Monthly Archives: September 2016

A woman’s story

Posted on by

One day, when a seamstress was sewing while sitting close to a river, her thimble fell into the river. When she cried out, the Lord appeared and asked, “My dear child, why are you crying?”

The seamstress replied that her thimble had fallen into the water and that she needed it to help her husband in making a living for their family.

The Lord dipped His hand into the water and pulled up a golden thimble set with sapphires.

“Is this your thimble?” the Lord asked.

The seamstress replied, “No.”

The Lord again dipped into the river. He held out a golden thimble studded with rubies.

“Is this your thimble?” the Lord asked.

Again, the seamstress replied, “No.”

The Lord reached down again and came up with a leather thimble.

“Is this your thimble?” the Lord asked.

The seamstress replied, “Yes.”

The Lord was pleased with the woman’s honesty and gave her all three thimbles to keep, and the seamstress went home happy.

Some years later, the seamstress was walking with her husband along the riverbank, and her husband fell into the river and disappeared under the water. When she cried out, the Lord again appeared and asked her, “Why are you crying?”

“Oh Lord, my husband has fallen into the river!

“The Lord went down into the water and came up with George Clooney .

“Is this your husband?” The Lord asked.

“Yes,” cried the seamstress.

The Lord was furious “You lied! That is an untruth!”

The seamstress replied, “Oh, forgive me, my Lord. It is a misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding???” asked the Lord.

“Yes, my Lord,” replied the seamstress, “You see, if I had said “no” to George Clooney , you would have come up with Brad Pitt .

Then if I said “no” to him, you would have come up with my husband.. Had I then said “yes,” you would have given me all three.

Lord, I’m not in the best of health and would not be able to take care of all three husbands, so THAT’S why I said “yes” to George Clooney.”

And so the Lord let her keep him.

The moral of this story is: Whenever a woman lies, it’s for a good and honourable reason, and in the best interest of others. (That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it.)

Compete with yourself

Posted on by

Is competition a good thing? We are all scripted to believe it is. People often say things like, “We welcome competition.” Is competition a natural thing? Is it a product of society or is it something inherent in all of us. Animals don’t compete. They try to survive – there is a big difference. Animals certainly don’t try and better each other in the process. The leopards, for example, are climbing trees, not the corporate ladder. It’s not about eating more, or catching the antelope faster than the next guy. It’s about eating – that’s it. I think. So, do we need to beat our competitors? Surely we should strive to beat ourselves, besides, why climb the corporate ladder when you can take the escalator?

http://coolfidence.com/compete-with-yourself-solution-20069

A business represents a group of people – a team. And this is probably where the cracks start appearing. A team should try challenging itself to continually improve on the day before, the week before or the year before. And we need teams. “We” compete better than “I”. There is enough competition in the marketplace – there is no need to bring it into your corporation.

I guess we can debate whether competition is a natural principle for hours? Or whether it is something that is a result of our surroundings and the society we have been conditioned by. The world is in an anxious state (just watch the news on any given day). There are too many obsolete and incomplete paradigms in the world. Competition is one of them. We live in a world where we are told that competition is good for us. And it is a powerful, deeply entrenched principle that is old fashioned. It is a not paradigm of mutual benefit, but rather of win/lose. Win/lose is incomplete. All teams need to win. Take a soccer match, for example. Can both teams win? How can this be so? Dig deep into your imaginations here. If the principle was “stretch” and not “competition” then both teams could win. The game could always be a draw and each team would try to do better than they did before and they would stretch themselves and try to realize their full potential. And in the match itself you would exercise, bond, socialize and have fun. In short: we could get 2 teams to play each other and reap all the benefits of social interaction and yet at the same time we could have everyone be winners.

At my age …

Posted on by

Lying around, pondering the problems of the world, I realized that, at my age,  I don’t really give a rat’s ass anymore.

If walking is good for your health, the postman would be immortal.

A whale swims all day, only eats fish, and drinks water, but is still fat.

A rabbit runs, and hops, and only lives15 years, while a tortoise doesn’t run, and does mostly nothing, yet it lives for 150 years. And they tell us to exercise? I don’t think so.

Now that I’m older, here’s what I’ve discovered:

  1. I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.
  1. My wild oats are mostly enjoyed with prunes and all-bran.
  1. Funny, I don’t remember being absent-minded.
  1. Funny, I don’t remember being absent-minded.
  1. If all is not lost, then where the heck is it?
  1. It was a whole lot easier to get older, than it was to get wiser.
  1. Some days, you’re the top dog, some days you’re the hydrant.
  1. I wish the buck really did stop here; I sure could use a few of them.
  1. Kids in the back seat cause accidents.
  1. Accidents in the back seat cause kids.
  1. It is hard to make a comeback when you haven’t been anywhere.
  1. The world only beats a path to your door when you’re in the bathroom.
  1. If God wanted me to touch my toes, he’d have put them on my knees.
  1. When I’m finally holding all the right cards, everyone wants to play chess.
  1. It is not hard to meet expenses … they’re everywhere.
  1. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
  1. These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter … I go somewhere to get something, and then wonder what I’m “here after”.
  1. Funny, I don’t remember being absent-minded.
  1. It is a lot better to be seen than viewed.
  1. Have I sent this message to you before … or did I get it from you?

Instant messaging: WhatsApp with that?

Posted on by

Ticks causing fever were documented as far back as ancient Egyptian times; they’re also famous for spreading Lyme disease. Australia even has something called a Paralysis Tick, which you don’t often hear mentioned in their tourism brochures. But there’s a new tick in town that’s a lot more useful to us… the blue ticks on a WhatsApp message, indicating that we’ve officially communicated with someone.

You can send images, video clips, audio files and make calls, and the company prides itself on being securely encrypted, for free. All with an interface that makes it easy for your technophobe aunt to use, partly why it’s achieved so much success over the last decade.

Other messaging options like Viber, Telegram and WeChat are all solid, but can’t beat the current messaging heavyweight champion. With 30 billion WhatsApps sent daily, it’s the most popular messaging application on the planet.

What is the protocol with WhatsApp and instant messaging? Does it have a place in business, or is it just for sexting couples or teen gossip? Is it too intrusive to be used on a professional level?

Using Direct Messages on Twitter, Facebook mails or even asking someone to get hold of you via your Instagram comments could once be seen as an encroachment on privacy, but are now all fair game to aid communication. Like it or not, shouldn’t we be able to use all the new communication tools at our disposal?

When cellphones first came out, they were nice to have, and then became an invasion of privacy. Getting hold of someone immediately suddenly became the most important thing. Was instant connection just as important when you could only get hold of people on a landline? Back then you had to plan ahead for proper correspondence.

Even further back, Pheidippides is said to have run from Marathon to Athens (250km) to deliver news of a military victory against the Persians. If only he’d had WiFi.

http://coolfidence.com/instant-messaging-whatsapp-with-that-solution-20068

Bear on the Roof

Posted on by

A man wakes up one morning, in Alaska, to find a bear on his roof. So he looks in the Yellow Pages and sure enough, there’s an ad for ‘Bear Removers’. He calls the number, and the bear remover says he’ll be over in 30 minutes.

The bear remover arrives, and gets out of his van. He’s got a ladder, a baseball bat, a shotgun and a mean old pit bull.

‘What are you going to do?’ the home owner asks.

‘I’m going to put this ladder up against the roof, and then I’m going to go up there and knock the bear off the roof with this baseball bat. When the bear falls off, the pit bull is trained to grab his testicles and not let go.

The bear will then be subdued enough for me to put him in the cage in the back of the van.’

He hands the shotgun to the home owner.
‘What’s the shotgun for?’ asks the home owner.

‘If the bear knocks me off the roof, shoot the dog!’