Position Or Performance

A Priest dies & is awaiting his turn in line at the Heaven's Gates. Ahead of him is a guy, nattily dressed, in dark sun glasses, a loud shirt, leather jacket & jeans. God asks him: Please tell me who are you, so that I may know whether to admit you into the kingdom of Heaven or not? The guy replies: I am Pandi, Auto driver from Chennai ! God consults his ledger, smiles & says to Pandi: Please take this silken robe & gold scarf & enter the Kingdom of Heaven .. Now it is the priest's turn. He stands erect and speaks out in a booming voice: I am Pope's Assistant so & so, Head Priest of the so & so Church for the last 40 years. God consults his ledger & says to thePriest: Please take this cotton robe & enter the Kingdom of Heaven .... 'Just a minute,' says the agonized Priest. 'How is it that a foulmouthed, rash driving Auto Driver is given a Silken robe & a Goldenscarf and me, a Priest, who's spent his whole life preaching your Name & goodness has to make do with a Cotton robe?' 'Results my friend, results,' shrugs God. 'While you preached, people SLEPT; but when he drove his Auto, people PRAYED'

Moral of the story: It's PERFORMANCE & not POSITION that ultimately counts.

Greetings from Maddy's Den

Holiday Greetings To All

(Pun Intended) I wanted to send some sort of holiday greeting to my friends and colleagues, but it is difficult in today's world to know exactly what to say without offending someone. So I met with my lawyer yesterday and on her advice I wish to say the following: Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious / secular persuasions and / or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year, 2009 , but not without due respect for the calendar of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great ( not to imply that Great Britain is necessarily greater than any other country ) and without regard to the race , creed , colour , age , physical ability , religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee. By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms : This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/him or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. The wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher. Best regards (without prejudice) Name withheld (privacy act)

Wishing you all Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Enjoy Yourself.

God bless you all,

Maddy and his family

SAD INDEED

4.25 lakh birds culled in Assam Destined to perish— PHOTO: RITU RAJ KONWAR Sad end: Thousands of chicks are abandoned in hatcheries in Guwahati on Saturday due to bird flu. The sale and purchase of poultry products have been banned throughout the northeast. GUWAHATI: Culling operations in four bird flu affected districts of Assam continued on Saturday with more than 4.25 lakh birds exterminated so far. The H5N1 virus has struck 120 villages in seven districts and the State government disbursed Rs. 1,27,85,216 as compensation to the poultry farmers, official sources said. The government has decided to set up an expert committee to take appropriate measures to prevent similar outbreak among the avian population in future. For more…..

Mayhem in Maddy's Den!

O-2 is currently gone for the wedding of his friend Ms. Wisdom.

Maddy and Jimmy are extremely bored ( and sad) as the Special Sunday Plans have now been cancelled.

(The Morose Jimmy)

Reason? O-2's becoming more and more notorious, and has taken away Maddy's Rick! Mogli, the drummer (who also works as part-time chauffeur) obviously is missing too.

Sobbing Gigloo.

Gigloo's now taken his prime job to be filling up the pond with his huge froggy-tears. Maddy's madness prevents Gigloo from going into hibernation. As you know, he is a very alert frog.. Jimmy suggests he might have even become an insomniac!

What's more, O-2's new pet, the fashion conscious Baby Ellie( The one who changes his colour even before you can say Ellie! check out his antics at the bottom), is following the Rick..!!

Ellie on Road!

Maddy's already been threatened by traffic cops, for the sizeable traffic hazard that Ellie shall eventually become..

Maddy gone madder going maddest, is on tenterhooks, and Chilly's keeping a sharp vigil at the door, waiting for O-2 to reach home.

( You see, O-2's going out with his best friend Ms. Fashion Diva , doesn't make matters any better.)

Diva!! She rocks!

Maddy believes in God. He is praying that nothing sane shall come out of these events. He doesn't like sanity.. He is actually waiting for O-2 to come home and regale him with the funny stories of all the sane people out in the hypocritic sane world, trying to impress one another!

Laughing at them is one of their favourite things to do!

Lord bless Maddy's Den with some peace,quiet n more maddening madness!!!!!!!!!

Maddy explains

Jimmy inquires: Why are people so frustrated? Maddy explains: These days people are becoming more and more aspiring. They do not draw a line.

Their needs are ever growing.

Everyone seems to be in a race to acquire more and more. Wealth and poverty: the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent. “Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.” People want to earn and save more and more for the future. They want to save more and more for their children.

But they forget," the more we shelter children from every disappointment, the more devastating future disappointments will be.”

One must learn to be contented.

We should try to explain our inner mind and tell him," I have everything in the world that is necessary to happiness, good faith, good friends and all the work I can possibly do. I think God’s greatest blessing to the human race was when He sent man forth into the world to earn his bread by the sweat of his face. I believe in toil, in the dignity of labor, but I also believe in adequate compensation for that toil.” Remember:

Tension is who you think you should be.

Relaxation is who you are. Stress is when you wake up screaming

and you realize you haven't fallen asleep yet.

In case of a difficult situation,

Remember: Things could be a lot worse,

the stress of the situation always could be worse,

but I am alive and I have a lot to be thankful for -

so I shall not waste my days with stress and frustrations -

Life is too short!

Take it as it comes.

Maddy speaks

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure outwhat to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkeystepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!

MORAL :

Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a stepping stone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up. Remember the five simple rules to be happy: 1. Free your heart from hatred - Forgive. 2. Free your mind from worries - Most never happens. 3. Live simply and appreciate what you have. 4. Give more. 5. Expect less from people but more from God.

Exercises for the back

What some people feel about exercise (me included). Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness. ~Edward Stanley Fitness - if it came in a bottle, everybody would have a great body. ~Cher The only exercise some people get is jumping to conclusions, running down their friends, side-stepping responsibility, and pushing their luck! ~Author Unknown Exercise is a dirty word. Every time I hear it, I wash my mouth out with chocolate. ~Author Unknown Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes. ~Robert M. Hutchins ************************************ Some exercises for the back:

Hardly Working Men.

Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?   Men are like bank accounts. Without a lot of money they don't generate a lot of interest.

Exercise.

"Exercise is good for your mind, body, and soul."
Susie Michelle Cortright

 I can but I would not.

Gurdeep

Health

"A man's health can be judged by which he takes two at a time -
pills or stairs."

Joan Welsh

Failure

Ashley Montagu: The deepest human defeat suffered by human beings is constituted by the difference between what one was capable of becoming and what one has in fact become. Edward de Bono: It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all. Elaine Maxwell: My will shall shape the future. Whether I fail or succeed shall be no man's doing but my own. I am the force; I can clear any obstacle before me or I can be lost in the maze. My choice; my responsibility; win or lose, only I hold the key to my destiny. Elbert Hubbard: A failure is a man who has blundered but is not capable of cashing in on the experience. George Bernard Shaw: A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing. George Bernard Shaw: My reputation grows with every failure. George Bernard Shaw: My reputation grows with every failure. Havelock Ellis: It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success. Herbert B. Swope: I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure: which is: Try to please everybody. It's a Wonderful Life: Remember, no man is a failure who has friends. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much. James Russell Lowell: Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle. Jessamyn West: It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own. John Dewey: Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes. Kin Hubbard: You won't skid if you stay in a rut. Laurence J. Peter: There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought. Lloyd Jones: Those who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try nothing and succeed. Madame de Stael: The mystery of existence is the connection between our faults and our misfortunes. May Sarton: A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself. Mohandas K. Gandhi: Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. Mother Teresa: Keep in mind that our community is not composed of those who are already saints, but of those who are trying to become saints. Therefore let us be extremely patient with each other's faults and failures. Oscar Wilde: Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes. Paulo Coelho: But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for. Pearl S. Buck: Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied. Peter Drucker: There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. Rabindranath Tagore: We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us. Ralph Ellison: Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Do not waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good. Robert F. Kennedy: Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. Robert Frost: The best way out is always through. Samuel Goldwyn: You've got to take the bitter with the sour. Samuel Smiles: It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done. Samuel Smiles : We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. Theodore Roosevelt: It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. Thomas Alva Edison: Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. Thomas Fuller: No garden is without its weeds. Wallace Stegner: Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus. William M. Winans: Not doing more than the average is what keeps the average down. William Saroyan: Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know. Winston Churchill: Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.