Shipwrecked

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island.
He prayed to be rescue, and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.
Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect himself from the elements, and to store his few possessions.

One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky. The worst had happened and everything he had was lost.He was stunned with grief and anger. He cried out with anger not understanding how or why this terrible thing had again happened to him.

Early the next day, however, he was awakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching the island. It had come to rescue him. "How did you know I was here?" Asked the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they replied.

The lesson is that it is easy to get discouraged when things are going bad. But we need to hang in there and hold on through the tough times - there is usually something good on its way.

The Brain

The human brain is an amazing mechanism.  It's about half the size of a grapefruit, it's capable of recording 800 memories per second for 75 years without exhausting itself.  It stores between 10 billion and 100 billion pieces of information (depending on our age).  The human brain retains everything it takes in and never forgets anything; even though we don't or can't always recall the information, it's always on permanent file in our brain.

There is an myth that we only use 10% of our brain - it may be based on some old research that showed that only 10% of the neurons in the brain are firing at any given time. Another thought is that it arose from a study that showed that the average person develops only 10 percent of his or her latent mental ability. Whatever the case -what all of this shows is that there is tremendous potential in our brains, that is often untapped and untrained.  Imagine what can be done if we tried...

For example, conductor Arturo Toscanini literally conditioned his mind to store, organize, and recall musical information.  He memorized every note, for every musical instrument in 250 symphonies and 100 operas!

The lesson is that we can do far more than we are capable of, so ask yourself, what could you train your brain to do?

Things Aren't Always What They Seem

Two angels on their travels stopped to spend the night in the home of a wealthy family. The family was rude and refused to let the angels stay in the mansion's guest room. Instead the angels were shooed out of sight and given a small space in the cold basement. 

As they made their bed on the hard floor, the older angel saw a hole in the wall and quietly repaired it. When the younger angel asked why he would do a kindness to fix the home a family that had treated them so poorly, the older angel replied, "Things aren't always what they seem."

The next day the angels continued on their travels and that night the pair came to rest at the house of a very poor, but very hospitable farmer and his wife. After sharing what little food the couple had with the angels, they let the angels sleep in their bed where they could have a good night's rest. When the sun came up the next morning the angels found the farmer and his wife in tears. Their only cow, whose milk had been their sole income, lay dead in the field.
The younger angel was infuriated and asked the older angel how could you have let this happen? The first man had everything, yet you helped him, the angel accused. The second family had little but was willing to share everything, and you let their cow die. "Things aren't always what they seem," the older Angel replied. 

"When we stayed in the basement of the mansion, I noticed there was gold stored in that hole in the wall. Since the owner was so obsessed with greed and unwilling to share his good fortune, I sealed the wall so he wouldn't find it. It will remain there until someday, a future, and hopefully more deserving owner will find it. Then last night as we slept in the farmer's bed, the angel of death came for his wife. Rather than let him take the woman who had so generously given so much, I gave him the cow instead. Things aren't always what they seem." 

The lesson is that things when things seem to have gone wrong or not to have turned out the way you feel they should, step back and be patient.  You may just need to trust that everything happens for a reason, and right now, you cannot see the reason, even if it is there.  It will be evident later.