What you give comes back to you

 

This is a true story that had happened in 1892 at Stanford University . Its moral will always be relevant.

A young, 18-year-old student was struggling to pay his fees. He was an orphan, and not know­ing where to turn for money, he came up with a bright idea. A friend and he decided to host a musical concert on campus to raise money for their education.

They reached out to  the great pianist Ignacy J. Paderewski. His manager demanded a guaranteed fee of $2000 for the piano recital. A deal was struck. And the boys began to work to make the concert a success.

The big day arrived. Paderewski performed at Stanford. But unfortunately, they had not managed to sell enough tickets. The total col­lection was only $1600. Disappointed, they went to Paderewski and explained their plight. They gave him the entire $1600, plus a cheque for the balance $400. They promised to honour the cheque soonest possible.

"No." said Paderewski. "This is not acceptable." He tore up the cheque, returned the $1600 and told the two boys "Here's the $1600. Please deduct whatever expenses you have incurred. Keep the money you need for your fees. And just give me whatever is left" The boys were surprised, and thanked him profusely.

It was a small act of kindness. But it clearly marked out Paderewski as a great human being. Why should he help two people he did not even know? We all come across situations like these in our lives. And most of us only think "If I help them, what would hap­pen to me?" The truly great people think, "If I don't help them, what will happen to them?" They don't do it expecting something in return. They do it because they feel it's the right thing to do.

Paderewski later went on to become the Prime Minister of Poland . He was a great leader, but unfortunately when the World War began, Poland was ravaged. There were over 1.5 mil­lion people starving in his country, and no money to feed them. Paderewski did not know where to turn for help. He reached out to the US Food and Relief Administration for help.

The head there was a man called Herbert Hoover - who later went on to become the US President. Hoover agreed to help and quickly shipped tons of food grains to feed the starving Polish people. A calamity was averted.

Paderewski was relieved. He decided to go across to meet Hoover and personally thank him. When Paderewski began to thank Hoover for his noble gesture, Hoover quickly interjected and said, "You shouldn't be thanking me Mr. Prime Minister. You may not remember this, but several years ago, you helped two young students go through college in the US . I was one of them."

The world is a wonderful place. What goes around comes around ! Sometimes we notice it, sometimes we don't.

Parents

An 80 year old man was sitting on the sofa in his house along with his 45 years old highly educated son. Suddenly a crow perched on their window.The Father asked his Son, "What is this?" The Son replied "It is a crow".

After a few minutes, the Father asked his Son the 2nd time, "What is this?" The Son said "Father, I have just now told you "It's a crow". After a little while, the old Father again asked his Son the 3rd time,What is this?" At this time some expression of irritation was felt in the Son's tone when he said to his Father with a rebuff. "It's a crow, a crow". A little after, the Father again asked his Son t he 4th time, "What is this?" This time the Son shouted at his Father, "Why do you keep asking me the same question again and again, although I have told you so many times 'IT IS A CROW'. Are you not able to understand this?"

A little later the Father went to his room and came back with an old tattered diary, which he had maintained since his Son was born. On opening a page, he asked his Son to read that page. When the son read it, the following words were written in the diary :-"Today my little son aged three was sitting with me on the sofa, when a crow was sitting on the window. My Son asked me 23 times what it was, and I replied to him all 23 times that it was a Crow. I hugged him lovingly each time h e asked me the same question again and again for 23 times. I did not at all feel irritated I rather felt affection for my innocent child".While the little child asked him 23 times  "What is this",  the Father  had felt  no irritation  in replying to the same question all 23 times and
when today the Father asked his Son the same question just 4 times, the Son felt irritated and annoyed.

So..

If your parents attain old age, do not repulse them or look at them as a burden, but speak to them a gracious word, be cool, obedient, humble and kind to them. Be considerate to your parents.From today say this aloud,"I want to see my parents happy forever. They have cared for me ever since I was a little child. They have always showered their selfless love on me. They crossed all mountains and valleys without seeing the storm and heat to make me a person presentable in the society today". Say a prayer to God, "I will serve my old parents in the BEST way. I will say all good and kind words to my dear parents, no matter how they behave.

Set your objectives and grow

It is almost impossible to be successful, or to learn, or to get promoted if you don’t set objectives in life. An objective is a simple one sentence mission statement that can be reasonably achieved within an expected timeframe and with available resources. 

Like we define objectives for our personal life the same should be defined for our work life as well. Specific objectives should be defined like, “I want to learn this new technology in next 3 months”, “I want to learn making ppt in next one week” etc. These time-framed objectives will set your thoughts, actions, energy towards achieving it. Which will help you to learn and grow in your professional life. If you have an objective of becoming the vice president your company then work towards it. How much knowledge, experience, communication, relations you have to build up to achieve your objective. Go through introspection as what qualities do you posses, where you lack and what all skills, learning you need to acquire. 

In another context, suppose you have to give a presentation on marketing intelligence for a new product development. There may be many deviation during the presentation like, people may try to pull you down, try to disturb your focus by asking irrelevant questions or some other way. You just need to focus on your objective of giving a certain message across and forget the rest. Apart from this there would be many situations at workplace where you need to set objectives and goal of your work and achieve them despite getting lots of unfavorable circumstances.

So, set your objective, conquer and grow in your personal as well as professional life.

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