What is the meaning of Life!

No doubt that people need meanings to everything and for that they need to ask questions. Each person is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life. For that he is to live as others' answer or experiences may not be as meaningful as you may be expecting. There is great meaning in life for those who are willing to travel rather than those who stand still or sit looking for it.   Meaning is not what you start with, but what you look for during the journey and end up with. Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the meanings we give to situations. Ultimately, one should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.  Most of the time life is half or almost spent or gone away before we realize what it is and by that time it is too late to live fully. As long as one keeps searching on the journey, the answers will come. Never ever forget or stop living in quest for the meaning of life or because of some unresolved questions in your mind. In the book of life, the answers aren't in the back. You are to go through the book. You'll have to take the journey. You will have to live and find yourself. It is the story/journey that matters not just the ending.

 

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given to you now because you will not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps, then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. - Rainer Maria Rilke

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.
The professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said:

"If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eyeing each other's cups.
 You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are always looking for the meaning of life - Albert Camus

Something About Coke

About a hundred years ago, an old country doctor drove to town, hitched his horse, and slipped into a drug store, and began talking to the young clerk. The old doctor was trying to sell something to the young man.

After a while the old doctor went out to his buggy and brought back a large old- fashioned kettle and a big wooden paddle, used for stirring the contents of the kettle, and showed it to the clerk.

The clerk inspected the kettle, reached into his pocket and took out few hundred dollars, his entire savings, and gave it to the doctor.

The doctor handed over a small slip of paper, on which was written a secret formula. The words on the piece of paper were worth a great fortune, which neither the doctor nor the young man knew then.

The old doctor was glad to sell the kettle and its contents for few hundred dollars, and the young clerk was taking a big chance by staking his entire life’s savings on an old kettle and a mere scrap of paper.

What the clerk really purchased was an idea! The rest is history because the clerk’s name was Asa Candler, and the old country doctor was John Pemberton, and the old kettle and the small scrap of paper led to the introduction of Coca-Cola to the world.

Great successes involve having or recognizing an idea and taking a big amount of risk. Asa Chandler parted with his entire life’s saving of few hundred dollars for an old kettle with a secret formula written on a small scrap of paper. If he had not taken the risk we would not hear of Coca-Cola today. But because of the great risk he took, he was richly rewarded and the whole world is able to enjoy a drink of Coke!

Most successful people have not achieved their distinction by having some new talent or opportunity presented to them. They developed the opportunity that was at hand by taking risk. Too cautious and careful people always aiming to preserve their reputation, social standing, security and certainty can never bring about a reform, a change, something new or better to the world and to their lives. Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk on opportunities, and to act. All life is an experiment. It is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing or missing opportunities. It requires the courage to let go of certainties. Life is trying things to see if they work. Take a chance! All life is a chance. The person who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.

You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines just watching, thinking, whimpering, criticizing, cribbing, complaining or embracing certainty. You make progress by taking risks to grab and work on opportunities, by implementing ideas. To recognize and risk opportunity is the difference between success and failure. Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them. Even when opportunity knocks, one still has to get up off his/her seat and open the door. Opportunity is often missed because we are broadcasting when we should be tuning in or too many of us are thinking of security and certainty instead of opportunity and risks. The right person is the one who seizes the moment. There is no certainty on this earth; there is only opportunity. Opportunities always look bigger going than coming. Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity and ability is of little account without opportunity. A person who misses his/her opportunity and monkey who misses his/her branch, cannot be saved. If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade. If a door is opened, dare to enter it - a fortune may be waiting for you.

To try is to risk failure.

To live is to risk dying.

To hope is to risk despair.

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To reach out for another is to risk involvement.

To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.

To place your ideas, your dreams, before a crowd is to risk their loss.

But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

 

Biggest risk of all is to not take one.

　

Wish I could be an Eagle

The eagle has the longest life-span among birds. It can live up to 70 years.
But to reach this age, the eagle must make a hard decision.
In its 40s, it's long and flexible talons can no longer grab prey.
It's long and sharp beak becomes weak.
... It's long-aged and heavy wings, due to their thick feathers, become stuck
to its' chest and make it difficult to fly.
Then, the eagle is left with only two options: die or go through a painful process
of change which lasts 150 days.
The process requires that the eagle flies to a mountain top and sit on its' nest.
There the eagle knocks its' beak against a rock until it plucks it out.
After plucking it out, the eagle will wait for a new beak to grow back and then it will pluck out its' talons.
When its' new talons grow back, the eagle starts plucking its' old-aged feathers.
And after five months, the eagle takes its' famous flight of rebirth and lives for...30 more years.

--When it rains, most birds head for shelter; the eagle is the only bird that, in order to avoid the rain, starts flying above the clouds....

--Eagles though a part of bird familly fly alone at a high altitude and not with sparrows or mix with other smaller birds like geese. Birds of a feather flock together. But no other bird goes to the height of the eagle. Remember eagles fly with eagles and not with crows or sparrows.

--Eagles have strong vision, which focuses up to 5 kilometers from the air. When an eagle sites prey- even a rodent from this distance, he narrows his focus on it and sets out to get it. No matter the obstacle, the eagle will not move his focus from the prey until he grabs it.

--The Eagle is the only bird that loves the storm. When clouds gather, the eagles get excited. The eagle uses the wings of the storm to rise and is pushed up higher. Once it finds the wing of the storm, the eagle stops flapping and uses the pressure of the raging storm to soar the clouds and glide. This gives the eagle an opportunity to rest its wings. In the meantime, all the other birds hide in the leaves and branches of the trees.

--The Eagle tests before it trusts. When a female eagle meets a male and they want to mate, she flies down to earth with the male pursuing her and she picks a twig. She flies back into the air with the male still pursuing her. Once she has reached a height high enough for her, she lets the twig fall to the ground and watches it as it falls. The male chases after the twig. The faster it falls, the faster he chases until he reaches it and has to catch it before it falls to the ground, then bring it back to the female eagle. The female eagle grabs the twig and flies to a much higher altitude pursued by the male until she perceives it high enough, and then drops the twig for the male to chase. This goes on for hours, with the height increasing until the female eagle is assured that the male eagle has mastered the art of picking the twig which shows commitment, then and only then, will she allow him to mate with her!

--Eagles prepare for training. When about to lay eggs, the female and male eagle identify a place very high on a cliff where no predators can reach; the male flies to earth and at first, picks thorns and lays them on the crevice of the cliff, then flies to earth again to collect twigs which he lays in the intended nest. Then he picks thorns and lays them on top of the twigs. The weight of the eaglets result in the thorn picking them up making them uncomfortable. Thus the eaglets are forced to leave the comfortable nest and learn to fly.

"How are you doing?" -is a very ordinary question. I have to hear it at least few dozen times a day, atleast six hundred to thousand times a month.
Answer is not so simple as it seems. Sometimes you might get extraordinary answers.
The answer depends on too many factors. How is your mood that time, your relationship with the person who asked, how old are you, how old is the person who asked, etc, etc. Actually it depends on how you are doing in fact, but a very little.

Tell me the truth, do you really know how are you doing? Lets say, God forbid, I will have a stroke tomorrow, what am I going to say today? Doing good? I might feel good but my BP and LDL/HDL level probably dont feel that good. Or lets say you have been yelled at, by your boss and you are thinking you are having a bad day. But in fact probably today, you are on top of your health. You sprinted to catch your train, you made love to your wife for significantly more time. So how are you doing good or bad?
"How are you", you get easy, simple and direct answer from kids. Although any question has straight forward answer for them, only you have to find out the truth behind it. For example, as a kid when I use to come home from school after a math quiz,
mom used to ask, "How did it go?", she would get a quick reply, "Good". May be I was able to understand I would hardly make it fifty out of hundred, but telling truth would keep me grounded for a week, so "Very good" and delayed the misfortune.
But for grown ups these answers can be very twisted. Paul is your friend. You meet Paul every morning on the 7:05am train to hoboken, "How are you doing", "Not Bad" you say. Now you relocated to hoboken and after 5 years you met Paul in a light rail. He asked "How are you doing?", you want to say "Worried about my high BP, and 30 lbs weight gain. My daughter is going gothic. My little lab passed away etc". Probability is you will say "Okay".
So time matters.
Same answer sounds so different for different age braket. I have known a girl who was 5 years old. If anyone asked her "How are you sarah?", she would say "Couldn't be better..". We used to laugh thinking she must be making fun of grown ups. After 14 years, I met her in the subway, asked "How are you Sarah?", she still replied "Couldn't be better..". It didn't sound odd.