12/1/09

golden rules of life

it was an early evening when i was heading to meet my friend and i was pretty behind the schedule to what i promised her. the buses were crowded as usual and i could't got into like 10 buses or so. people were just about getting off from their work and in a rush to head home i guess. and jakarta's traffic is maybe a little miniature of hell if i am allowed to make comparison. riders are speeding, cars are cutting one another, and public buses are still the winner of the road. stop where they want and speed up in a sudden.

me. i was hoping to be given a chance just to squeeze my body to hop in. and i was answered.

packed as usual in the bus, i was looking at the faces in the bus. i know some people will say it's a rude thing to do, but i just like looking at different faces after long hours they have spent at teir offices. and i liked guessing about their days. whether it was fabulous, crampy, sad or just a so so day. sometimes i met faces like worn out of life, i mean it's really tiring face that wants to get out of life. and i was thinking what that person might feel at that time.

i usually spend moderate time in looking at people faces. i mean, i dont over stare at them. so the next thing i'll do is mobile browsing, trying to be a power user that my brother always says there's no way i'll be one of them. yeah, he's just jealous because i have more gadgets. hah!

i was scrolling one of subscribed email where i noticed the subject "Golden Rules of Life" and asking myself what golden rules the author meant. to me they could be paying respect, being kind and honest, and more universal values that we all believe. i read for 5 minutes and found what the author described in 15 lines are truer words in life.

hope you like what he wrote. here's the summary

I grew up in Trenton, a west Tennessee town of five thousand people. I have wonderful memories of those first eighteen years, and many people in Trenton influenced my life in very positive ways. My football coach, Walter Kilzer, taught me the importance of hard work, discipline, and believing in myself. My history teacher, Fred Culp, is still the funniest person I’ve ever met. He taught me that a sense of humor, and especially laughing at yourself, can be one of life’s greatest blessings.



But my father was my hero. He taught me many things, but at the top of the list, he taught me to treat people with love and respect…to live the Golden Rule. I remember one particular instance of him teaching this “life lesson” as if it were yesterday. Dad owned a furniture store, and I used to dust the furniture every Wednesday after school to earn my allowance. One afternoon I observed my Dad talking to all the customers as they came in…the hardware store owner, the banker, a farmer, a doctor. At the end of the day, just as Dad was closing, the garbage collector came in.

I was ready to go home, and I thought that surely Dad wouldn’t spend too much time with him. But I was wrong. Dad greeted him at the door with a big hug and talked with him about his wife and son who had been in a car accident the month before. He empathized, he asked questions, he listened, and he listened some more. I kept looking at the clock, and when the man finally left, I asked, “Dad, why did you spend so much time with him? He’s just the garbage collector.” Dad then looked at me, locked the front door to the store, and said, “Son, let’s talk.”

He said, “I’m your father and I tell you lots of stuff as all fathers should, but if you remember nothing else I ever tell you, remember this…treat every human being just the way that you would want to be treated.” He said, “I know this is not the first time you’ve heard it, but I want to make sure it’s the first time you truly understand it, because if you had understood, you would never have said what you said.” We sat there and talked for another hour about the meaning and the power of the Golden Rule. Dad said, “If you live the Golden Rule everything else in life will usually work itself out, but if you don’t your life probably will be very unhappy and without meaning.”

I recently heard someone say, “If you teach your child the Golden Rule, you will have left them an estate of incalculable value.” Truer words were never spoken.
Excerpted from The Power of Attitude

have a golden day!

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