprints and Backpacks

In the past few years, many academics have sought alternative definitions of wealth and have even come up with a few catchy metaphors. For instance, Swiss-born sustainability advocate Mathis Wackernagel devised the concept of the ecological footprint, according to which 2.1 hectares (5.2 acres) of arable ground are available for each human being. However, the average citizen’s consumption requires 2.7 hectares, while the average American needs close to 10 hectares to sustain his or her way of life.

The influential German environmental researcher Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek invented the concept of the invisible “ecological backpack” that everyone carries around. According to Schmidt-Bleek’s calculations, a bulldozer has to move about five tons of earth to produce a 10-gram gold wedding ring. From an environmental perspective, says Schmidt-Bleek, the gold ring on a husband’s finger weighs more “than the minivan he uses to take his children for a drive.”

Other researchers take a more conventional approach. Since 1996, the German Federal Statistical Office — which also computes the country’s GDP — has published comprehensive statistics regarding environmental issues related to the economy, which features 21 indicators ranging from species diversity to government debt. However the statisticians soon abandoned their original idea of expressing all the parameters in a single value. Even Sarkozy’s illustrious team has not produced a global formula, but rather a kind of instrument panel showing various parameters.

Not Better, Just Different

Very few researchers have been brave enough to attempt to synthesize the variables and compute a sort of green GDP. One of them is Heidelberg economist Hans Diefenbacher, who has developed a “national welfare index.”

Diefenbacher begins with private consumption, and then adds the value of domestic work and voluntary work. Then he deducts factors he considers harmful, such as the costs of polluting air and water, as well as the costs incurred by traffic accidents or resulting from crime. The outcome is expressed in the form of a curve, which has been declining relative to GDP since the beginning of the decade.

Of course, Diefenbacher concedes, the concept has its weaknesses. One is the difficulty involved in determining the costs of environmental damage or expressing the disappearance of a species in terms of euros and cents. Diefenbacher has also been accused of being arbitrary in his choice of which indicators to use. He defends his approach by saying: “Our calculation isn’t better, just different.”

In other words, there is no lack of ideas on how to define well-being. It is precisely because of the large number of possible approaches that the dominance of the classic growth concept is so hard to break. So far, at any rate, no alternative model has prevailed.

Diefenbacher also has no intention of eliminating the concept of GDP. For him, it would be enough if his index could attract a similar amount of attention — and if people became less obsessed with a single indicator.

YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
YOU say that the phones don’t work; the railways are a joke, The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.
YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.
YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it? Take a person on his way to Singapore. Give him a name…YOURS. Give him a face…YOURS.

YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds(Rs.650) a month to, “see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else.”
YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, “Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so’s son.
YOU wouldn’t chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand. Why don’t YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo? Why don’t YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston????? We are still talking of the same YOU.

YOU can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch the Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India?
Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal Commissioner of Bombay, Mr.Tinaikar, had a point to make. “Rich people’s dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place,” he said. “And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels?

In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here?” He’s right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pickup a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.

We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff that is known not to pass on the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry,girl child and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? “It’s the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my son’s rights to a dowry.

” So who’s going to change the system? What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and The government. But definitely not me and YOU.When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr. Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away.

Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. – When New York becomes insecure we run to England.
When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. – When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Dear Indians, the article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one’s conscience too?..
I am echoing J.F. Kennedy’s words to his fellow American to relate to Indians?. “ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY” Let’s do what India needs from us.

A train station is where a train stops.

On my desk, I have a work station….
what more can I say………

All wise men got puzzled by King’s question. One answer for all questions? Something that works everywhere, in every situation? In every joy, every sorrow, every defeat and every victory? They thought and thought. After a lengthy discussion, an old man suggested something which appealed to all of them. They went to the king and gave him something written on paper. But the condition was that king was not to see it out of curiosity. Only in extreme danger, when the King finds himself alone and there seems to be no way, only then he’ll have to see it. The King put the papers under his Diamond ring.

After a few days, the neighbors attacked the Kingdom. It was a collective surprise attack of the King’s enemies. King and his army fought bravely but lost the battle. King had to fled on his horse. The enemies were following him. His horse took him far away in the Jungle.

He could hear many troops of horses following him and the noise was coming closer and closer. Suddenly the King found himself standing at the end of the road – that road was not going anywhere. Underneath there was a rocky valley thousand feet deep. If he jumped into it, he would be finished…and he could not return because it was a small road… The sound of enemy’s horses was approaching fast. King became restless. There seemed to be no way.

Then suddenly he saw the Diamond in his ring shining in the sun, and he remembered the message hidden in the ring. He opened the diamond and read the message. The message was very small but very great.

The message was – ” This too will pass.”

The King read it. Again read it. Suddenly something struck him- Yes! It too will pass. Only a few days ago, I was enjoying my kingdom. I was the mightiest of all the Kings. Yet today, the Kingdom and all his pleasure have gone. I am here trying to escape from enemies. However when those days of luxuries have gone, this day of danger too will pass. Calm come on his face. He kept standing there. The place where he was standing was full of natural beauty.. He had never known that such a beautiful place was also a part of his Kingdom. The revelation of the message had a great effect on him. He relaxed and forgot about those following him. After a few minutes he realized that the noise of the horses and the enemy coming was receding. They moved into some other part of the mountains and were not on that path.

The King was very brave. He reorganized his army and fought again. He defeated the enemy and regained his lost empire. When he returned to his empire after victory, he was received with much fan fare at the door. The whole capital was rejoicing in the victory. Everyone was in a festive mood. Flowers were being thrown on the King from every house, from every corner. People were dancing and singing. For a moment King said to himself,” I am one of the bravest and greatest King. It is not easy to defeat me..: With all the reception and celebration he saw an ego emerging in him.

Suddenly the Diamond of his ring flashed in the sunlight and reminded him of the message. He open it and read it again: “This too will pass.” He became silent. His face went through a total change -from the egoist he moved to a state of utter humbleness.

If this too is going to pass, it is not yours. The defeat was not yours, the victory is not yours. You are just a watcher. Everything passes by. We are witness of all this. We are the perceiver. Life comes and goes. Happiness comes and goes. Sorrow comes and goes. Now as you have read this story, just sit silently and evaluate your own life.. Think of the moments of joy and victory in your life. Think of the moment of Sorrow and defeat. Are they permanent? They all come and pass away. Life just passes away.

There is nothing permanent in this world. Every thing changes except the law of change. Think over it from your own perspective. You have seen all the changes. You have survived all setbacks, all defeats and all sorrows. All have passed away. If there are problems in the present, they too will pass away. Because nothing remains forever. Joy and sorrow are the two faces of the same coin. They both will pass away..

Who are you in reality? Know your real face. Your face is not your true face. It will change with the time. However, there is something in you, which will not change. It will remain unchanged. What is that unchangeable? It is nothing but your true self.

The disciple walked up to the lake. When he reached it, he noticed that right at that moment, a bullock cart started crossing through the lake. As a result, the water became very muddy, very turbid. The disciple thought, “How can I give this muddy water to Buddha to drink!”

So he came back and told Buddha, “The water in there is very muddy. I don’t think it is fit to drink.” After about half an hour, again Buddha asked the same
disciple to go back to the lake and get him some water to drink. The disciple obediently went back to the lake.

This time too he found that the lake was muddy. He returned and informed Buddha about the same. After sometime, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go back.

The disciple reached the lake to find the lake absolutely clean and clear with pure water in it. The mud had settled down and the water above it looked fit to be had. So he collected some water in a pot and brought it to Buddha.

Buddha looked at the water, and then he looked up at the disciple and said,” See what you did to make the water clean. You let it be…. and the mud settled down on its own – and you got clear water.

Your mind is also like that! When it is disturbed, just let it be. Give it a little time. It will settle down on its own. You don’t have to put in any effort to calm it down. It will happen. It is effortless.” What did Buddha emphasize here? He said, “It is effortless.” Having ‘Peace of Mind’ is not a strenuous job; it is an effortless process!

In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why are we so NEGATIVE? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? We want foreign T. Vs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology.

Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied: I want to live in a developed India . For her, you and I will have to build this developed India . You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation. Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with a vengeance.

Got 10 minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is yours.
YOU say that our government is inefficient. YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage. YOU say that the phones don’t work, the railways are a joke, The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.
YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.

YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it? Take a person on his way to Singapore . Give him a name – YOURS. Give him a face – YOURS. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International
best. In Singapore you don’t throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs. 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU come back to the
parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity… In Singapore you don’t say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn’t dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds ( Rs.650) a month to, ‘see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else.’YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop,
‘Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so’s son.
Take your two bucks and get lost.’ YOU wouldn’t chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand . Why don’t YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo? Why don’t YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston ??? We are still
talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you
be the same here in India ?

Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay, Mr. Tinaikar, had a point to make. ‘Rich people’s dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place,’ he said. ‘And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels?
In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan . Will the Indian citizen do that here?’ He’s right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of
paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.

We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child! and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? ‘It’s the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my
sons’ rights to a dowry.’ So who’s going to change the system? What does a system consist of ? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr.Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a
majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England . When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out
to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one’s conscience too…. I am echoing J. F. Kennedy’s words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians…..

‘ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA
WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY’

Lets do what India needs from us.

He said, “Please excuse me too;
I wasn’t watching for you.”

We were very polite, this stranger and I.
We went on our way and we said goodbye.

But at home a different story is told,
How we treat our loved ones, young and old.

Later that day, cooking the evening meal,
My son stood beside me very still.

When I turned, I nearly knocked him down.
“Move out of the way,” I said with a frown.

He walked away, his little heart broken.
I didn’t realize how harshly I’d spoken.

While I lay awake in bed,
God’s still small voice came to me and said,

“While dealing with a stranger,
common courtesy you use,
but the family you love, you seem to abuse.

Go and look on the kitchen floor,
You’ll find some flowers there by the door.

Those are the flowers he brought for you.
He picked them himself: pink, yellow and blue.

He stood very quietly not to spoil the surprise,
you never saw the tears that filled his little eyes.”

By this time, I felt very small,
And now my tears began to fall.

I quietly went and knelt by his bed;
“Wake up, little one, wake up,” I said.

“Are these the flowers you picked for me?”
He smiled, “I found ‘em, out by the tree.

I picked ‘em because they’re pretty like you.
I knew you’d like ‘em, especially the blue.”

I said, “Son, I’m very sorry for the way I acted today;
I shouldn’t have yelled at you that way.”
He said, “Oh, Mom, that’s okay.
I love you anyway.”

I said, “Son, I love you too,
and I do like the flowers, especially the blue.”

FAMILY
Are you aware that if we died tomorrow, the company
that we are working for could easily replace us in
a matter of days.
But the family we left behind will feel the loss
for the rest of their lives.

And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more
into work than into our own family,
an unwise investment indeed,
don’t you think?
So what is behind the story?

Do you know what the word FAMILY means?
FAMILY = (F)ATHER (A)ND (M)OTHER (I) (L)OVE (Y)OU

Pass this message to 7 people except you and me .

You will receive a miracle tomorrow.
Don’t ignore and God will bless you