The choice is yours

Author: Saiqua Rahaman
Country: India

This is a very simple story that I read somewhere. In today's busy schedule we actually have little time to spare a thought for the values that lie underneath a simple story or a message. We only appreciate it with some kind words and move on... Hope you not only enjoy this piece of abstract as much as I did but spare some moments in some honest thoughts to smile after you read this....

How often in life do you wonder, why in life others seem to be more at an advantage? Little do we realize that with every moment of thoughtless wonder we lose another extra moment of life that could be truly ours. It is the attitude that matters. Change that to positive, life will smile back at you. We could take the example of Jerry, for instance…..

Jerry is the manager of a restaurant a man of great spirit and attitude. When someone would ask him, how he was doing, he would reply. "If I was any better I would be twins!" Many of the waiters in the restaurant quit their jobs when he changed jobs, so they could follow him around from restaurant to restaurant. Why?... Jerry was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was always there, to cheer him up with his usual energy and spirit. His attitude got many curious.
One day his friend and colleague Max asked him, "I do not get it! No one can be a positive person all the time. How do you do it?" Jerry replied "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, I have two choices today. I can choose to be in a good mood or I can choose to be in a bad mood. I always 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 always choose to learn from it. I choose growth."
"It cannot always be that easy," Max protested. "Yes it is"… Jerry replied, "Life is all about choices. You choose how you react to situation. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. It's your choice how you live your life." Several years later Max received terrible news… Jerry accidentally did something ….or was it a blunder? He left the back door of his restaurant open….and then? In the morning, as he was the first to check in, he was robbed by three men. They wanted all that was in the safe. While Jerry was trying to open the safe, the combination slipped off and fell from his hand. The robbers panicked and shot him. Jerry was really lucky to be spotted quickly by others who came in and rushed him to the hospital. After eighteen hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital. When Max went to see Jerry he has still not recovered completely. When he asked him, how he was, Jerry replied… "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Want to see my scars?" Max refrained from seeing his scars, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place?"
"The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door"… said Jerry…. "then after they shot me and I lay on the floor, I remembered, I had two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live."
"Weren't you scared?" Max asked. Jerry continued..."The paramedics were great. The doctors kept telling me I was going to be fine, but as they wheeled me into the emergency room, I saw the expression on the faces of the doctors and nurses. I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, I was a dead man! I knew I needed to take action."
"What did you do?"…Max asked. "Well there was a nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry….. "She asked, if I was allergic to anything?" "Yes"… I said. The doctors and the nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled.... "Bullets!" Over their laughter, I told them, "I am choosing to live. Please operate on me as if I am alive, not dead." Jerry lived, thanks to the skills of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude.

Everyday you have a choice to make that is completely yours…no one has control to take from you your attitude, if you can take care of that, everything else in life changes, indeed, for the better. Now you have two choices! You can ignore this message or you can learn from it values. It's your life…either you choose to love your life or hate it! The choice is yours…you choose!

Nam the Price

Author: Anoir Pudin
Country: France

The phoenix is an apt symbol for Vietnam, it signifies beauty and a gutsy determination to rise above the devastating effects of a long, drawn out war.

“Two dollar, two dollar,” the voice is like a singsong pleading. “OK! one dollar! One dollar, OK?” The T-shirts jiggle encouragingly in front of my eyes.

“Why you no buy from me?” Her eyes, shaded by the ubiquitous non, that conical bamboo hat worn everywhere here in Vietnam, become mock-angry, her lip drawing down into pout.

She wants to sell me a T-shirt, five sizes smaller than my own, in a style that I would never wear, and a color and pattern I dislike but she just cannot understand why I am resisting her sales pitch.

“Two dollars,” she insists, “I give you two. Very ‘sheap’.” Neither she nor any of her colleagues touting nons, postcards, or Lonely Planet guides to Vietnam can understand the Western mind. If the price is right, how can you NOT buy?

These vendors do it tough. One chased us for blocks offering just two items: a zip down cabin bag and a green and yellow nylon hammock. I hated both and tried to make this clear to him – kindly – but materialized at every turn, ever hopeful.

You have to admire these people who just a few decades ago lost millions in the war. The Vietnamese revere the phoenix, and its shape appears on many pictures and designs. They say it symbolizes beauty – particularly womanly beauty. To us, it also speaks of rising from destruction, resilience and gutsy determination. This war-torn country embraces both.

The beauty of course lies everywhere: in elegant handicrafts and fashion, the flowing lines of the so-called ao dai, the national dress, magnificent galleries filled with paintings and craft, and the women themselves, slender and dignified.

The re-growth is apparent too, from the modern glass and concrete buildings to schools spilling out white uniformed youngsters at the end of either the morning or afternoon classes.

There are glitches of course, inevitable in a country grappling with the modernity, playing catch-up with the Western world. It was only in 1994 that the US lifted its trade embargo and there is much lost ground to make up for.

Traffic in this city with population of eight million is horrendous too. Thousands of motorbikes and bicycles and the odd car or truck or bus interweave as if practicing of a demolition derby. You have to have nerves of steel to cross through all of this.

“Just walk slowly,” I am told. “They will work their way around you.” Of course they do, and I discover yet another metaphor for this surprising country.
Vietnam may appear a little chaotic, but this is sense to it and the locals know what they are doing. Slowly, steadily it’s coming together, and I was happy to have seen it at this point before cars replace motor cycles, before the effects of the Western world dull its authenticity, and while there is still time to haggle with these street vendors and maybe come away with a deal that suits us.