Monat: Dezember 2012

An old man walking along a beach at dawn noticed a young man ahead of him picking up starfish and flinging them into the sea. Catching up with the youth he asked what he was doing. „The starfish will die if they are still on the beach when the sun roasts them with its mid-morning heat,“ came the answer. „But the beach goes on for miles, and there are millions of starfish,“ countered the old man. „How can your effort make any difference?“ The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and threw it safely in the waves. „It makes a difference to this one,“ he said.

How do you eat an elephant?
one piece at a time

Too often psychotherapists try to deal with their patients by using their doctoral degree language, trying to explain the ego, superego, and the id, conscious and unconscious, and the patient doesn’t know whether you’re talking about corn, potatoes or hash. Therefore, you try to use the language of the patient. Now a patient had been at Worcester for nine years. The patient had been brought in by the police with no identification marks on his clothing, we could get no information from him at all, we didn’t know where he was from. There was no evidence he lived in Worcester. He might have been a transient. And for the nine years he was on the ward we’d be social and say „good morning“. He replied with word salad, „bucket of lard, didn’t pay up, sand on the beach“ things like that . . . just irrelevant words all mixed up . . . didn’t make any sense at all. And when I came there I was intrigued with that patient, intrigued by him. I endeavored many times to elicit his name, and all I ever got was a continuous outpouring of word salad. So I sent my secretary out and told her, „Take down his word salad and transcribe it for me.“ I went through that word salad and then I prepared a word salad similar to his but not precisely the same. And one morning at eight o’clock I said, „good morning“ and he replied with a big paragraph of word salad to which I responded with a big paragraph of word salad. He responded and we „wordsaladed“ each other for a couple of hours. Finally he said, „Why don’t you talk sense Dr. Erickson?“ I said, „I’d be glad to, what is your name?“ He told me. „Where are you from?“ and I started taking a good history and all of a sudden he began his word salad again. So I responded in word salad. By the end of the day I had a complete history and medical examination—a very good account of him. And thereafter if I wanted to talk to him and he replied with word salad so did I. Well, he soon dropped his word salad. And within a year he was able to be released from the hospital and get a job. Now I certainly didn’t do any therapy. I just met him at his own level.

A woman was flying from Seattle to San Francisco.
Unexpectedly, the plane was diverted to Sacramento along the way. 

The flight attendant explained that there would be a delay, and if the passengers wanted to get off the aircraft the plane would re-board in 50 minutes.. 

Everybody got off the plane except one lady who was blind. 

A man had noticed her as he walked by and could tell the lady was blind because her guide dog lay quietly underneath the seats in front of her throughout the entire flight.
He could also tell she had flown this very flight before because the pilot approached her, and calling her by name, said, „Kathy, we are in Sacramento for almost an hour. Would you like to get off and stretch your legs?“ 

The blind lady said,
„No thanks, but maybe Buddy would like to stretch his legs.“
All the people in the gate area came to a complete stand still when they looked up and saw the pilot walk off the plane with a guide dog for the blind!
Even worse, the pilot was wearing sunglasses !

People scattered.
They not only tried to change planes,
But they were trying to change airlines!

True story….. 
Have a great day and remember…..

Things aren’t always quite as they appear!

A Jain version of the story says that six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant’s body. The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe.
A king explains to them:
„All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently is because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all the features you mentioned.“[1]

Many years ago there was a sailor who had traveled to many different countries around the world. He had been to many places and seen many different sights. One day as he was sailing across the seas he came upon an island and decided to rest there for a while. He moored his boat on the shore and began to look around. All around the island was a beautiful white beach and behind the beach was dense tropical jungle. All was quiet until… He thought he could hear a faint noise in the distance and tilted his head to listen. He sensed it came from within the jungle and walked closer. Sure enough, once again he heard this faint noise in the background. He started to hack his way through the foliage in order to make a pathway. The more he moved inland the louder the noise became. He continued to cut his way through until eventually he reached a clearing and there in the middle of the clearing he saw an old man sitting crosslegged on the ground. The old man had his eyes closed and was chanting “Mo, Mo, Mo” in long, soft tones. The sailor stood and watched and listened. “Mo, Mo, Mo,” continued the old man. Eventually the sailor approached the old man and tapped him on the shoulder. The old man turned slowly around and smiled. “Excuse me,” said the sailor, “I think you have made a mistake. I think you should be saying ‘Om, Om, Om.’” “Oh,” said the old man, smiling. “Thank you so much,” and began to chant, “Om, Om, Om.” The sailor felt pleased with himself and made his way back to his boat. He began to sail away, and when he had sailed for a while he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around, surprised to see the old man, who said, “Forgive me for interrupting your journey. Could you please remind me what the chant should be?” The sailor, in a state of shock, said, “Om, Om, Om.” “Thank you so much,” said the old man and walked back across the water to the island.

Ali, the prophet’s cousin, son in law, and the bravest of all Muslim’s had caught an evil unbeliever and enemy of the faithful. He drew his scimitar and was about to chop off the infidel’s head when the evil one spat in the face of the most just of all. Ali paused and placed his scimitar back into his scabbard and left. The infidel ran after him and asked, „You were about to kill me and I spat in you face and you left. How come?“ Ali replied, „When I drew my scimitar I was going to execute you for your crimes against Islam and all the Moslems you have murdered. When you span in my face, I became angry. If I had killed you I would have murdered you for the sake of my ego.“ The former infidel fell upon the ground upon hearing this and accepted God and Islam. He was now a totally changed man and became a great Muslim saint.