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WITandWISDOM(tm) - September 15, 2006 ISSN 1538-8794 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: To be pleased with one's limits is a wretched state. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Source: Quotes of the Day, http://www.quotationspage.com/qotd.html ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: I had a close relative who was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. He would ask questions and forget the answers a few minutes later. I was finding it difficult to answer the same things over and over again. I recalled an idea I heard about from an expert on self-improvement about a great sage who would repeat each idea to a slow student four hundred times. Once the student was distracted by someone who came to extend an invitation to his teacher. The sage said that he would go after he finished teaching his student. After the usual four hundred reviews, he asked his student if he understood that day’s lesson. The student said that the thought of his teacher’s imminent departure greatly distracted him and he couldn’t concentrate as well as he usually did. "Don’t worry," the teacher replied. "I’ll repeat the idea even another four hundred times." Why did this great teacher spend so much time with this limited student? The expert on self-improvement explained that the teacher was improving in the attribute of patience each and every time he repeated an idea. These were four hundred exercises to integrate the trait of patience. This influenced me to become more patient with my relative both for his sake and my own. I felt good each time I repeated something. What was most amazing to me was the fact that I could now enjoy something that was previously a source of irritation. I hope to be able to apply this reframe in many areas of my life. "Help The Same Person Over And Over Again" From: Kindness: Making a Difference in People's Lives: Formulas, stories, and insights By Zelig Pliskin, Shaar Press Source: Kind Words, mailto:Kindness-subscribe@PartnersInKindness.org ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: In case you've never seen him, Steven Wright is a standup comedian who delivers his jokes as a series of absolutely dead pan, no expression statements. So imagine these statements being made in a quiet, almost monotone delivery ... - All of the people in my building are insane. The guy above me designs synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats. The lady across the hall tried to rob a department store... with a pricing gun... She said, "Give me all of the money in the vault, or I'm marking down everything in the store." - And when I get real, real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I'm leaving. - Babies don't need a vacation, but I still see them at the beach... it ticks me off! I'll go over to a little baby and say, "What are you doing here? You haven't worked a day in your life!" - Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he just whipped out a quarter? - Don't you hate when your hand falls asleep and you know it will be up all night? - Ever notice how irons have a setting for PERMANENT press? I don't get it... - For a while I didn't have a car...I had a helicopter...no place to park it, so I just tied it to a lamp post and left it running... [slow glance upward] - For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier...I put them in the same room and let them fight it out. - He was a multi-millionaire... Wanna know how he made all of his money? ... He designed the little diagrams that tell which way to put batteries in. - I bought some batteries, but they weren't included, so I had to buy them again. - I bought some used paint. It was in the shape of a house. - I broke a mirror in my house. I'm supposed to get seven years of bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me five. - I collect rare photographs. One of them is of Houdini locking his keys in his car.... - I got a new shadow. I had to get rid of the other one -- it wasn't doing what I was doing. Source: Monday Fodder mailto:daveaufrance@gmail.com?Subject=Subscribe_Monday_Fodder http://www.fishermansnet.com/monday-fodder/ ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: "New Hampshire is debating the state's slogan, "Live Free or Die." Some people want to make it more contemporary. The suggested change is "Live free, then move to Florida right before you die." - Jim Barach Submitted by Quirk ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: I once read about a lady who died. That happens every day, of course; but in this case, two months passed before anyone knew about it. Her neighbors started noticing that her porch was full of mail and newspapers, and they realized that they hadn't seen her in a while. They summoned the police, who broke down the door and found her dead. They found her husband in her bedroom. He was dead too - and the medical examiner estimated that he'd been dead for at least four years! His body was virtually mummified because his wife had kept the heat turned up to about ninety degrees. She had never reported his demise—evidently, she was willing to live with the corpse so that she could continue collecting his Social Security checks! By Doug Batchelor in Broken Chains (Pacific Press 2004)