Thursday, June 19, 2008

Another short story from an email forward ...

Two old acquaintances, who hadn't seen each other for years, were walking down the street together, renewing old times. "Just a minute," said one, "I think I hear something," and turning a loose paving stone over he liberated a cricket which was chirping merrily away.



"Why, that's astounding. Of all the people on the street at this hour, hurrying from work, you alone hear the cricket above all the traffic noises." "My friend," said the first. "I learned a long time ago that people hear in life only what they want to hear. Now, the noise of traffic has neither increased nor decreased in the past few moments, but watch."



And as he finished speaking he let a silver half dollar fall from his pocket to the sidewalk. Everyone within an amazingly large hearing distance stopped and looked around.

The cookie.. An interesting story which discloses the facts of life.

Another of my patients, a successful businessman, tells me that before his cancer he would become depressed unless things went a certain way. Happiness was "having the cookie." If you had the cookie, things were good. If you didn't have the cookie, life wasn't worth a damn. Unfortunately, the cookie kept changing. Some of the time it was money, sometimes power, sometimes sex. At other times, it was the new car, the biggest contract, the most prestigious address.

A year and a half after his diagnosis of prostate cancer he sits shaking his head ruefully. "It's like I stopped learning how to live after I was a kid. When I give my son a cookie, he is happy. If I take the cookie away or it breaks, he is unhappy. But he is two and a half and I am forty-three. It's taken me this long to understand that the cookie will never make me happy for long. The minute you have the cookie it starts to crumble or you start to worry about it crumbling or about someone trying to take it away from you. You know, you have to give up a lot of things to take care of the cookie, to keep it from crumbling and be sure that no one takes it away from you. You may not even get a chance to eat it because you are so busy just trying not to lose it. Having the cookie is not what life is about."

My patient laughs and says cancer has changed him. For the first time he is happy. No matter if his business is doing well or not, no matter if he wins or loses at golf. "Two years ago, cancer asked me, 'Okay, what's important? What is really important?’ And then I thought what is really important. Well, life is important. Life. Life any way you can have it. Life with the cookie. Life without the cookie. Happiness does not have anything to do with the cookie; it has to do with being alive." Finally he said, “And then I figured out that Life itself is THE COOKIE…..”

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Feeling nostalgic

Just another day in a busy life... but... I'm feeling really nostalgic today... A nostalgia for my bindaas Hyderabadi life struck me today. The long times I spent with my dear friend Nalini, the never ending evening walks, the long drives in OU campus, the entertaining classes of Misra sir, the movies, the pani puri stall.... and the list goes on...The memories of fun filled life came back to me, and are haunting me. My job has failed in keeping me busy, and the nostalgia is ruling my mind.