ARE YOU DAUNTED BY FAILURES?

Sometimes failures daunt us so badly in our life that we falter and give up on our dreams. History is replete with stories of failures who overcame their defeats and ultimately achieve the impossible and became famous. To be specific, Leonardo da Vinci,Pablo Picasso,Rabindranath Tagore,Thomas Edison,Alexander Graham Bell,Tom Cruise,Walt Disney,Winston Churchill,Agatha Christie,John Lennon,Amitabh Bachchan,Albert Einstein and so on succeeded despite their repeated failures in their chosen fields.

This is a comment written by me in Melanie Statnick's blog RABBIT HOLE ART in her post under the heading CURSED CANVAS. Melanie is a Mixed Media Artist from Canada residing in North Carolina. She is an exceptionally gifted,self made artist who is also a wonderful writer. I am always thrilled to visit her blog because every time I visit I learn something new and feel rejuvenated. PLEASE CHECK OUT BY VISITING HER LOVELY BLOG BY CLICKING HERE.
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I agree art needs inspiration and sometimes even an artist of great experience finds it difficult to get that inspiration at crucial times. You have indeed put in a lot of hard work which I think is very extraordinary work and yet the end result did not match your high expectations. No doubt you have set very high standards for your self. To me what you have achieved is fabulous and praise worthy and worthy of appreciation. Sometimes we undertake ventures with great expectations and put in our heart and soul into it only to find our sweat and effort gone in vain. But this is how really great achievements are made possible. Failure is the stepping stone to success and more the number of failures more solid will future success be because we learn so much from each failures. It is not the number of times we fall down that matters but our capacity to get up and keep going that leads to success.

I appreciate your son's gesture. It is always the child who is the first to applaud mom's work at all times just as the mom is there for the child at all times.

TO CHANGE OR NOT TO CHANGE

Change is the only permanent thing in life. We learnt so many things in the past but many of the things that we learnt have become obsolete and not useful now. Now it has become necessary for us to unlearn many things and learn many things to get on in this ever changing world. New methods, new techniques, new gadgets, new ways are coming into existence and sometimes we find it difficult to cope with the situation. But change we must if we have to survive. This is a comment written by me in KAY’s blog MUSINGS under the heading SHOULD WE REALLY TAKE CURSIVE OUT OF THE CURRICULUM? Please visit Kay and check out her lovely blog by clicking HERE.
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In India, exams are written on paper which includes long answers, essays, compositions and so on. If the hand writing is good there is a chance of getting good marks because the papers will be easy to value. If the writing is bad the person evaluating the paper will not bother to read and therefore the chances of getting good marks even for a good answer is less.Besides, I understand cursive writing helps in developing certain parts of the brain.

Having said this, we should also understand times are changing and changing rapidly. Most of the children are sitting with a computer either browsing or playing games and their typing skills are excellent. Good jobs these days require excellent computer and typing proficiency. Since we are moving forward to a faster and faster world many old things which we thought important will be given up and new methods will take their place.

FEARS AND PHOBIAS OF OUR LIVES

Dr. Spencer Johnson in his book WHO MOVED MY CHEESE? says WHEN YOU MOVE BEYOND THE REALMS OF FEAR THE POSSIBLITIES OF ACHIEVEMENT ARE LIMITLESS

On Sunday, when I went to the church there was no rain. When the mass was over and I was about to leave the Church the rain started. I sat inside the Church for sometime. The rain was not stopping. I was getting impatient. Suddenly I made up my mind to walk in the rain. I hesitated at first. Then I thought when I was young I had no fear of the rain. Now I am afraid of getting wet. Why? What will happen if I get wet in the rain? Nothing. So I walked out. At first I got wet on my head and soon I got drenched and soaked through and through. I walked slowly with deliberate steps and thoroughly enjoyed the walk. When I reached home I wiped myself dry, made a steaming cup of tea, booted my laptop and thought of sharing this message with you.

NOTHING HAPPENED TO ME. I OVERCAME THE FEAR OF GETTING WET AND IN THE PROCESS I ENJOYED THE LIBERATING FEELING . HOW MANY FEARS AND PHOBIAS I HAVE ACCUMULATED IN MY LIFE’S JOURNEY?

STEPHEN HAWKING AND HIS PREPOSTEROUS THEORIES ABOUT GOD AND HEAVEN

I am not vilifying Hawking. He is one the few people who is looking for a short cut to fame and fortune. After all what he is propounding is only a theory and not a fact. Heaven is for the soul and not for the physical body. A man with a physical body with a limited brain cannot see heaven. God's ways are inscrutable. When man thinks he has reached one boundary another boundary appears. There is no limit to knowledge. There is a famous saying in Tamil language --- What we know is only a handful and what we don't know is as much as the universe. If Hawking thinks he knows everything there is to know and the collective wisdom of mankind from early stages of life is false, then his theories are preposterous He is misleading youngsters who have no proper grounding in religious faith and turning them away from God.

Hawking is an Atheist. It is not easy to convince an Atheist. He doesn't know that we have a physical body that is corruptible and a soul which is incorruptible. It is the soul which goes to heaven or hell depending upon what we do here.

Stephen wants to see heaven with his physical body which is not possible. He must die to see heaven or hell. I am sure he will go to hell because as I said he has sold his soul for the sake of earthly fame to satan who is just waiting in the corner to carry his soul to hell. He will also be doubly punished for misusing his position as an eminent scientist and misleading people by his preposterous views. We should pray for this man.

Any one who wants to understand Stephen Hawking should first read and understand Christopher Marlowe's book Dr. Faustus first published in 1604.

Stephen has sold his soul to the devil for fame.

TWISTS AND TURNS OF LIFE

I have come across many twists and turns in my life. When it appears that my life is going smoothly, when I feel I am the high road to success, when everything appears to be calm and peaceful, when I am enjoying the blue sky and the lovely sun shine, when I think everything is bright and beautiful and I am in a state of everlasting bliss, all of a sudden something happens to throw my life out of gear and a fear slowly spreads all over me paralyzing my movement, my thinking and my entire body. I feel my world has come crashing down and I don’t know how to face the situation, where to go or how to solve the problem faced by me.

It could happen to anyone. It could be that some one close to us has passed away, a loss of a job, a serious sickness in the family or self, a serious misunderstanding among the family members, a debt which cannot be paid, the electricity meter in the house getting burned on account of overload, a customer canceling a big order and so on.

We wonder why this has happened to us and not to others, what serious crime have we done for this calamity to befall us, in what way we deserve this punishment. We think and think and think and grope in the dark. We don’t get any answer for days and days. Finally the calamity sinks in us and we accept the situation we are in. It is only then we try to look for a solution. We try desperate measures to extricate ourselves from the situation we are in. We pray hard to God to show us a way out. After a long and painful wait we get an answer like a bolt from the blue to overcome the supposedly insurmountable situation. Even then it takes a lot of will power, hard work, determination and sacrifice to extricate ourselves from the difficulty.

Once again we get back the spring in our steps, the sun starts shining, we can see the blue sky, the birds starts singing and every thing looks wonderful.

I suppose such ups and downs, trials and tribulations are part and parcel of our life and there is absolutely no need to panic when we are unknowingly sucked into the vortex of a calamity. We will always find a way out. Perhaps life would not be so interesting, exciting with so many adventures and challenges if we had a smooth ride and faced no difficulty at all.

EVERY PROBLEM HAS AN INBUILT SOLUTION. IT IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO TEST OUR TALENTS AND OUR FAITH IN GOD AND OURSELVES.

VIOLENCE BEGETS VIOLENCE

Violence begets violence. This is a simple, pure, unadultrated fact of life.

Yet we find at different times in the history of the world violent people terrorizing mankind and wantonly killing innocent people and destroying property. They have all met a violent death in the end.

The free world which wants to live in peace and harmony will ultimately catch up with the murderers and give them a befitting punishment. The vast majority of the people in the world shun violence and they have to be protected from demented, cruel, murderous, inhuman people who constitute an insignificant minority.

Appeasing evil doers will only go to encourage and motivate them to do more and more despicable acts. A thorn can be taken out only by a thorn and any amount of cajoling, persuasion and incentives will not produce the desired results. It will only be misread as a sign of weakness.

In any case those who take the sword will die by the sword. This happened to Hitler, Mussolini, Maximilien Robespierre and many other evil men who stalked the world unleashing violence and perpetrating mindless murders.

Peaceful people should always expect a violent man to come on the scene at some time or the other and it is the duly of all peace loving nations to nip violence in the bud.

Sometimes the leadership of a nation is violent and they encourage, sponsor, train and arm terrorists and sent them to other countries to cause havoc. Then it is the duty of United Nations to step in keeping aside their narrow national interests, take strong punitive measures and ensure that the evil leadership is removed without much loss of time.

What is your view on terrorism and terrorists?

WHO CAN AFFORD TO KILL TIME? A COMMENT AND AN AWARD

This is a comment written by me in RAMA’S blog- TIME, TIME ….. I HAVE ALL THE TIME.
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Time plays a great role depending on the age of a person. I will definitely not like a youngster to waste time. When a person is young and embarking on a career, time is very important. Time is precious. For such persons there is a saying DON'T KILL TIME, TIME WILL KILL YOU.

Youngsters who squander away their time without proper planning will end up being failures in life. Any achievement is the result of proper utilization of time. There is also a saying TIME AND TIDE WAITS FOR NO BODY. Let it be the king and queen, president and prime minister or a beggar on the road – all have only 24 hours in a day. No more no less. How effectively this given time is used will go a long way in determining the success or failure of a person.

At our age when we have accomplished many things in life and can look with some satisfaction upon the fact that we have done fairly well, fulfilled our duties and responsibilities we are entitled to take it easy and enjoy our life without worrying about wasting time. At this age even if we idle away our time doing nothing but staring vacantly or recalling the past incidents in our life which gave us joy or sadness is well spent and we need not regret or feel guilty about it.

The fact still remains TIME WILL ULTIMATELY CATCH UP WITH US. WE CANNOT ESCAPE TIME.TIME IS DEADLY. After all THE TIME THAT WE HAVE IN THIS WORLD IS LIMITED. We have to make the best use of it in living a satisfied and fulfilled life without any regrets or remorse.


Rama is a widely traveled person, a gifted writer, aerobics instructor and a reiki master.Please visit her blog by clicking HERE

Rama has honored me with this beautiful award.
I am passing on this lovely award to the following wonderful blog friends who are extraordinary writers and fantastic friends. Please visit them by clicking on their names.

YVONNE LEWIS

AMRITA

LINNEA COE

KRISHNA

THOMAS C.B.CHUA

NICHOLAS

My hearty congratulations to all the awardees and I request them to post the award in their blog and pass it on to as many of their friends as possible.