Making Sandcastles In Life

Hot sun. Salty air. Rhythmic waves.

A little boy is on his knees scooping and packing the sand with plastic shovels into a bright blue bucket. Then he upends the bucket on the surface and lifts it. And, to the delight of the little architect, a castle tower is created.

All afternoon he will work. Spooning out the moat. Packing the walls. Bottle tops will be sentries. Popsicle sticks will be bridges. A sandcastle will be built.

Big city. Busy streets. Rumbling traffic.

A man is in his office. At his desk he shuffles papers into stacks and delegates assignments. He cradles the phone on his shoulder and punches the keyboard with his fingers. Numbers are juggled and contracts are signed and much to the delight of the man, a profit is made.

All his life he will work. Formulating the plans. Forecasting the future. Annuities will be sentries. Capital gains will be bridges. An empire will be built.

Two builders of two castles. They have much in common. They shape granules into grandeurs. They see nothing and make something. They are diligent and determined. And for both the tide will rise and the end will come.

Yet that is where the similarities cease. For the boy sees the end while the man ignores it. Watch the boy as the dusk approaches.

As the waves near, the wise child jumps to his feet and begins to clap. There is no sorrow. No fear. No regret. He knew this would happen. He is not surprised. And when the great breaker crashes into his castle and his masterpiece is sucked into the sea, he smiles. He smiles, picks up his tools, takes his father's hand, and goes home.

The grownup, however, is not so wise. As the wave of years collapses on his castle he is terrified. He hovers over the sandy monument to protect it. He blocks the waves from the walls he has made. Salt-water soaked and shivering he snarls at the incoming tide.

"It's my castle," he defies.

The ocean need not respond. Both know to whom the sand belongs...

I don't know much about sandcastles. But children do. Watch them and learn. Go ahead and build, but build with a child's heart. When the sun sets and the tides take away your sand castles- applaud the sheer natureness. Salute the process of life and go home.

Jerry - The Ever Positive Guy

Jerry was the kind of guy who was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When some one would ask him how is he doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”.

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator.

If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went upto Jerry and asked him, “ I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”

Jerry replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, ‘Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.’ I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.

Every time some one comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaint or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.” “yeah, right, its not that easy,” I protested.

“Yes, it is” Jerry said. Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood.

If By Rudyard Kipling

Check this poem out by Rudyard Kipling...quite an inspirational one and good one to have a look at when in doubt or dilemma...almost a breathtaking one for me...read for letting loose the right rhythm of maintaining the state of bliss and balance...


If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Seeing Is Believing - Courtesy Polar Express

After a long time had a great feeling on seeing a movie,named Polar Express. The story is about a boy who happened to believe that Santa Claus does not exist. And at the end of the movie, he does believe that the Santa Claus do exist. Now there was nothing new to the theme, what mattered most was the sequence of incidents that he encounters which makes him believe the so called myth.

There had been times aplenty in everybody's life, I guess, that we do not believe in something to happen. We go on thinking that our thinking would never materialize or see the daylight. There are a couple of dialogues which I would like to mention here. One was "Seeing is believing" i.e.what we see is what we believe. And the other was "No matter what train you get into, what matters is that you go on".

Quite simple and sweet. It doesn't matter what or how life makes us to ride itself, what matters is we move on..we move on to see the end of the road, we move on to see the end of our destined journey. And if we can see or believe that something will happen, chances are that we would see our belief happening in front of our eyes. Well, its just requires a small firm stance inside our core, to say that "I BELIEVE IN MY BELIEF"