**Story of Appreciation**

Translated from Chinese

I got this as a forward in a friends group. Very insightful indeed.

One young academically excellent person went to apply for a managerial position in a big company. He passed the first interview, the director did the last interview, made
the last decision.

The director discovered from the CV that the youth's academic achievements were excellent all the way, from the secondary school until the postgraduate research, never had a year when he did not score.

The director asked, "Did you obtain any scholarships in school?" the youth answered "none".

The director asked, " Was it your father who paid for your school fees?" The youth answered, "My father passed away when I was one year old, it was my mother who paid for my school fees.
The director asked, " Where did your mother work?" The youth answered, "My mother worked as clothes cleaner. The director requested the youth to show his hands. The youth showed a pair of hands that were smooth and perfect.

The director asked, " Have you ever helped your mother wash the clothes
before?" The youth answered, "Never, my mother always wanted me to study and read more books. Furthermore, my mother can wash clothes faster than me.

The director said, "I have a request. When you go back today, go and clean your mother's hands, and then see me tomorrow morning.*

The youth felt that his chance of landing the job was high. When he went back, he happily requested his mother to let him clean her hands. His mother felt strange, happy but with mixed feelings, she showed her hands to the kid.

The youth cleaned his mother's hands slowly. His tear fell as he did that. It was the first time he noticed that his mother's hands were so wrinkled, and there were so many bruises in her hands. Some bruises were so painful that his mother shivered when they were cleaned with water.

This was the first time the youth realized that it was this pair of hands that washed the clothes everyday to enable him to pay the school fee. The bruises in the mother's hands were the price that the mother had to pay for his graduation, academic excellence and his future.
After finishing the cleaning of his mother hands, the youth quietly washed all the remaining clothes for his mother.

That night, mother and son talked for a very long time. Next morning, the youth went to the director's office. The Director noticed the tears in the youth's eyes, asked: " Can you tell me what have you done and learned yesterday in your house?"

The youth answered, " I cleaned my mother's hand, and also finished cleaning all the remaining clothes'

The Director asked, " please tell me your feelings."

The youth said, Number 1, I know now what is appreciation. Without my mother, there would not the successful me today. Number 2, by working together and helping my mother, only I now realize how difficult and tough it is to get something done. Number 3, I have come to appreciate the importance and value of family relationship.

The director said, " This is what I am looking for to be my manager.

I want to recruit a person who can appreciate the help of others, a person who knows the sufferings of others to get things done, and a person who would not put money as his only goal in life. You are hired.

Later on, this young person worked very hard, and received the respect of his subordinates. Every employee worked diligently and as a team. The company's performance improved tremendously.

A child, who has been protected and habitually given whatever he wanted, would develop "entitlement mentality" and would always put himself first. He would be ignorant of his parent's efforts. When he starts work, he assumes that every person must listen to him, and when he becomes a manager, he would never know the sufferings of his employees and would always blame others. For this kind of people, who may be good academically, may be successful for a while, but eventually would not feel sense of achievement. He will grumble and be full of hatred and fight for more. If we are this kind of protective parents, are we really showing love or are we destroying the kid instead?*

You can let your kid live in a big house, eat a good meal, learn piano, watch a big screen TV. But when you are cutting grass, please let them experience it. After a meal, let them wash their plates and bowls together with their brothers and sisters. It is not because you do not have money to hire a maid, but it is because you want to love them in a right way. You want them to understand, no matter how rich their parents are, one day their hair will grow gray, same as the mother of that young person. The most important thing is your kid learns how to appreciate the effort and experience the difficulty and learns the ability to work with others to get things done.

Humble Personification

Visiting that Ragavendra temple in Bangalore is almost more than a routine for her. She has not seen him ever before in the temple.

He was sitting on the floor with his closed eyes, folded legs and locked fingers in 'Gnana Mudra'. He looked strange and different with a turban on his head and the very long flowing beard. Some thing was there in his face that attracted her. She could not understand what that was.

She finished her 'darshan' and came out; she saw the man was walking in the corridor. Again something was happening in her, she could not understand what was that. She was telling herself, "a poor old man. I have to help him". She ran to him, gave rupees ten in his hand and
forced him to accept. He smiled, expressed a reverence like a 'prasadam' by keeping it in the forehead and thanked her by keeping the hand in prayer position ('Namasthey').

As she came out, she saw the man was getting into his Mercedes Benz, she was perplexed, shivered and ran to him and said, "Sir (Ayya!), Please forgive me, I did not do this to insult you. By seeing your dress and appearance, I thought you are struggling in life and offered you the
money. It is a blunder. I am sorry. Please forgive me. Please give me back that money. I am sorry".

The man with the fake beard and turban laughed and replied her politely, "Ammaa.. There is no mistake of yours. It is the other way. The creator is again and again reminding me through some body, "You are nothing. You are not special. Everybody is equal in front of me". He keeps on sending this message again and again and today you happened to be a medium. That's it. Thanks a ton". His hand again went to prayer position, expressed gratitude to the lady and he went into his car.

When the lady realized the man was none other than Super star Rajini Kanth - Asia's number one paid actor, he has left the place. She did not know what to do. With tears in her eyes, she was starring at the direction that the car went.

- From Dr. Gayathri Sreekanth's "The Name Is Rajini Kanth - A biography"

Let Go - The Ego

Came across a nice forward. Very useful if applied in our life...

There was once a learned scientist after a lot of practice and efforts developed a formula and learned the art of reproducing himself. He did it so perfectly that it was impossible to tell the reproduction from the original. Thus, he was successful in his formula.

One day while doing his research he realized that the Angel of Death was searching for him. In order to remain immortal he reproduced a dozen copies of himself. The reproduction was so meticulous that all of them looked exactly like him. When the Angel of death came down, he was at a loss to know which of the thirteen before him was the original scientist, and confused, he left them all alone and returned back to heaven.

But, not for long, for being an expert in human nature, the Angel came up with a clever idea. He said to the scientist addressing all thirteen of them, "Sir, you must be a genius to have succeeded in making such perfect reproduction formula of yourself. However, I have discovered a flaw in your work, just one tiny little flaw."

The scientist immediately jumped out and shouted, "Impossible! Where is the flaw?" "Right here" said the Angel, as he picked up the scientist from among the reproductions and carried him off. The whole purpose of the scientist and his formula of reproduction failed as he could not control his pride and lost his life.

So check out friends, while your Knowledge and Skills takes you to the top of the ladder and make you successful, but the three letter word "EGO" will pull you down immediately. Let go your Ego.

A small touching story mainly for professionals. ..

A man came home from work late, tired and irritated, to find his 5-year old son waiting for him at the door.

SON: "Daddy, may I ask you a question?"
DAD: "Yeah sure, what is it?" replied the man.

SON: "Daddy, how much do you make an hour?"
DAD: "That's none of your business. Why do you ask such a thing?" the man said angrily.


SON: "I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?"
DAD: "If you must know, I make Rs.100 an hour."

SON: "Oh," the little boy replied, with his head down.

SON: "Daddy, may I please borrow Rs.50?"

The father was furious, "If the only reason you asked that is so you can borrow some money to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. Think about why you are being so selfish. I work hard everyday for such this childish behavior."

The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door. The man sat down and started to get even angrier about the little boy's questions. How dare he ask such questions only to get some money? After about an hour or so, the man had calmed down, and started to think: Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that Rs.50 and he really didn't ask for money very often. The man went to the door of the little boy's room and opened the door.

"Are you asleep, son?" He asked.
"No daddy, I'm awake," replied the boy.

"I've been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier" said the man.
"It's been a long day and I took out my aggravation on you.. Here's the Rs.50 you asked for."

The little boy sat straight up, smiling. "Oh, thank you daddy!" He yelled.

Then, reaching under his pillow he pulled out some crumpled up bills. The man saw that the boy already had money, started to get angry again. The little boy slowly counted out his money, and then looked up at his father.

"Why do you want more money if you already have some?" the father grumbled.
"Because I didn't have enough, but now I do," the little boy replied.

"Daddy, I have Rs.100 now. Can I buy an hour of your time?
Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you."

The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little son, and he begged for his forgiveness.


It's just a short reminder to all of you working so hard in life. We should not let time slip through our fingers without having spent some time with those who really matter to us, those close to our hearts.

Do remember to share that Rs.100 worth of your time with someone you love.
If we die tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days. But the family & friends we leave behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives. And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more into work than to our family.

A Touching Story

A Story which i came across in a mail. Found it good, so posting it here.

I was walking around in a Target store, when I saw a Cashier hand this little boy some money back.

The boy couldn't have been more than 5 or 6 years old.

The Cashier said, "I'm sorry, but you don't have enough money to buy this doll."

Then the little boy turned to the old woman next to him: ''Granny, are you sure I don't have enough money?''

The old lady replied: ''You know that you don't have enough money to buy this doll, my dear.''

Then she asked him to stay there for just 5 minutes while she went to look a round. She left quickly. The little boy was still holding the doll in his hand.

Finally, I walked toward him and I asked him who he wished to give this doll to.

"It's the doll that my sister loved most and wanted so much for Christmas. She was sure that Santa Claus would bring it to her."

I replied to him that maybe Santa Claus would bring it to her after all, and not to worry.

But he replied to me sadly. "No, Santa Claus can't bring it to her where she is now. I have to give the doll to my mommy so that she can give it to my sister when she goes there."

His eyes were so sad while saying this. "My Sister has gone to be with God. Daddy says that Mommy is going to see God very soon too, so I thought that she could take the doll with her to give it to my sister.''

My heart nearly stopped.

The little boy looked up at me and said: "I told daddy to tell mommy not to go yet. I need her to wait until I come back from the mall."

Then he showed me a very nice photo of him where he was laughing. He then told me "I want mommy to take my picture with her so she won't forget me."

"I love my mommy and I wish she doesn't have to leave me, but daddy says that she has to go to be with my little sister."

Then he looked again at the doll with sad eyes, very quietly.

I quickly reached for my wallet and said to the boy. "Suppose we check again, just in case you do have enough money for the doll?''

"OK" he said, "I hope I do have enough." I added some of my money to his with out him seeing and we started to count it. There was enough for the doll and even some spare money.

The little boy said: "Thank you God for giving me enough money!"

Then he looked at me and added, "I asked last night before I went to sleep for God to make sure I had enough money to buy this doll, so that mommy could give It to my sister. He heard me!''

"I also wanted to have enough money to buy a white rose for my mommy, but I didn't dare to ask God for too much. But He gave me enough to buy the doll and a white rose.''

"My mommy loves white roses."

A few minutes later, the old lady returned and I left with my basket.

I finished my shopping in a totally different state from when I started. I couldn't get the little boy out of my mind.

Then I remembered a local news paper article two days ago, which mentioned a drunk man in a truck, who hit a car occupied by a young woman and a little girl.

The little girl died right away, and the mother was left in a critical state. The family had to decide whether to pull the plug on the life-sustaining machine, because the young woman would not be able to recover from the coma.

Was this the family of the little boy?

Two days after this encounter with the little boy, I read in the news paper that the young woman had passed away.

I couldn't stop myself as I bought a bunch of white roses and I went to the funeral home where the body of the young woman was exposed for people to see and make last wishes before her burial.

She was there, in her coffin, holding a beautiful white rose in her hand with the photo of the little boy and the doll placed over her chest.

I left the place, teary-eyed, feeling that my life had been changed for ever.. The love that the little boy had for his mother and his sister is still, to this day, hard to imagine. And in a fraction of a second, a drunk driver had taken all this away from him.

The value of a man or woman resides in what he or she gives, not in what they are capable of receiving...