The Blind Passenger – A Touching Love Story Of Susan And Mark

The passengers on the bus watched sympathetically as the attractive young woman with the white cane made her way carefully up the steps. She paid the driver, using her hands to feel the location of the seats, walked down the aisle and found the seat he’d told her was empty. Then she settled in, placed her briefcase on her lap and rested her cane against her leg.

It had been a year since Susan, thirty-four, became blind. Due to a medical misdiagnosis, she had been rendered sightless, and she was suddenly thrown into a world of darkness, anger, frustration and self-pity. Once a fiercely independent woman, Susan now felt condemned by this terrible twist of fate to become a powerless and helpless burden on everyone around her.

“How could this have happened to me?” she would plead, her heart knotted with anger, but no matter how much she cried, protested, ranted or prayed, she knew the painful truth that her sight was never going to return. A cloud of depression hung over Susan’s once optimistic spirit. Just getting through each day was an exercise in frustration and exhaustion. And all she had to cling to was her husband Mark.

Mark was an Air Forces officer and he loved Susan with all of his heart. When she first lost her sight, he watched her sink into despair and was determined to help his wife gain the strength and confidence she needed to become independent again. Mark’s military background had trained him well to deal with such sensitive situations, and yet he knew this was the most difficult battle he would ever face.

Finally, Susan felt ready to return to her job, but how would she get there? She used to take the bus, but was now too frightened to get around the city by herself. Mark volunteered to drive her to and from work each day, even though they worked at opposite ends of the city.

At first, this comforted Susan and fulfilled Mark’s need to protect his sightless wife who was so insecure about performing the slightest task. Soon, however, Mark realized that this arrangement wasn’t working, it was hectic and costly. ‘Susan is going to have to start taking the bus again‘ he admitted to himself, but just the thought of mentioning it to her made him cringe, she was still so fragile and so angry. ‘How would she react?‘ he admitted to himself again.

Just as Mark predicted, Susan was horrified at the idea of taking the bus again. “I’m blind!” she responded bitterly “How am I supposed to know where I’m going? I feel like you’re abandoning me”. Mark’s heart broke to hear these words, but he knew what had to be done. He promised Susan that each morning and evening he would ride the bus with her, for as long as it took, until she got the hang of it. And that is exactly what happened.

For two solid weeks, Mark, military uniform and all, accompanied Susan to and from work each day. He taught her how to rely on her other senses specifically her hearing, how to determine where she was and how to adapt to her new environment.

He helped her befriend the bus drivers who could watch out for her, and save her a seat. He made her laugh, even on those not-so-good days when she would trip exiting the bus, or drop her briefcase. Each morning they made the journey together, and Mark would take a cab back to his office. Although this routine was even more costly and exhausting than the previous one, Mark knew it was only a matter of time before Susan would be able to ride the bus on her own.He believed in her, he used to know before she’d lost her sight, who wasn’t afraid of any challenge and who would never, ever quit.

Finally, Susan decided that she was ready to try the trip on her own. Monday morning arrived, and before she left, she threw her arms around Mark, her temporary bus riding companion, her husband and her best friend. Her eyes filled with tears of gratitude for his loyalty, his sincerity, his patience and his love. She said good-bye, and for the first time, they went their separate ways. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, each day on her own went perfectly, and Susan had never felt better. She was doing it and she was going to work all by herself.

On Friday morning, Susan took the bus to work as usual. As she was paying for her fare to exit the bus, the driver said “Boy, I sure envy you” Susan wasn’t sure if the driver was speaking to her or not. After all, who on earth would ever envy a blind woman who had struggled just to find the courage to live for the past year? Curiously, she asked him “Why do you say that you envy me?” The driver responded “It must feel so good to be taken care of and protected like you are”.

Susan had no idea what the driver was talking about, she asked him again “What do you mean?”. The driver answered, “You know, every morning for the past week, a fine looking gentleman in a military uniform has been standing across the corner watching you when you get off the bus. He makes sure you cross the street safely and he watches you until you enter your office building. Then he blows you a kiss, gives you a little salute and walks away. You are one lucky lady”.

Tears of happiness poured down Susan’s cheeks. For although she couldn’t physically see him, she had always felt Mark’s presence. She was fortunate, so fortunate, for he had given her a gift more powerful than sight, a gift she didn’t need to see to believe, the gift of love that can bring light where there had been darkness. You don’t love a woman because she is beautiful, but she is beautiful because you love her.

God watches over us in just the same way. We may not know His presence, and we may not be able to see His blessed face, but He is there nonetheless!

What Really Matters in Life? | Mexican Fisherman meets Harvard MBA

A vacationing American businessman standing on the pier of a quaint coastal fishing village in southern Mexico watched as a small boat with just one young Mexican fisherman pulled into the dock. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. Enjoying the warmth of the early afternoon sun, the American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.

“How long did it take you to catch them?” the American casually asked.

“Oh, a few hours,” the Mexican fisherman replied.

“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American businessman then asked.

The Mexican warmly replied, “With this I have more than enough to support my family’s needs.”

The businessman then became serious, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

Responding with a smile, the Mexican fisherman answered, “I sleep late, play with my children, watch ballgames, and take siesta with my wife. Sometimes in the evenings I take a stroll into the village to see my friends, play the guitar, sing a few songs…”

The American businessman impatiently interrupted, “Look, I have an MBA from Harvard, and I can help you to be more profitable. You can start by fishing several hours longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra money, you can buy a bigger boat. With the additional income that larger boat will bring, before long you can buy a second boat, then a third one, and so on, until you have an entire fleet of fishing boats.”

Proud of his own sharp thinking, he excitedly elaborated a grand scheme which could bring even bigger profits, “Then, instead of selling your catch to a middleman you’ll be able to sell your fish directly to the processor, or even open your own cannery. Eventually, you could control the product, processing and distribution. You could leave this tiny coastal village and move to Mexico City, or possibly even Los Angeles or New York City, where you could even further expand your enterprise.”

Having never thought of such things, the Mexican fisherman asked, “But how long will all this take?”

After a rapid mental calculation, the Harvard MBA pronounced, “Probably about 15-20 years, maybe less if you work really hard.”

“And then what, señor?” asked the fisherman.

“Why, that’s the best part!” answered the businessman with a laugh. “When the time is right, you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.”

“Millions? Really? What would I do with it all?” asked the young fisherman in disbelief.

The businessman boasted, “Then you could happily retire with all the money you’ve made. You could move to a quaint coastal fishing village where you could sleep late, play with your grandchildren, watch ballgames, and take siesta with your wife. You could stroll to the village in the evenings where you could play the guitar and sing with your friends all you want.”

“Señor, isn’t that what I am doing now?”

Epigrams by Leonardo da Vinci

"Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgement will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen."

"Experience does not err. Only your judgements err by expecting from her what is not in her power."

"He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards the ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast."

"It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things."

"Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel."

"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory."

"For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

"While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die."

"You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand."

"He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year."

"One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself."

"Shun those studies in which the work that results dies with the worker."

"As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death."

I am an African

( by Thabo Mbeki )

 

Chairperson,
Esteemed President of the democratic Republic,
Honourable Members of the Constitutional Assembly,
Our distinguished domestic and foreign guests,
Friends,

 

On an occasion such as this, we should, perhaps, start from the beginning.

So, let me begin.

I am an African.

I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land.

My body has frozen in our frosts and in our latter day snows. It has thawed in the warmth of our sunshine and melted in the heat of the midday sun. The crack and the rumble of the summer thunders, lashed by startling lightening, have been a cause both of trembling and of hope.

The fragrances of nature have been as pleasant to us as the sight of the wild blooms of the citizens of the veld.
The dramatic shapes of the Drakensberg, the soil-coloured waters of the Lekoa, iGqili noThukela, and the sands of the Kgalagadi, have all been panels of the set on the natural stage on which we act out the foolish deeds of the theatre of our day.

At times, and in fear, I have wondered whether I should concede equal citizenship of our country to the leopard and the lion, the elephant and the springbok, the hyena, the black mamba and the pestilential mosquito.
A human presence among all these, a feature on the face of our native land thus defined, I know that none dare challenge me when I say - I am an African!

I owe my being to the Khoi and the San whose desolate souls haunt the great expanses of the beautiful Cape - they who fell victim to the most merciless genocide our native land has ever seen, they who were the first to lose their lives in the struggle to defend our freedom and dependence and they who, as a people, perished in the result.

Today, as a country, we keep an audible silence about these ancestors of the generations that live, fearful to admit the horror of a former deed, seeking to obliterate from our memories a cruel occurrence which, in its remembering, should teach us not and never to be inhuman again.

I am formed of the migrants who left Europe to find a new home on our native land. Whatever their own actions, they remain still, part of me.

In my veins courses the blood of the Malay slaves who came from the East. Their proud dignity informs my bearing, their culture a part of my essence. The stripes they bore on their bodies from the lash of the slave master are a reminder embossed on my consciousness of what should not be done.

I am the grandchild of the warrior men and women that Hintsa and Sekhukhune led, the patriots that Cetshwayo and Mphephu took to battle, the soldiers Moshoeshoe and Ngungunyane taught never to dishonour the cause of freedom.

My mind and my knowledge of myself is formed by the victories that are the jewels in our African crown, the victories we earned from Isandhlwana to Khartoum, as Ethiopians and as the Ashanti of Ghana, as the Berbers of the desert.

I am the grandchild who lays fresh flowers on the Boer graves at St Helena and the Bahamas, who sees in the mind's eye and suffers the suffering of a simple peasant folk, death, concentration camps, destroyed homesteads, a dream in ruins.

I am the child of Nongqause. I am he who made it possible to trade in the world markets in diamonds, in gold, in the same food for which my stomach yearns.

I come of those who were transported from India and China, whose being resided in the fact, solely, that they were able to provide physical labour, who taught me that we could both be at home and be foreign, who taught me that human existence itself demanded that freedom was a necessary condition for that human existence.
Being part of all these people, and in the knowledge that none dare contest that assertion, I shall claim that - I am an African.

I have seen our country torn asunder as these, all of whom are my people, engaged one another in a titanic battle, the one redress a wrong that had been caused by one to another and the other, to defend the indefensible.

I have seen what happens when one person has superiority of force over another, when the stronger appropriate to themselves the prerogative even to annul the injunction that God created all men and women in His image.

I know what if signifies when race and colour are used to determine who is human and who, sub-human.
I have seen the destruction of all sense of self-esteem, the consequent striving to be what one is not, simply to acquire some of the benefits which those who had improved themselves as masters had ensured that they enjoy.

I have experience of the situation in which race and colour is used to enrich some and impoverish the rest.
I have seen the corruption of minds and souls in the pursuit of an ignoble effort to perpetrate a veritable crime against humanity.

I have seen concrete expression of the denial of the dignity of a human being emanating from the conscious, systemic and systematic oppressive and repressive activities of other human beings.

There the victims parade with no mask to hide the brutish reality - the beggars, the prostitutes, the street children, those who seek solace in substance abuse, those who have to steal to assuage hunger, those who have to lose their sanity because to be sane is to invite pain.

Perhaps the worst among these, who are my people, are those who have learnt to kill for a wage. To these the extent of death is directly proportional to their personal welfare.

And so, like pawns in the service of demented souls, they kill in furtherance of the political violence in KwaZulu-Natal. They murder the innocent in the taxi wars.

They kill slowly or quickly in order to make profits from the illegal trade in narcotics. They are available for hire when husband wants to murder wife and wife, husband.

Among us prowl the products of our immoral and amoral past - killers who have no sense of the worth of human life, rapists who have absolute disdain for the women of our country, animals who would seek to benefit from the vulnerability of the children, the disabled and the old, the rapacious who brook no obstacle in their quest for self-enrichment.

All this I know and know to be true because I am an African!

Because of that, I am also able to state this fundamental truth that I am born of a people who are heroes and heroines.

I am born of a people who would not tolerate oppression.

I am of a nation that would not allow that fear of death, torture, imprisonment, exile or persecution should result in the perpetuation of injustice.

The great masses who are our mother and father will not permit that the behaviour of the few results in the description of our country and people as barbaric.

Patient because history is on their side, these masses do not despair because today the weather is bad. Nor do they turn triumphalist when, tomorrow, the sun shines.

Whatever the circumstances they have lived through and because of that experience, they are determined to define for themselves who they are and who they should be.

We are assembled here today to mark their victory in acquiring and exercising their right to formulate their own definition of what it means to be African.

The constitution whose adoption we celebrate constitutes and unequivocal statement that we refuse to accept that our Africanness shall be defined by our race, colour, gender of historical origins.
 
It is a firm assertion made by ourselves that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.
It gives concrete expression to the sentiment we share as Africans, and will defend to the death, that the people shall govern.

It recognises the fact that the dignity of the individual is both an objective which society must pursue, and is a goal which cannot be separated from the material well-being of that individual.

It seeks to create the situation in which all our people shall be free from fear, including the fear of the oppression of one national group by another, the fear of the disempowerment of one social echelon by another, the fear of the use of state power to deny anybody their fundamental human rights and the fear of tyranny.

It aims to open the doors so that those who were disadvantaged can assume their place in society as equals with their fellow human beings without regard to colour, race, gender, age or geographic dispersal.
It provides the opportunity to enable each one and all to state their views, promote them, strive for their implementation in the process of governance without fear that a contrary view will be met with repression.
It creates a law-governed society which shall be inimical to arbitrary rule.

It enables the resolution of conflicts by peaceful means rather than resort to force.

It rejoices in the diversity of our people and creates the space for all of us voluntarily to define ourselves as one people.

As an African, this is an achievement of which I am proud, proud without reservation and proud without any feeling of conceit.

Our sense of elevation at this moment also derives from the fact that this magnificent product is the unique creation of African hands and African minds.

Bit it is also constitutes a tribute to our loss of vanity that we could, despite the temptation to treat ourselves as an exceptional fragment of humanity, draw on the accumulated experience and wisdom of all humankind, to define for ourselves what we want to be.

Together with the best in the world, we too are prone to pettiness, petulance, selfishness and short-sightedness.
But it seems t
o have happened that we looked at ourselves and said the time had come that we make a super-human effort to be other than human, to respond to the call to create for ourselves a glorious future, to remind ourselves of the Latin saying: Gloria est consequenda - Glory must be sought after!

Today it feels good to be an African.

It feels good that I can stand here as a South African and as a foot soldier of a titanic African army, the African National Congress, to say to all the parties represented here, to the millions who made an input into the processes we are concluding, to our outstanding compatriots who have presided over the birth of our founding document, to the negotiators who pitted their wits one against the other, to the unseen stars who shone unseen as the management and administration of the Constitutional Assembly, the advisers, experts and publicists, to the mass communication media, to our friends across the globe - congratulations and well done!

I am an African.

I am born of the peoples of the continent of Africa.

The pain of the violent conflict that the peoples of Liberia, Somalia, the Sudan, Burundi and Algeria is a pain I also bear.

The dismal shame of poverty, suffering and human degradation of my continent is a blight that we share.

The blight on our happiness that derives from this and from our drift to the periphery of the ordering of human affairs leaves us in a persistent shadow of despair.

This is a savage road to which nobody should be condemned.

This thing that we have done today, in this small corner of a great continent that has contributed so decisively to the evolution of humanity says that Africa reaffirms that she is continuing her rise from the ashes.
Whatever the setbacks of the moment, nothing can stop us now! 

Whatever the difficulties, Africa shall be at peace! However improbable it may sound to the sceptics, Africa will prosper!

Whoever we may be, whatever our immediate interest, however much we carry baggage from our past, however much we have been caught by the fashion of cynicism and loss of faith in the capacity of the people, let us err today and say - nothing can stop us now!

Thank you

Seek Role Models
(Copied for fair use from SWIM WITH SHARKS WITHOUT BEING EATEN ALIVE by HARVEY MACKAY.)

Well, the truth is, we’re not all Bannisters … and we don’t have to be first to succeed. As one famous political figure said, ‘It’s the pioneers who get all the arrows.’

 

In the restaurant business, you never want to be the first operator in a location. Usually the place has to pass through three or four sets of hands before there’s a fit between restaurant, the location, and the market that’s being served.

 

The trick is to benefit from the Bannisters without having to take the arrows. The people who ran the four-minute mile after Bannister had done it succeeded in large part because they had Bannister as a role model to prove it could be done.

 

When Bannister accomplished it, the others were able to psych themselves up and do the same thing. Who (or what) is psyching you up? If you think about why you are the way you are, chances are it has a lot to do with trying to be like someone you admired. You observed and you copied that person’s mannerisms. Sometimes, to win his or her approval, you patterned your whole lifestyle after that person. And you didn’t become permanently cynical just because you discovered at age fourteen that Mom and Dad weren’t perfect and that Simon and Garfunkel were right: Joe DiMaggio has gone and he ain’t ever coming back.

 

You never stop needing role models. The Bannisters and the superstars in every other field keep right on holding role models in front of their eyes long after they’ve become role models themselves. They study them, copy them, compete with them, and even try to surpass them. It doesn’t end with childhood. They’re constantly goading themselves to meet new challenges. They top old role models, then they find new ones. They top themselves, and they set new goals. What better way to measure yourself, to feel good about yourself, and to achieve than trying to be like people you admire? Look at yourself in the mirror. If you like what you see, don’t forget that you want to feel the same way tomorrow morning and the morning after.

 

Believe In Yourself Even When No One Else Does

(Copied for fair use from SWIM WITH SHARKS WITHOUT BEING EATEN ALIVE by HARVEY MACKAY.)

 

Remember the four minute mile? People had been trying to achieve it since the days of the ancient Greeks. In fact, folklore has it that the Greeks had lions chase the runners thinking that would make them run faster. They also tried tigers’ milk – not the stuff you get down at the health food store, but the real thing. Nothing worked. So they decided it was impossible. And for thousand of years, everyone believed it. It was physiologically impossible for a human being to run in four minutes. Our bone structure was all wrong. Wind resistance too great. Inadequate lung power. There were a million reasons.

 

Then one man, one single human being, proved the doctors, the trainers, the athletes, and the millions and millions before him who tried and failed, were all wrong. And miracle of miracles, the year after Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile, thirty-seven other runners broke the four minute mile, and the year after that three hundred other runners broke the four minute mile.

 

A few years ago, in New York, I stood at the finish line of the Fifth Avenue Mile and watched thirteen out of thirteen runners break the four-minute mile in a single race. In other words, the runner who finished dead last would have been regarded as having accomplished the impossible a few decades ago.

 

What happened? There were no breakthroughs in training. Human bone structure didn’t suddenly improve. But human attitudes did.

 

Think about the stonecutter: He hammers at his rock a hundred times without denting it. One the hundred-and-first blow, the rock will split in two. You know it is not that blow that did it but all that had gone before. You can accomplish your goals … if you set them. Who says you’re not tougher, smarter, better, harder-working more able than your competition? It doesn’t matter if they say you can’t do it. What matters, the only thing that matters, is if you say it. Until Bannister came along, we all believed in the experts. Bannister believed in himself … and changed the world. If you believe in yourself, well, then, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish. So don’t quit. Don’t ever quit.

Gratitude is the Least Deeply Felt of All Human Emotions
(Copied for fair use from SWIM WITH THE SHARKS WITHOUT BEING EATEN ALIVE by HARVEY MACKAY.)

You’ve heard it expressed before, both in the vernacular (‘What have you done for me lately?’) and in the classical modes (‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth is it to have a thankless child’), but it still bears repeating: Don’t expect gratitude to last any longer than it takes for the recipients to say they’re eternally grateful.

We arrived where we are today because a number of people gave us a leg up along the way, but ask for a show of hands and 99.9 percent of us consider ourselves self-made men and women.

Hatred and even love endure, but there is in the human makeup that which is unwilling to bear the burden of being grateful, and therefore morally beholden, to anyone for very long. So whatever you do for your kids, your spouse, your sub-ordinates, your boss, or your friends, just remember: You’ll be a lot happier if you think of it as doing it for yourself. And then try like hell to forget you did it, because the beneficiary has.

Foods to Increase Your Libido

1. Artichokes
2. Avocado                       
3. Bananas                       
4. Cardamon                      
5. Celery                        
6. Chia Seeds                    
7. Chillies                      
8. Cocoa                         
9. Dark Chocolate                
10. Figs                          
11. Garlic                        
12. Ginger, Garlic & Onions       
13. Gingko Biloba                 
14. Ginseng                       
15. Goji Berries                  
16. Maca                          
17. Mangoes, Peaches & Strawberries
18. Nuts                          
19. Olive Oil                     
20. Pomegranate Juice             
21. Pumpkin Seeds                 
22. Raw Oysters & Salmon 
23. Soy
24. Tomatoes               

Books by Robert Kyosaki

1. The Real Book of Real Estate
2. Rich Brother, Rich Sister
3. Rich Dad Poor Dad Classics
4. Rich Dad Secrets
5. Rich Dad's Before You Quit Your Day Job
6. Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrant
7. Rich Dad's Conspiracy of the Rich
8. Rich Dad's Guide to Becoming Rich Without Cutting Up Your Credit Cards
9. Rich Dad's Guide to Investing
10. Rich Dad's Increase Your Financial IQ
11. Rich Dad's Podcast
12. Rich Dad's Prophecy
13. Rich Dad's Retire Young, Retire Rich
14. Rich Dad's Rich Kid, Smart Kid
15. Rich Dad's Success Stories
16. Rich Dad's Who Took My Money?
17. Rich Dad, Poor Dad
18. Why We Want You to Be Rich