Saturday, December 15, 2018

US foreign policy as explained by Barack Obama




THERE’S A FINAL dimension to U.S. foreign policy that must be discussed—the portion that has less to do with avoiding war than promoting peace. The year I was born, President Kennedy stated in his inaugural address: “To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required—not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” Forty-five years later, that mass misery still exists. If we are to fulfill Kennedy’s promise—and serve our long-term security interests—then we will have to go beyond a more prudent use of military force. We will have to align our policies to help reduce the spheres of insecurity, poverty, and violence around the world, and give more people a stake in the global order that has served us so well.

Of course, there are those who would argue with my starting premise—that any global system built in America’s image can alleviate misery in poorer countries. For these critics, America’s notion of what the international system should be—free trade, open markets, the unfettered flow of information, the rule of law, democratic elections, and the like—is simply an expression of American imperialism, designed to exploit the cheap labor and natural resources of other countries and infect non-Western cultures with decadent beliefs. Rather than conform to America’s rules, the argument goes, other countries should resist America’s efforts to expand its hegemony; instead, they should follow their own path to development, taking their lead from left-leaning populists like Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, or turning to more traditional principles of social organization, like Islamic law.

I don’t dismiss these critics out of hand. America and its Western partners did design the current international system, after all; it is our way of doing things—our accounting standards, our language, our dollar, our copyright laws, our technology, and our popular culture—to which the world has had to adapt over the past fifty years. If overall the international system has produced great prosperity in the world’s most developed countries, it has also left many people behind—a fact that Western policy makers have often ignored and occasionally made worse.

Ultimately, though, I believe critics are wrong to think that the world’s poor will benefit by rejecting the ideals of free markets and liberal democracy. When human rights activists from various countries come to my office and talk about being jailed or tortured for their beliefs, they are not acting as agents of American power. When my cousin in Kenya complains that it’s impossible to find work unless he’s paid a bribe to some official in the ruling party, he hasn’t been brainwashed by Western ideas. Who doubts that, if given the choice, most of the people in North Korea would prefer living in South Korea, or that many in Cuba wouldn’t mind giving Miami a try?

No person, in any culture, likes to be bullied. No person likes living in fear because his or her ideas are different. Nobody likes being poor or hungry, and nobody likes to live under an economic system in which the fruits of his or her labor go perpetually unrewarded. The system of free markets and liberal democracy that now characterizes most of the developed world may be flawed; it may all too often reflect the interests of the powerful over the powerless. But that system is constantly subject to change and improvement—and it is precisely in this openness to change that market-based liberal democracies offer people around the world their best chance at a better life.

Our challenge, then, is to make sure that U.S. policies move the international system in the direction of greater equity, justice, and prosperity—that the rules we promote serve both our interests and the interests of a struggling world. In doing so, we might keep a few basic principles in mind. First, we should be skeptical of those who believe we can single-handedly liberate other people from tyranny. I agree with George W. Bush when in his second inaugural address he proclaimed a universal desire to be free. But there are few examples in history in which the freedom men and women crave is delivered through outside intervention. In almost every successful social movement of the last century, from Gandhi’s campaign against British rule to the Solidarity movement in Poland to the antiapartheid movement in South Africa, democracy was the result of a local awakening.

We can inspire and invite other people to assert their freedoms; we can use international forums and agreements to set standards for others to follow; we can provide funding to fledgling democracies to help institutionalize fair election systems, train independent journalists, and seed the habits of civic participation; we can speak out on behalf of local leaders whose rights are violated; and we can apply economic and diplomatic pressure to those who repeatedly violate the rights of their own people.

But when we seek to impose democracy with the barrel of a gun, funnel money to parties whose economic policies are deemed friendlier to Washington, or fall under the sway of exiles like Chalabi whose ambitions aren’t matched by any discernible local support, we aren’t just setting ourselves up for failure. We are helping oppressive regimes paint democratic activists as tools of foreign powers and retarding the possibility that genuine, homegrown democracy will ever emerge.

A corollary to this is that freedom means more than elections. In 1941, FDR said he looked forward to a world founded upon four essential freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Our own experience tells us that those last two freedoms—freedom from want and freedom from fear—are prerequisites for all others. For half of the world’s population, roughly three billion people around the world living on less than two dollars a day, an election is at best a means, not an end; a starting point, not deliverance. These people are looking less for an “electocracy” than for the basic elements that for most of us define a decent life—food, shelter, electricity, basic health care, education for their children, and the ability to make their way through life without having to endure corruption, violence, or arbitrary power. If we want to win the hearts and minds of people in Caracas, Jakarta, Nairobi, or Tehran, dispersing ballot boxes will not be enough. We’ll have to make sure that the international rules we’re promoting enhance, rather than impede, people’s sense of material and personal security.

That may require that we look in the mirror. For example, the United States and other developed countries constantly demand that developing countries eliminate trade barriers that protect them from competition, even as we steadfastly protect our own constituencies from exports that could help lift poor countries out of poverty. In our zeal to protect the patents of American drug companies, we’ve discouraged the ability of countries like Brazil to produce generic AIDS drugs that could save millions of lives. Under the leadership of Washington, the International Monetary Fund, designed after World War II to serve as a lender of last resort, has repeatedly forced countries in the midst of financial crisis like Indonesia to go through painful readjustments (sharply raising interest rates, cutting government social spending, eliminating subsidies to key industries) that cause enormous hardship to their people—harsh medicine that we Americans would have difficulty administering to ourselves.

Another branch of the international financial system, the World Bank, has a reputation for funding large, expensive projects that benefit high-priced consultants and well connected local elites but do little for ordinary citizens—although it’s these ordinary citizens who are left holding the bag when the loans come due. Indeed, countries that have successfully developed under the current international system have at times ignored Washington’s rigid economic prescriptions by protecting nascent industries and engaging in aggressive industrial policies. The IMF and World Bank need to recognize that there is no single, cookie-cutter formula for each and every country’s development.

There is nothing wrong, of course, with a policy of “tough love” when it comes to providing development assistance to poor countries. Too many poor countries are hampered by archaic, even feudal, property and banking laws; in the past, too many foreign aid programs simply engorged local elites, the money siphoned off into Swiss bank accounts. Indeed, for far too long international aid policies have ignored the critical role that the rule of law and principles of transparency play in any nation’s development. In an era in which international financial transactions hinge on reliable, enforceable contracts, one might expect that the boom in global business would have given rise to vast legal reforms. But in fact countries like India, Nigeria, and China have developed two legal systems—one for foreigners and elites, and one for ordinary people trying to get ahead.

As for countries like Somalia, Sierra Leone, or the Congo, well, they have barely any law whatsoever. There are times when considering the plight of Africa—the millions racked by AIDS, the constant droughts and famines, the dictatorships, the pervasive corruption, the brutality of twelve-year-old guerrillas who know nothing but war wielding machetes or AK-47s—I find myself plunged into cynicism and despair. Until I’m reminded that a mosquito net that prevents malaria cost three dollars; that a voluntary HIV testing program in Uganda has made substantial inroads in the rate of new infections at a cost of three or four dollars per test; that only modest attention—an international show of force or the creation of civilian protection zones—might have stopped the slaughter in Rwanda; and that onetime hard cases like Mozambique have made significant steps toward reform.

FDR was certainly right when he said, “As a nation we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.” We should not expect to help Africa if Africa ultimately proves unwilling to help itself. But there are positive trends in Africa often hidden in the news of despair. Democracy is spreading. In many places economies are growing. We need to build on these glimmers of hope and help those committed leaders and citizens throughout Africa build the better future they, like we, so desperately desire.

Moreover, we fool ourselves in thinking that, in the words of one commentator, “we must learn to watch others die with equanimity,” and not expect consequences. Disorder breeds disorder; callousness toward others tends to spread among ourselves. And if moral claims are insufficient for us to act as a continent implodes, there are certainly instrumental reasons why the United States and its allies should care about failed states that don’t control their territories, can’t combat epidemics, and are numbed by civil war and atrocity. It was in such a state of lawlessness that the Taliban took hold of Afghanistan. It was in Sudan, site of today’s slow-rolling genocide, that bin Laden set up camp for several years. It’s in the misery of some unnamed slum that the next killer virus will emerge.

Of course, whether in Africa or elsewhere, we can’t expect to tackle such dire problems alone. For that reason, we should be spending more time and money trying to strengthen the capacity of international institutions so that they can do some of this work for us. Instead, we’ve been doing the opposite. For years, conservatives in the United States have been making political hay over problems at the UN: the hypocrisy of resolutions singling out Israel for condemnation, the Kafkaesque election of nations like Zimbabwe and Libya to the UN Commission on Human Rights, and most recently the kickbacks that plagued the oil-for-food program.

These critics are right. For every UN agency like UNICEF that functions well, there are other agencies that seem to do nothing more than hold conferences, produce reports, and provide sinecures for third-rate international civil servants. But these failures aren’t an argument for reducing our involvement in international organizations, nor are they an excuse for U.S. unilateralism. The more effective UN peacekeeping forces are in handling civil wars and sectarian conflicts, the less global policing we have to do in areas that we’d like to see stabilized. The more credible the information that the International Atomic Energy Agency provides, the more likely we are to mobilize allies against the efforts of rogue states to obtain nuclear weapons. The greater the capacity of the World Health Organization, the less likely we are to have to deal with a flu pandemic in our own country. No country has a bigger stake than we do in strengthening international institutions—which is why we pushed for their creation in the first place, and why we need to take the lead in improving them.

Finally, for those who chafe at the prospect of working with our allies to solve the pressing global challenges we face, let me suggest at least one area where we can act unilaterally and improve our standing in the world—by perfecting our own democracy and leading by example. When we continue to spend tens of billions of dollars on weapons systems of dubious value but are unwilling to spend the money to protect highly vulnerable chemical plants in major urban centers, it becomes more difficult to get other countries to safeguard their nuclear power plants. When we detain suspects indefinitely without trial or ship them off in the dead of night to countries where we know they’ll be tortured, we weaken our ability to press for human rights and the rule of law in despotic regimes. When we, the richest country on earth and the consumer of 25 percent of the world’s fossil fuels, can’t bring ourselves to raise fuel-efficiency standards by even a small fraction so as to weaken our dependence on Saudi oil fields and slow global warming, we should expect to have a hard time convincing China not to deal with oil suppliers like Iran or Sudan—and shouldn’t count on much cooperation in getting them to address environmental problems that visit our shores.

This unwillingness to make hard choices and live up to our own ideals doesn’t just undermine U.S. credibility in the eyes of the world. It undermines the U.S. government’s credibility with the American people. Ultimately, it is how we manage that most precious resource—the American people, and the system of self-government we inherited from our Founders—that will determine the success of any foreign policy. The world out there is dangerous and complex; the work of remaking it will be long and hard, and will require some sacrifice. Such sacrifice comes about because the American people understand fully the choices before them; it is born of the confidence we have in our democracy. FDR understood this when he said, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, that “[t]his Government will put its trust in the stamina of the American people.” Truman understood this, which is why he worked with Dean Acheson to establish the Committee for the Marshall Plan, made up of CEOs, academics, labor leaders, clergymen, and others who could stump for the plan across the country. It seems as if this is a lesson that America’s leadership needs to relearn.

I wonder, sometimes, whether men and women in fact are capable of learning from history—whether we progress from one stage to the next in an upward course or whether we just ride the cycles of boom and bust, war and peace, ascent and decline. On the same trip that took me to Baghdad, I spent a week traveling through Israel and the West Bank, meeting with officials from both sides, mapping in my own mind the site of so much strife. I talked to Jews who’d lost parents in the Holocaust and brothers in suicide bombings; I heard Palestinians talk of the indignities of checkpoints and reminisce about the land they had lost. I flew by helicopter across the line separating the two peoples and found myself unable to distinguish Jewish towns from Arab towns, all of them like fragile outposts against the green and stony hills. From the promenade above Jerusalem, I looked down at the Old City, the Dome of the Rock, the Western Wall, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, considered the two thousand years of war and rumors of war that this small plot of land had come to represent, and pondered the possible futility of believing that this conflict might somehow end in our time, or that America, for all its power, might have any lasting say over the course of the world.

I don’t linger on such thoughts, though—they are the thoughts of an old man. As difficult as the work may seem, I believe we have an obligation to engage in efforts to bring about peace in the Middle East, not only for the benefit of the people of the region, but for the safety and security of our own children as well.

And perhaps the world’s fate depends not just on the events of its battlefields; perhaps it depends just as much on the work we do in those quiet places that require a helping hand. I remember seeing the news reports of the tsunami that hit East Asia in 2004—the towns of Indonesia’s western coast flattened, the thousands of people washed out to sea. And then, in the weeks that followed, I watched with pride as Americans sent more than a billion dollars in private relief aid and as U.S. warships delivered thousands of troops to assist in relief and reconstruction. According to newspaper reports, 65 percent of Indonesians surveyed said that this assistance had given them a more favorable view of the United States. I am not naive enough to believe that one episode in the wake of catastrophe can erase decades of mistrust.

But it’s a start.

Excerpt taken from book: Audacity of hope (by Barack Obama)

Sunday, December 9, 2018

We Need Cost-of-Living-Adjustment Act! (Report based on 2018 and 2019 data)


A person earning minimum wages today cannot survive on it year after year.

Following case study done for two years for person in Delhi proves this point:

Item Expense Month
Total 7955 Dec-2016
Total 8221 Jan-2017
Total 9006 Feb-2017
Total 9254 Mar-2017
Total 8284 Apr-2017
Total 8497 May-2017
Total 9912 Jun-2017
Total 9051 Jul-2017
Total 7453 Aug-2017
Total 8541 Sep-2017
Total 9880 Oct-2017
Total 11678 Nov-2017

Average Monthly Expenses (2017): 8978

Item Expense Month
Total 15128 Dec-2017
Total 10794 Jan-2018
Total 10989 Feb-2018
Total 10385 Mar-2018
Total 13462 Apr-2018
Total 10790 May-2018
Total 10525 Jun-2018
Total 10159 Jul-2018
Total 10340 Aug-2018
Total 13508 Sep-2018
Total 11655 Oct-2018
Total 13777 Nov-2018

Average Monthly Expenses (2018): 11793 (Yearly Change: 31%)
Average Monthly Expenses (2019): 15624 (Yearly Change: 33%)

We see here that there is an increment of over 31 percent in 2018 and 33 percent in 2019 in average monthly expenses that is when a person is living hand to mouth and there is no improvement in quality of any aspect of life.

We not only need 'Minimum Wages' act but we also need COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) act as well.

How much increment did you get in your last appraisal? If it is below 10 percent, don't even bother to mention it.

Related articles:

Are Minimum Wages Sufficent?

Article showing minimum wages set by Indian government:

 

Saturday, December 8, 2018

Barack Obama's Encounters With Death



There are some things that I’m absolutely sure about—the Golden Rule, the need to battle cruelty in all its forms, the value of love and charity, humility and grace.

Those beliefs were driven home two years ago when I flew down to Birmingham, Alabama, to deliver a speech at the city’s Civil Rights Institute. The institute is right across the street from the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, the site where, in 1963, four young children—Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Denise McNair—lost their lives when a bomb planted by white supremacists exploded during Sunday school, and before my talk I took the opportunity to visit the church. The young pastor and several deacons greeted me at the door and showed me the still-visible scar along the wall where the bomb went off. I saw the clock at the back of the church, still frozen at 10:22 a.m. I studied the portraits of the four little girls.

After the tour, the pastor, deacons, and I held hands and said a prayer in the sanctuary. Then they left me to sit in one of the pews and gather my thoughts. What must it have been like for those parents forty years ago, I wondered, knowing that their precious daughters had been snatched away by violence at once so casual and so vicious? How could they endure the anguish unless they were certain that some purpose lay behind their children’s murders, that some meaning could be found in immeasurable loss? Those parents would have seen the mourners pour in from all across the nation, would have read the condolences from across the globe, would have watched as Lyndon Johnson announced on national television that the time had come to overcome, would have seen Congress finally pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Friends and strangers alike would have assured them that their daughters had not died in vain—that they had awakened the conscience of a nation and helped liberate a people; that the bomb had burst a dam to let justice roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. And yet would even that knowledge be enough to console your grief, to keep you from madness and eternal rage—unless you also knew that your child had gone on to a better place?

My thoughts turned to my mother and her final days, after cancer had spread through her body and it was clear that there was no coming back. She had admitted to me during the course of her illness that she was not ready to die; the suddenness of it all had taken her by surprise, as if the physical world she loved so much had turned on her, betrayed her. And although she fought valiantly, endured the pain and chemotherapy with grace and good humor to the very end, more than once I saw fear flash across her eyes. More than fear of pain or fear of the unknown, it was the sheer loneliness of death that frightened her, I think—the notion that on this final journey, on this last adventure, she would have no one to fully share her experiences with, no one who could marvel with her at the body’s capacity to inflict pain on itself, or laugh at the stark absurdity of life once one’s hair starts falling out and one’s salivary glands shut down.

I carried such thoughts with me as I left the church and made my speech. Later that night, back home in Chicago, I sat at the dinner table, watching Malia and Sasha as they laughed and bickered and resisted their string beans before their mother chased them up the stairs and to their baths. Alone in the kitchen washing the dishes, I imagined my two girls growing up, and I felt the ache that every parent must feel at one time or another, that desire to snatch up each moment of your child’s presence and never let go—to preserve every gesture, to lock in for all eternity the sight of their curls or the feel of their fingers clasped around yours. I thought of Sasha asking me once what happened when we die—“I don’t want to die, Daddy,” she had added matter-of-factly—and I had hugged her and said, “You’ve got a long, long way before you have to worry about that,” which had seemed to satisfy her. I wondered whether I should have told her the truth, that I wasn’t sure what happens when we die, any more than I was sure of where the soul resides or what existed before the Big Bang. Walking up the stairs, though, I knew what I hoped for—that my mother was together in some way with those four little girls, capable in some fashion of embracing them, of finding joy in their spirits.

I know that tucking in my daughters that night, I grasped a little bit of heaven.

Excerpt from: Audacity of Hope
Book available here: Download Fiction Books (Nov 2018)

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Ideas to live by (Carlos Slim Helu)


Carlos Slim Helu:
He is a Mexican business magnate, engineer, investor and philanthropist. From 2010 to 2013, Slim was ranked as the richest person in the world by the Forbes business magazine.
Advice from the business mogul:


1. Have a firm handshake.
2. Look people in the eye.
3. Sing in the shower.
4. Own a great stereo system. Music is life.
5. If in a fight, hit first and hit hard.
6. Don't expect life to be fair.
7. Never give up on anybody. Miracles happen everyday.
8. Always accept an outstretched hand.
9. Be brave. Even if you're not, pretend to be. No one can tell the difference.
10. Whistle.
11. Avoid sarcastic remarks.
12. Choose your life's mate carefully. From this one decision will come 90 per cent of all your happiness or misery ABSOLUTELY!.
13. Make it a habit to do nice things for people who will never find out.
14. Lend only those books you never care to see again.
15. Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all that he has.
16. When playing games with children, let them win.
17. Give people a second chance, but NOT a third.
18. Be romantic.
19. Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.
20. Loosen up. Relax. Except for rare life-and-death matters, nothing is as important as it first seems.
21. Don't allow the phone to interrupt important moments. It's there for our convenience, not the caller's.
22. Be a good loser.
23. Be a good winner.
24. Think twice before burdening a friend with a secret.
25. When someone hugs you, let him be the first to let go.
26. Be modest. A lot was accomplished before you were born.
27. Keep it simple at everytime.
28. Beware of the person who has nothing to lose.
29. Don't burn bridges. You'll be surprised how many times you have to cross the same river.
30. Live your life so that your epitaph could read, NO REGRETS. 
31. Be bold and courageous. When you look back on life, you'll regret the things you didn't do more than the ones you did.
32. Never waste an opportunity to tell people you love them.
33. Remember no one makes it alone. Have a grateful heart and be quick to acknowledge those who helped and loved you.
34. Take charge of your attitude. Don't let someone else choose it for you.
35. Visit friends and relatives when they are in hospital; you need only stay a few minutes.
36. Begin each day with some of your favourite prayer
37. Once in a while, take the scenic route.
38. Send a lot of greeting cards. Sign them, 'Someone who thinks you're terrific.'
39. Answer the phone with enthusiasm and energy in your voice.
40. Keep a note pad and pencil on your bed-side table. Million-dollar ideas sometimes strike at 3 a.m.
41. Show respect for everyone who works for a living, regardless of how trivial their job.
42. Send your loved ones flowers. Think of a reason later.
43. Make someone's day by paying the toll for the person in the car behind you.
44. Become someone's hero.
45. Marry only for love, it is key to your happiness if every other thing fails.
46. Count your blessings.
47. Compliment the meal when you're a guest in someone's home.
48. Wave at the children on a school bus/house/street/
49. Remember that 80 per cent of the success in any job is based on your ability to deal with PEOPLE. That is emotional intelligence.
50. Make sure someone says  THANK-YOU to you every day...
Good luck!

Saturday, November 17, 2018

How meditation helps you become aware of not just yourself but of others as well!



Paradoxically, if we wish to become more aware of others and their concerns, there is perhaps no better work we can do than developing selfawareness. Consider the findings of a team of psychologists led by Professor David DeSteno, who recruited thirty-nine people from the Boston area for an unusual experiment. Twenty people were assigned to take a weekly meditation class for eight weeks and then to practice at home, while the remaining nineteen were informed that they were on a waiting list.

At the end of the eight-week period, the participants were invited, one by one, to come to the lab for an experiment. As each participant entered the waiting area, he or she found three chairs, two of them already occupied. As the participant took a seat and waited, a fourth person entered the room on crutches, wearing a boot for a broken foot, sighing audibly in pain as she leaned uncomfortably against the wall. Neither of the other two sitting people, who worked for the experimenters, gave up their seats. Researchers wanted to find out whether the participants in the experiment would give up their chair to the injured patient or not.

The results: 50 percent of those who had practiced meditation gave up their chair, compared to 16 percent of those who hadn’t meditated—a threefold difference! DeSteno explains this dramatic difference by pointing to the documented ability of meditation to enhance attention—our ability to see others—as well as to foster a view that all beings are connected. “The increased compassion of meditators, then, might stem directly from meditation’s ability to dissolve the artificial social distinctions—ethnicity, religion, ideology and the like—that divide us,” DeSteno writes. It all comes down then to elementary respect—the ability to see another human being.

Having given ourselves a “second look” through meditation, we are better able to give others a second look too.

The paradox reflected in this research is striking. By paying attention inside themselves through the practice of meditation, people were better able to pay attention outside themselves by showing kindness. The deeper we go inside ourselves, the farther we can go outside.

Source: Getting to Yes with Yourself (William Ury)

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

A Note on Differences Between A CEO and Any Other Employee (by Warren Buffett)




The performance of CEOs of investee companies, which we have observed at close range, contrasts vividly with that of many CEOs, which we have fortunately observed from a safe distance. Sometimes these CEOs clearly do not belong in their jobs; their positions, nevertheless, are usually secure. The supreme irony of business management in that it is far easier for an inadequate CEO to keep his job than it is for an inadequate subordinate.

If a secretary, say, is hired for a job that requires typing ability of at least 80 words a minute and turns out to be capable of only 50 words a minute, she will lose her job in no time. There is a logical standard for this job; performance is easily measured; and if you can't make the grade, you're out. Similarly, if new sales people fail to generate sufficient business quickly enough, they will be let go. Excuses will not be accepted as a substitute for orders.

However, a CEO who doesn't perform is frequently carried indefinitely. One reason is that performance standards for his job seldom exist. When they do, they are often fuzzy or they may be waived or explained away, even when the performance shortfalls are major and repeated. At too many companies, the boss shoots the arrow of managerial performance and then hastily paints the bullseye around the spot where it lands.

Another important, but seldom recognized, distinction between the boss and the foot soldier is that the CEO has no immediate superior whose performance is itself getting measured. The sales manager who retains a bunch of lemons in his sales force will soon be in hot water himself. It is in his immediate self-interest to promptly weed out his hiring mistakes. Otherwise, he himself may be weeded out. An office manager who has hired inept secretaries faces the same imperative.

But the CEO's boss is a Board of Directors that seldom measures itself and is infrequently held to account for substandard corporate performance. If the Board makes a mistake in hiring, and perpetuates that mistake, so what? Even if the company is taken over because of the mistake, the deal will probably bestow substantial benefits on the outgoing Board members. (The bigger they are, the softer they fall.)

Finally, relations between the Board and the CEO are expected to be congenial. At board meetings, criticism of the CEO's performance is often viewed as the social equivalent of belching. No such inhibitions restrain the office manager from critically evaluating the substandard typist.

These points should not be interpreted as a blanket condemnation of CEOs or Boards of Directors: Most are able and hardworking, and a number are truly outstanding. But the management failings that Charlie and I have seen make us thankful that we are linked with the managers of our three permanent holdings. They love their businesses, they think like owners, and they exude integrity and ability.

Source: Essays of Warren Buffett

Sunday, September 30, 2018

9th Prediction -- The Next Step In Evolution




Ninth Insight was going to reveal where we humans were going with this evolution, where what we have achieved so far is going to lead, how will human society change?

The Ninth Insight explains how human culture will change in the next millennium as a result of conscious evolution. It describes a significantly different way of life. For instance, we humans will voluntarily decrease our population so that we all may live in the most powerful and beautiful places on the Earth. But remarkably, many more of these areas will exist in the future, because we will intentionally let the forests go uncut so that they can mature and build energy.

According to the Ninth Insight, by the middle of the next millennium, humans will typically live among five hundred year old trees and carefully tended gardens, yet within easy travel distance of an urban area of incredible technological wizardry. By then, the means of survival food stuffs and clothing and transportation-will all be totally automated and at everyone's disposal. Our needs will be completely met without the exchange of any currency, yet also without any overindulgence or laziness. Guided by their intuitions, everyone will know precisely what to do and when to do it, and this will fit harmoniously with the actions of others. No one will consume excessively because we will have let go of the need to possess and to control for security.

Our sense of purpose will be satisfied by the thrill of our own evolution-by the elation of receiving intuitions and then watching closely as our destinies unfold. The Ninth depicts a human world where everyone has slowed down and become more alert, ever vigilant for the next meaningful encounter that comes along. We will know that it could occur anywhere: on a path that winds through a forest, for instance, or on a bridge that traverses some canyon.

The Ninth Insight says that as the human race evolves spiritually, we will voluntarily decrease the population to a point sustainable by the Earth. We will be committed to living within the natural energy systems of the planet. Farming will be automated except for the plants one wants to energize personally and then consume. The trees necessary for construction will be grown in special, designated areas. This will free the remainder of the Earth's trees to grow and age and finally mature into powerful forests. Eventually, these forests will be the rule rather than the exception, and all human beings will live in close proximity to this kind of power. Think what an energy-filled world we will live in.

The important thing Ninth Insight tells right now is that we can now understand where we are going. We could not save the environment and democratize the planet and feed the poor before because for so long we could not release our fear of scarcity and our need to control, so that we could give to others. We couldn't release it because we had no view of life that served as an alternative.

We would need a cheap source of energy. Fusion, superconductivity, artificial intelligence, the technology to automate things. We're here on this planet not to build personal empires of control, but to evolve. Paying others for their insights will begin the transformation and then as more and more parts of the economy are automated, currency will disappear altogether. We won't need it. If we are correctly following OUT intuitive guidance then we will take only what we need. And we'll understand that the natural areas of the Earth have to be nurtured and protected for the sources of incredible power that they are.

The Ninth reveals our ultimate destiny. It reiterates that as humans, we are the culmination of the whole of evolution. It talks about matter beginning in a weak form and increasing in complexity, element by element, then species by species, always evolving into a higher state of vibration. When primitive humans came along, we continued this evolution unconsciously by conquering others and gaining energy and moving forward a little bit, and then being conquered ourselves by someone else and losing our energy. This physical conflict continued until we invented democracy, a system that didn't end the conflict but shifted it from a physical to a mental level. Now, we're bringing this whole process into consciousness. We can see that all of human history has prepared us to achieve conscious evolution. Now, we can increase our energy and experience the coincidences consciously. This carries evolution onward at a faster pace, lifting our vibrations even higher.

(Source: Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield)

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Why forgive anyone?


Image result for forgive

An authentically empowered person is one who forgives. Forgiveness is not a moral issue. It is an energy dynamic. When most people forgive they do not want those that they forgave to forget that they forgave and forgot. This kind of forgiveness manipulates the person who is forgiven. It is not forgiveness. It is a means of acquiring external power over another.

Forgiveness means that you do not carry the baggage of an experience. When you choose not to forgive, the experience that you do not forgive sticks with you. When you choose not to forgive, it is like agreeing to wear dark, gruesome sunglasses that distort everything, and it is you who are forced every day to look at Life through those contaminated lenses because you have chosen to keep them. You wish everyone else to see the world that way because you wish to see the world that way, and it is indeed the world that you are looking at, but it is only you who sees it. You are looking through the lenses of your own contaminated love.

Forgiveness means that you do not hold others responsible for your experiences. If you do not hold yourself accountable for what you experience, you will hold someone else accountable, and if you are not satisfied with what you experience, you will seek to change it by manipulating that person. Complaining, for example, is exactly that dynamic of wanting someone to be responsible for what you experience, and to fix things for you.

Complaining is a form of manipulation, but you are free to move beyond that into the next step, which is perception and sharing without manipulation. What is at stake is not your sharing, but the intention behind it. When complaining is used instead of sharing, that is what becomes negative, but not the sharing. It is how you cast the sharing, or shape it, before-the intention with which you share. Before you share, ask yourself, "What is my intention in sharing this? Am I looking for a particular response?" Use this as a way of centering your attitude before committing energy to words. When you assume responsibility for what you experience and share what you experience in a spirit of companionship, that is the same as forgiveness.

When you hold someone responsible for what you experience, you lose power. You cannot know what another person will do. Therefore, when you depend upon another person for the experiences that you think are necessary to your well-being, you live continually in the fear that they will not deliver. The perception that someone else is responsible for what you experience underlies the idea that forgiveness is something that one person does for another. How can you forgive another person for the fact that you have chosen to step out of your power?

When you forgive you release critical judgment of yourself as well as of others. You lighten up. You do not cling to negative experiences that resulted from decisions that you made while you were learning. That is regret. Regret is the double negativity of clinging to negativity. You lose power when you regret. If one person grieves at his or her experiences while another is able to laugh, who is the lighter? Which is harmless? The heart that dances is the innocent heart. The one that cannot laugh is burdened. It is the dancing heart that is harmless.

This does not mean that you do not learn from what you have experienced, and apply that in each moment as you make your decisions. That is responsible choice. If you are doing all that you can to the fullest, of your ability as well as you can, there is nothing else that is asked of a soul.

(Source: Seat of the soul (by Gary Zukav))

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

A Spiritual Take on Addiction (Seat of the soul (Gary Zukav))


CHAPTER 10: ADDICTION

You cannot begin the work of releasing an addiction until you can acknowledge that you are addicted. Until you realize that you have an addiction, it is not possible to diminish its power. The personality rationalizes its addictions. It dresses them in attractive clothing. It presents them to itself and others as desirable or beneficial. A person who is addicted to alcohol, for example, will say to herself or himself, or to others, that drunkenness is a way of loosening up, of relaxing after a tense day, of having fun, and, therefore, it is constructive. A person who is addicted to sex will say to herself or himself, or to others, that random sexual encounters are expressions of closeness, or love, that they reflect an evolved and liberated perception, and, therefore, they are desirable.

Recognition of your own addictions requires inner work. It requires that you look clearly at the places where you lose power in your life, where you are controlled by external circumstances. It requires going through your defenses. Even when striving for clarity, or when outer circumstances-such as an injury caused by driving drunk, or a marriage wrecked by promiscuity-provide evidence of an addiction, the personality often clings to a perception of its addiction as a mere problem, initially, as a small problem, then as a bigger problem, and then as a significant problem. Why does the personality resist acknowledging its addictions? 

Acknowledging an addiction, accepting that you have an addiction, is acknowledgment that a part of you is out of control. The personality resists acknowledging its addictions because that forces it to choose to leave a part of itself out of control, or to do something about it. Once an addiction has been acknowledged, it cannot be ignored, and it cannot be released without changing your life, without changing your self-image, without changing your entire perceptual and conceptual framework. We do not want to do that because it is our nature to resist change. Therefore, we resist acknowledging our addictions. 

An addiction is not merely an attraction. It is natural for males and females to admireeach other, for example, and to feel a warmth and attraction toward each other. An addiction is more than that. An addiction is characterized by magnetism and fear. There is attraction plus fear, plus a jolt of energy that is out of proportion to the situation. Attractions are a pleasing part of life. They can be satisfied and left behind, but addictions cannot.

An addiction cannot be satiated. A sexual addiction, for example, cannot be satisfied by sex. This is the first clue that the dynamic that is involved in what appears to be a sexual addiction is not sexual, but that the experiences of addictive sexual attraction, or repulsion, serve a deeper dynamic.

An addiction can be anesthetized. A sexual addiction, for example, can be made dormant within a relationship by a fear of losing the security of the relationship, but it cannot be healed without a recognition that it is there, and an understanding of the dynamic that lies beneath it. Unless this takes place, it will break through the relationship, or the facade of monogamy, at those moments when the personality feels most insecure, or most threatened. At these times, the personality will feel a sexual attraction to others. 

Sexual addictions are the most universal within our species because the issues of power are tied so directly to the learning of sexuality within the human structure. Sexuality and issues of power were created within our species to complement each other. That is why each human being who is sexually out of control actually has issues of power in which he or she is out of control with his or her own power. At heart, they are identical. A person cannot be in his or her own power center and be sexually out of control or dominated by the sexual energy current. These cannot exist simultaneously. 

What is the dynamic behind sexual addiction?

The experience of addictive sexual attraction is a signal to the experiencer that in that moment he or she is experiencing powerlessness, and is desiring to feed upon a weaker soul. This is the dynamic beneath all addictions: the desire to prey upon a soul that is more shattered than oneself. This is as ugly to look at as it is to experience, but it is the central core of negativity within our species. Sex without reverence, like business without reverence, and politics without reverence, and any activity that is done without reverence, reflects the same thing: one soul preying upon another weaker soul. The way out of a sexual addiction, therefore, is to remind yourself when you feel that attraction, that you are, in that moment, powerless, and desiring to prey upon a soul that is weaker than yourself. In other words, when you are feeling the draw of a sexual addiction, consider simultaneously that you are in a mode of powerlessness that causes a desire to use others to surface within you. That desire feels like a sexual attraction. Remind yourself clearly of what it is that is being ignited in you. That does not mean that you do not physically feel a connection or an attraction, but, underneath it, what causes you to want to act is a different dynamic, one of powerlessness.

Allow this consciousness to penetrate deeply within you so that, at that point, if youwant to act on your addiction, you need to walk through your own reality.

If you are married, or in a monogamous relationship, remind yourself that acting upon your impulse may, or will, cost you your marriage, or your relationship. Ask yourself if what you want to do is worth that. If you are healthy, remind yourself that acting upon your impulse may cost you your health, because you do not know whether or not the partner that you have chosen carries a disease, such as AIDS. Ask yourself if what you want to do is worth that risk. 

Remind yourself that the partner to whom you are most likely drawn is drawn equally to others, as are you, that he or she has no more feeling for you than you have for him or her. You can be assured that this is the case because the sexual attraction that you have felt for this person is a response in you of a weakness detection system, so to speak, that you have used to scan those around you. When it locates a person who is weak enough to be susceptible to you, to be seduced by you, it triggers within you the experience of sexual attraction. Will you advance your masculinity, or your femininity, by exploiting the weakness of this person? Will that gain you what you want to gain? 

Remind yourself that you both have chosen to interact sexually in ways that do not ignite your feelings because, if your feelings were awakened, they would only let you know that the person you are drawn to is no more emotionally involved with you than you are with him or her. It is one thing to think that you are sexually involved with someone and not feeling anything. It is another to face that neither is your partner feeling anything for you.

Look closely at the dynamic in which you are involved, and you will see that when one soul seeks to prey upon a weaker soul, and a weaker soul responds, both souls are the weaker soul. Who preys upon whom? The logic of the five-sensory personality cannot grasp this, but the higher order logic of the heart sees it clearly. Is there truly a difference when two consciousnesses are trying to link into a dynamic that ultimately will lead to balance when both have identical missing pieces? What causes the need to dominate, for example, is the same that causes the need to be submissive. It is merely the choice of which role the soul wishes to play in working out the identical struggle.

Enter into your own fear, into your own sense of wanting a drink, or sex with a different partner. Ask yourself to seriously review all of the times in your life that you thought you would gain so much from that, and face what you gained. Hold onto the thought that you create your experiences. Your fear comes from the realization that a part of you is creating a reality that it wants, whether you want it or not, and the feeling that you are powerless to prevent it, but that is not so. This is critical to understand: your addiction is not stronger than you. It is not stronger than who you want to be. Though it may feel that way, it can only win if you let it. Like any weakness, it is not stronger than the soul or the force of will. Its strength only indicates the amount of effort that needs to be applied toward the transition, toward making yourself whole in that area of your life.

Recognize that what you are doing when you fear that you will be tempted, and that you will not be able to resist the temptation, is creating a situation that will give you permission to act irresponsibly. Is it possible to create a test that you cannot pass? Yes. The experience of wanting to be tempted in order to test yourself is the act of creating an opportunity to act irresponsibly, to say to yourself, "I knew I couldn't do it, anyway," and give in to your addiction. The heart of making a temptation that is greater than you can resist is that you do not wish to be held responsible for your choice.

The greater the desire of your soul to heal your addiction, the greater will be the cost of keeping it. If you-if your soul-have chosen to heal an addiction now, you will find that the decision to maintain your addiction will cost you the things that you hold most dear. If that is your wife or your husband, your marriage will be placed in the balance against your addiction. If that is your career, your career will be placed in the balance. 

This is not the doing of a cruel Universe or a malicious God. It is a compassionate response to your desire to heal, to become whole. It is the compassionate Universe saying to you that your inadequacies are so deep that the only thing that will stop you will be something of equal or greater value in opposition to your inadequacies. This is the same dynamic that is expressed in terms of space and time and matter by the second law of motion: "A change in the momentum (mass, direction of movement, and speed) of a body in motion is directly proportional to the force affecting the body in motion, and takes place in the direction that the force is acting." By the magnitude of the costs of your addiction you can measure the importance of healing it to your soul, and the strength of your own inner intention to do that. 

Try to realize, and truly realize, that what stands between you and a different life are matters of responsible choice. In your moments of fear, what you are obscure about in your thinking is the power and magnitude of your own choice. Recognize what your own power of choice is. You are not at the mercy of your inadequacy. The intention that will empower you must come from a place within you that suggests that you are indeed able to make responsible choices and draw the power from them, that you can make choices that empower you and not disempower you, that you are capable of acts of wholeness. Test your power of choice because each time you choose otherwise you disengage the power of your addiction more and more and increase your personal power more and more. 

As you work through your weaknesses, and you feel levels of addictive attraction,ask yourself the critical questions of the spirit: If, by following those impulses, do
you increase your level of enlightenment? Does it bring you power of the genuine
sort? Will it make you more loving? Will it make you more whole? Ask yourself
these questions.
This is the way out of an addiction: Walk yourself through your reality step by step. Make yourself aware of the consequences of your decisions, and choose accordingly. When you feel in yourself the addictive attraction of sex, or alcohol, or drugs, or anything else, remember these words: You stand between the two worlds of your lesser self and you're full self. Your lesser self is tempting and powerful because it is not as responsible and not as loving and not as disciplined, so it calls you. This other part of you is whole and more responsible and more caring and more empowered, but it demands of you the way of the enlightened spirit: conscious life. Conscious life. The other choice is unconscious permission to act without consciousness. It is tempting.
What choose you?
If your decision is to become whole, hold that decision. You will not be as tempted
or as frightened as you think. Hold it and remind yourself again and again: You stand
between your lesser self and your whole self. Choose with wisdom because the
power is now fully in your hands. Do not underestimate the power of consciousness.
As you live and make conscious choices each moment and each day you fill with
strength and your lesser self disintegrates.
As you choose to empower yourself, the part of you that you challenge, the
temptation that you challenge, will surface again and again. Each time that you
challenge it, you gain power and it loses power. If you challenge an addiction to
alcohol, for example, and you are drawn twelve times that very day to have a drink,
challenge that energy each time. If you look upon each recurrence of attraction as a
setback, or as an indication that your intention is not working, you choose the path of
learning through fear and doubt. If you look upon each recurrence as an opportunity
that is offered to you, in response to your intention, to release your inadequacy and to
acquire power over it, you choose the path of learning through wisdom, for that is
what it is.
The first time that you challenge your addiction, and the second, and the third, you
may not feel that anything has been accomplished. Do you think that authentic power
can be had so easily? As you hold to your intention, and as you choose again and
again and again to become whole, you accumulate power, and the addiction that you
thought could not be challenged will lose its power over you.
When you challenge an addiction, and choose to become whole, you align yourself
with your nonphysical help. The work to be done is yours, but assistance is always
there for you. The nonphysical world, the actions of your guides and Teachers,
touches yours in many ways-the thought that brings power, the memory that reminds,
the surprise occurrence that reinforces. There is much joy in the nonphysical world
when a soul releases major negativity and the quality of its consciousness shifts
upward into higher frequencies of Light. Therefore, do not suffer in aloneness. There
is no such thing.
Look at yourself as someone who is reaching for healing, and at the complexity of
what needs to be healed. Do not think that you exist alone without other human
beings of equal complexity. All that the human experience is about is the journey
toward wholeness. Therefore, you can look at each individual and rest assured that
they are not whole. They are in process. Were they whole, they would not be
physical upon our plane. In other words, you have the company of billions of souls.
When you have worked hard, take the time to appreciate what you have done. Do not
always look at the distance that you have yet to travel. Join your nonphysical
Teachers and guides in applauding what you have accomplished. This does not mean
to relapse into your addiction. It means allowing yourself to rest when you need it, to
recognize when you become exhausted, and to give yourself the grace of knowing
that even the best of us get tired.
Understanding the dynamics behind your addiction is one thing. Actually making the
emotional connection to discharge the need for it is another story. Your addiction is
not insurmountable. It is not overwhelming. If it continues to appear that way to you,
it is because deep in your heart you do not see yourself as able to release the
addiction, even if you understand why you are drawn to it. If your addiction lingers,
ask yourself if you really want to release it, because in your heart you do not.
Until you fill in the inadequacies within you, you will always have your addiction. In
order to release your addiction, it is necessary to enter your inadequacies, to
recognize that they are real, and to bring them into the light of consciousness to heal.
It is necessary to look deeply into the parts of yourself that have such power to you,
to look clearly at how deep they are within you, and to see them as honestly as you
can. It may be that your addiction has provided you one of the few genuine pleasures
of your life. What is more important to you, your wholeness, and your freedom, or
the pleasures that you get from satisfying your addiction?
When you understand that your addiction results from an inadequacy, the question
becomes how you will respond to your inadequacy-by reaching for another drink, or
another sexual encounter, or by reaching inward for those things that fill the whole?
Move into how strong the power of your addiction is, into how deeply you feel its
attraction, and ask yourself if the time is really right for you to release this form of
learning. That is for you to ask and answer. You may hear the guidance of your
nonphysical Teachers, and feel that it offers you a path of higher wisdom, but at the
same moment realize that you are not ready to take that path. You might decide that
this is not the right time, that you are not yet strong enough to live a certain way. You
might indeed have to face that.
Ultimately, you will take the higher path, but if you wish to put the journey off for a
day or a week or seven lifetimes, that is sufficient. Your Teachers see from a
perspective that does not include time. It is the depth of wisdom for you to know that
you will eventually take the path of consciousness. If that is the path that you will
eventually take, why wait? Yet, there are times when there is wisdom in waiting as
the rest of you prepares for the journey. There is no shame in this decision.
The Universe does not judge. Eventually, you will come to authentic empowerment.
You will know the power of forgiveness, humbleness, clarity and love. You will
evolve beyond the human experience, beyond the Earth school, beyond the learning
environment of space and time and matter. You cannot not evolve. Everything in the
Universe evolves. It is only a question of which way you will choose to learn as you
evolve. This is always your choice, and there is always wisdom in each choice.
When you return home, when you leave your personality and body behind, you will
leave behind your inadequacies, your fears and angers and jealousies. They do not,
and cannot, exist within the realm of spirit. They are the experiences of the
personality, of time and matter. You will once again enter the fullness of who you
are. You will perceive with loving eyes and compassionate understanding the
experiences of your life, including those that seemed so much to control you. You
will see what purposes they served. You will survey what has been learned, and you
will bring these things into your next incarnation.
If you choose to continue with your addiction, you choose to experience negative
karma. You choose to create without compassion. You choose to be unconscious.
You choose to learn through the experiences that your unconscious intentions create.
You choose to learn through fear and doubt, because you fear your addiction and you
doubt your power to challenge it successfully.
If you choose to challenge your addiction, to move consciously toward wholeness,
you choose to learn through wisdom. You choose to create your experiences
consciously, to align the perceptions and the energy of your personality with your
soul. You choose to create within physical reality the reality that your soul wishes to
create. You choose to allow your soul to move through you. You choose to allow
Divinity to shape your world.
When you struggle with an addiction, you deal directly with the healing of your soul.
You deal directly with the matter of your life. This is the work that is required to be
done. As you face your deepest struggles, you reach for your highest goal. As you
bring to light, heal, and release the deepest currents of negativity within you, you
allow the energy of your soul to move directly into, and to shape, the experiences and
events of physical reality, and thereby to accomplish unimpeded its tasks upon the
Earth.
This is the work of evolution. It is the work that you were born to do.

Source: Seat of the soul (Gary Zukav) Tags: Behavioral Science,Book Summary,Emotional Intelligence,Psychology,

Saturday, September 22, 2018

The Path To Growth (by Gary Zukav)


 This article draws your attention to the vertical path, the path to growth, and to the difference between the vertical path and the horizontal path.

The vertical path is the path of awareness. It is the path of consciousness and conscious choice. The person who chooses to advance his or her spiritual growth, to cultivate awareness of his or her higher self, is on a vertical path. The vertical path is the path of clarity. The potential for the creation of clarity and the experience of interacting with your nonphysical Teacher are one and the same.

The horizontal path is the path that satisfies your personality. A businessman or a businesswoman, for example, who devotes his or her life to the accumulation of money is on a horizontal path. No matter how diverse his or her ventures may become, they are essentially identical. If they make money, they please the personality, and if they lose money, they distress the personality, but they do not serve the higher self. They do not serve his or her spiritual growth.

A person that seeks relationships only to gratify his or her own needs, such as his or her own emotional or sexual needs, will find that each relationship is essentially identical, that the people in his or her life are replaceable, that experiences with the first and experiences with the second are essentially the same. This is the horizontal path. Each new experience is not really new. It is more of the same thing. To experience relationships of substance and depth requires approaching and entering into relationships with consciousness and concern for the other. That is the vertical path.

This does not mean that learning does not occur in all situations, and that when a horizontal path is no longer appropriate to a soul's learning, that soul will not leave it behind. Sooner or later, each soul will turn toward authentic power. Every situation serves this goal, and every soul will reach it. The vertical path begins with the decision to do that consciously.

Source: Seat of the Soul (Gary Zukav)

Friday, September 21, 2018

The Brave Never Die



The wreck of the Birkenhead off the coast of Africa on the 27th of February, 1852, affords another memorable illustration of the chivalrous spirit of common men acting in this nineteenth century, of which any age might be proud. The vessel was steaming along the African coast with 472 men and 166 women and children on board. The men belonged to several regiments then serving at the Cape, and consisted principally of recruits who had been only a short time in the service. At two o’clock in the morning, while all were asleep below, the ship struck with violence upon a hidden rock which penetrated her bottom; and it was at once felt that she must go down. The roll of the drums called the soldiers to arms on the upper deck, and the men mustered as if on parade. The word was passed to save the women and children; and the helpless creatures were brought from below, mostly undressed, and handed silently into the boats. When they had all left the ship’s side, the commander of the vessel thoughtlessly called out, “All those that can swim, jump overboard and make for the boats.” But Captain Wright, of the 91st Highlanders, said, “No! if you do that, the boats with the women must be swamped;” and the brave men stood motionless. There was no boat remaining, and no hope of safety; but not a heart quailed; no one flinched from his duty in that trying moment. “There was not a murmur nor a cry amongst them,” said Captain Wright, a survivor, “until the vessel made her final plunge.” Down went the ship, and down went the heroic band, firing a feu de joie as they sank beneath the waves. Glory and honour to the gentle and the brave! The examples of such men never die, but, like their memories, are immortal.

Source: Self help (Samuel Smiles)

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Birkenhead_(1845)

Sunday, September 16, 2018

Why Socialism Won't Work



An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on this plan : All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade!

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D!

No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F!

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that communism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment :

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

Saturday, September 15, 2018

When Letting Go Is The Better Choice




The manner in which many allow themselves to be sacrificed to their love of wealth reminds one of the cupidity of the monkey—that caricature of our species.

In Algiers, the Kabyle peasant attaches a gourd, well fixed, to a tree, and places within it some rice. The gourd has an opening merely sufficient to admit the monkey’s paw. The creature comes to the tree by night, inserts his paw, and grasps his booty. He tries to draw it back, but it is clenched, and he has not the wisdom to unclench it. So there he stands till morning, when he is caught, looking as foolish as may be, though with the prize in his grasp.

The moral of this little story is capable of a very extensive application in life.

Source: Self-Help by Samuel Smiles