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Once upon a time there were two frogs who lived in a pond. It was a comfortable environment that they had gotten used to over time and they imagined that this would be their home for the rest of their lives. Everyday they would hop across the lily pads, catch flies, go for a dip, and bask in the sunlight. One day, however, it started to rain and this was followed by even harder rain in the days that followed. They sensed that this weather was leading to something dangerous and sure enough a massive storm came along which threatened this environment that they had gotten used to. And they realized that they had to leave the pond in search of some place new.
So they hopped through a forest which protected them from the storm while their hearts pitter-pattered with the uncertainty of where they would end up. Soon afterwards, and having traveled a long and difficult journey, the storm finally passed. They then found themselves in an unfamiliar environment and in front of them stood a bucket. Although they couldn’t see inside the bucket they were very curious and excited to know what was inside. Ignoring the possibility of any danger, they decided to jump inside to discover what this new environment contained.
Splash! They quickly found that they had landed inside a bucket filled with cream for it seems that a farmer who lived nearby had left the bucket outside. While the frogs had initially felt excited and curious to explore this new environment, they now found that they were trapped. Upon realizing their predicament they struggled to find a way to escape. They tried to rock the bucket from side to side to no avail. They tried to climb out, but slipped back into the cream. No matter what they tried, they remained trapped.
One of the frogs said to the other, “This is hopeless. We are trying everything possible, but nothing is working!” Soon after, he gave up, sank to the bottom, drowned, and alas rose to frog heaven. The second frog, however, was determined to find a way to escape and avoid the fate of his pessimistic friend. In his more optimistic way, he became determined to do whatever was possible to find a way out. He continued to kick and noticed that something magical was occurring. The cream was starting to harden. The harder he kicked the harder the cream became until it eventually transformed into butter. He then stood on top of the butter and hopped safely to the outside. He then hopped along to other environments much wiser and stronger having learned to look before leaping and lived a long and enjoyable life.

Once upon a time, there was a rose that longed to meet some bees. Because as you know, roses and bees have a special relationship. But although the rose dreamed day and night about the bees, no bee ever came to see her or to rest upon her petals. Yet, the rose continued to dream, always in hope, that one day a bee would come to her. Even during the long nights, she imagined a sky-full of bees, all gazing down upon her, and some of those bees coming to kiss her. And it was perhaps only this hope that kept her alive and helped her to last until the next day when the sun came again and she opened up her beautiful blossoms.
On one of these nights, the moon (who had seen her longings for many a long night) spoke to her and said, „You must be so tired of waiting – would it not be easier for you to just give up?“
„Oh yes, I am so tired and so lonely,“ said the Rose, „but I will keep trying and trying.“
The moon laughed in an unpleasant way and said, „Why bother?“
And the rose answered, „Because if I don’t remain open, I will simply fade away.“

„Come to the edge!“
„Tis too high!“
„Come to the edge!“
„We might fall!“
„Come to the edge!“
So they came to the edge and
He pushed them and
THEY FLEW!

Worry is a useful signal. It’s like a telephone call from your unconscious mind. So it’s good, of course, to notice the call and answer it. That allows you to make the proper response. I mean, you don’t want the phone to keep ringing. Once is enough. So just make the appropriate response immediately and then the ringing will stop.
During 1999, a very bizarre fear and worry filled the newspapers every day. It was called the Y2K problem. The year 2,000 sounds a little ominous, of course, and people may have been looking for it to have a special meaning or even to mark the end of an era in a really obvious way. Or perhaps, Y2K was a serious fear for people.
It’s interesting to consider how this problem began before we look at its more interesting consequences today. Back when computers were first invented and developed, computer memory was really really expensive. And so programmers would try to save bits and bytes wherever possible. So when a programmer was entering the format for the date, he decided to use “55″ instead of the longer “1955.” By doing this, he could use half as much memory to encode the data. Saving two bytes may not sound like much, but when a program used a date in hundreds or thousands of places, this could add up to big memory savings.
Of course, the programmer didn’t imagine that the computer and his program would still be in use in the year 2000. Back then, people imagined the year 2000 as having flying cars and amazing anti-gravity devices. Although the world has progressed enormously, it is amazing how some things can still stay around much much longer than people imagine. And that’s what happened with the code that the programmer wrote. Just like a person can keep snippets of memory from long long ago, in the same way, snippets of code can stay around in newer systems long after could be imagined.
And of course, those snippets continue to play an important role in the system. So in the year 1999, people began to worry very much about the effect of all these old snippets that remained in the system. Because what would happen when the two digit representation of the year 1999 changed into the two digit representation of the year 2000? What the programmers had never imagined – 99 would change into 00 right at the first stroke of the clock in the year two thousand.
Let’s think about this to show what it could mean. Supposing a bank is calculating your interest according to how many years you have had it on deposit. For example, let’s say that you deposited $100,000 in the bank at a simple interest rate of 4% per year.
Interest = (99-60) * 100,000 * 4% = $156,000
So far, so good. But let’s look at the calculation when “99″ changes into “00.”
Interest = (00 – 60) * 100,000 * 4% = -$240,000
Yes, that’s right, instead of being ahead by about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, your account is suddenly going to be massively depleted and you’ll be in the red by two hundred and fourty thousand dollars. That’s an overall loss of almost four hundred thousand dollars. For any investor, that is going to rate as a pretty bad one-second loss.
So it’s clear how financial institutes were worried by Y2K. But everyone else started getting worried, too. A lot of the old American military systems were also using very old snippets of code. What would happen if a nuclear missile computer got the date wrong. If the distance of a potential incoming missile were to suddenly become a minus number, would that mean that an attack had already occured and automatic retaliation was required?
Y2K was the worry of the decade and it showed. People started stocking up on food. They bought guns and gas masks. They expected World War Three, an earthquake, a famine, and a tornado to all hit simultaneously.
All the computer experts got paid huge sums of money that year to sift through these old snippets and to find any potential problems. People even worried that programmers might introduce new problems as they tried to Y2K-proof old code that was difficult to understand.
And at midnight 1999, many many people were very scared and very worried. What happened?
In a word – nothing.
Worry is a useful signal – a way of helping us to check that we have done things right and that we are prepared. But most of the time, nothing happens. The horrors that we can dream up are generally far worse than reality. So the next time worry comes to you – remember that it is like a telephone call to your unconscious mind. Go ahead. Answer the call. Check that things are ok. Make the appropriate response and then move on to a new exciting era.
©2010 by Brian Cullen

Every day when he opens his lunch a man says „Not peanut butter and jam sandwiches again, I hate them,“ At the end of a week of complaining a colleague asks, „Why don’t you ask your wife to make you different sandwiches next week“? „Oh I’m not married“ the man replies, „I make my own sandwiches“.

Our minds are like school playgrounds that are surrounded by secure high fences – they keep children in, and others out. Any bullies in that playground mean that the other children can’t escape for long. This particular bully uses verbal abuse, shouting, teasing, and threats (rather than physical violence). The children are all fenced in together, and ideally, they have just got to learn to accept and learn to be with each other. So neither can we escape our thoughts, we cannot stop them, but perhaps we can learn to live with them by seeing them differently. Along comes bully, and takes on 3 potential ‘victims’ who all react differently.
Victim 1 – believes the bully, distressed, reacts automatically (bully carries on)
Victim 2 – challenges the bully “hey I’m not stupid, I got 8 out of 10 in my spelling test this morning, you only got 4” (bully eventually gives up)
Victim 3 – looks at the bully (acknowledges the thought), then walks away and goes off to play football with his mates (dismisses the thought), then changes their focus of attention.

Next Autumn, when you see geese heading south for the winter, flying in a „V“ formation, you might consider what science has discovered as to why they fly that way. As each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in a „V“ formation, the whole flock adds at least 71 percent greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own.
People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going more quickly and easily, because they are travelling on the thrust of one another.
When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird in front.
If we have the sense of a goose, we will stay in formation with those people who are heading the same way we are.
When the head goose gets tired, it rotates back in the wing and another goose flies point.
It is sensible to take turns doing demanding jobs, whether with people or with geese flying south.
Geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.
What message do we give when we honk from behind?
Finally – and this is important – when a goose gets sick or is wounded by gunshot, and falls out of the formation, two other geese fall out with that goose and follow it down to lend help and protection. They stay with the fallen goose until it is able to fly or until it dies; and only then do they launch out on their own, or with another formation to catch up with their own group.
If we have the sense of a goose, we will stand by each other like that.