Sunday, September 27, 2009

Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder

At least I now know what I have.
Recently, I was diagnosed with A. A. A. D. D.
Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder

This is how it manifests:
I decide to water my garden.
As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing.
As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier.
I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.
I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full.
So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first.
But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.
I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only one check left.
My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking.
I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over. I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.
As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need to be watered.
I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I’ve been searching for all morning.
I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.
I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.
I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.
I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor
So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.
Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.
At the end of the day:
the car isn't washed,
the bills aren't paid,
there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter,
the flowers don't have enough water,
there is still only one check in my check book,
I can't find the remote,
I can't find my glasses,
and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.
Then when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired.
I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail.
Do me a favor, will you? Forward this message to everyone you know, because I don't remember to whom it has been sent.
Don't laugh

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Selected Thoughts #1

"The leader's unending responsibility must be to remove every detour, every barrier to ensure that vision is first clear, then real."
Jack Welch
"Diversity raises the intelligence of groups."
Nancy Kline
"Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost."
Henry James
"The only true performance is the one which attains madness."
Mick Jagger
"The quality of your attention determines the quality of other people's thinking."
Nancy Kline
"One cannot really enjoy speed to the absolute limit if there's a destination involved."
Stirling Moss
"It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it."
John Steinbeck
"Woe to him who doesn't know how to wear his mask, be he king or pope!"
Luigi Pirandello
"Hope and imagination are the only consolations for the disappointments and sorrows of experience."
Italo Calvino
"Success is always something that you have to recover from."
Marsha Norman
"There are things that music can do that language could never do, that painting can never do, or sculpture. Music is capable of going directly to the source of the mystery. It doesn't have to explain it. It can simply celebrate it."
Marsha Norman
"Ideas are great arrows, but there has to be a bow. And politics is the bow of idealism."
Bill Moyers
"Equal wealth and opportunities of culture...have simply made us all members of one class."
Edward Bellamy
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice."
H. L. Mencken
"Those who are going to be in business tomorrow are those who understand that the future, as always, belongs to the brave."
William Bernbach
"It is an indication of truth's jealousy that it has not made for anyone a path to it."
Naguib Mahfouz
"The breeze of love blows for an hour and makes amends for the ill winds of the whole of a lifetime."
Naguib Mahfouz
"How beautiful it would be to see man wrestle with his illusions and vanquish them."
Naguib Mahfouz
"Knowledge of peace passes from country to country, like children's games, which are so much alike, everywhere."
Yehuda Amichai
"I have no respect for reality as soon as it is acknowledged as such. I am interested in what I can do with unacknowledged reality."
Elias Canetti
"All literature wavers between nature and paradise and loves to mistake one for the other."
Elias Canetti
"The apprehension that one is someone else is all that one needs to believe that the world has changed from top to bottom."
"If a society consisting of men and women is content to apply progress and education to one half of itself, such a society is weakened by half."
Kemal Ataturk
"Power is not merely shouting aloud. Power is to act positively with all the components of power."
Gamal Abdel Nasser
"If time imposes on us its evolution, place also imposes upon us its reality."
Gamal Abdel Nasser
"Peace is much more precious than a piece of land."
Anwar al- Sadat
"Only when he has ceased to need things can a man truly be his own master and so really exist."
Anwar al- Sadat
"The end is the beginning of all things, Suppressed and hidden, Awaiting to be released through the rhythm Of pain and pleasure."
"You cannot be fuelled by bitterness. It can eat you up but it cannot drive you."
Benazir Bhutto
"Adults are obsolete children."
Dr. Seuss
"The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today."
Elbert Hubbard
"Dreams are the most powerful motivators of all."
Nick Thornely
"Never invest in any idea you can't illustrate with a crayon."
Peter Lynch
"Don't study the idea to death with experts and committees. Get on with it and see if it works."
Ken Iverson
"A common core of personal and social abilities has proven to be the key ingredient in people's success: emotional intelligence."
Daniel Goleman
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
Philip K. Dick
"A narcissist is someone better looking than you are."
Gore Vidal
"There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice."
Mark Twain
"Thinking is the desire to gain reality by means of ideas."
José Ortega y Gasset
"It would be very interesting to preserve photographically not the stages, but the metamorphoses of a picture. Possibly one might then discover the path followed by the brain in materializing a dream."
Pablo Picasso
"Live on the abnormal and unheard of...sing the anguish of ultimate grief and discover the calvaries of the earth, arrive at the tragic by way of what is mysterious."
Santiago Rusiñol
"To be a catalyst is the ambition most appropriate for those who see the world as being in constant change, and who, without thinking that they can control it, wish to influence its direction."
Theodore Zeldin
"Really, there is no beautiful style, no beautiful design, and no beautiful color: there is just one beauty, that of the truth that is revealed."
Auguste Rodin
"The birth of a new idea comes best when everything is going well and will be painful. Don't attempt to tamper with the process and don't deny the pain."
Andy Law
"The art of leadership is to work with the natural grain of the particular wood of humanity which comes to hand."
John Adair
"The mind thinks, not with data, but with ideas whose creation and elaboration cannot be reduced to a set of predictable values."
Theodore Roszak
"Dialogue is the oxygen of change."
Jim Maclachlan

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Four Boyfriends

THIS TURNED OUT TO BE SO DIFFERENT FROM WHAT I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE. IT IS A WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL MESSAGE!!

ENJOY!!!

Once upon a time there was a girl who had four boyfriends. She loved the fourth boyfriend the most and adorned him with rich robes and treated him to the finest of delicacies. She gave him nothing but the best.

She also loved the third boyfriend very much and was always showing him off to neighboring kingdoms. However, she feared that one day he would leave her for another.

She also loved her second boyfriend. He was her confidant and was always kind, considerate and patient with her. Whenever this girl faced a problem, she could confide in him, and he would help her get through the difficult times.

The girl's first boyfriend was a very loyal partner and had made great contributions in maintaining her wealth and kingdom. However, she did not love the first boyfriend. Although he loved her deeply she hardly took notice of him!

One day, the girl fell ill and she knew her time was short. She thought of her luxurious life and wondered, 'I now have four boyfriends with me, but when I die, will I be a alone.'?

Thus, she asked the fourth boyfriend, 'I loved you the most, endowed you with the finest clothing and showered great care over you. Now that I'm dying, will you follow me and keep me company? 'No way!', replied the fourth boyfriend, and he walked away without another word. His answer cut like a sharp knife right into her heart.

The sad girl then asked the third boyfriend, 'I loved you all my life. Now that I'm dying, will you follow me and keep me company?' 'No!', replied the third boyfriend. 'Life is too good! When you die, I'm going to marry someone else!' Her heart sank and turned cold.

She then asked the second boyfriend, 'I have always turned to you for help and you've always been there for me. When I die, will you follow me and keep me company?' 'I'm sorry, I can't help you out this time!', replied the second boyfriend. 'At the very most, I can only walk with you to your grave.' His answer struck her like a bolt of lightning, and the girl was devastated.

Then a voice called out: 'I'll go with you. I'll follow you no matter where you go.' The girl looked up, and there was her first boyfriend. He was very skinny as he suffered from malnutrition and neglect. Greatly grieved, the girl said, 'I should have taken much better care of you when I had the chance!'

In truth, you have four boyfriends in your lives: Your fourth boyfriend is your body. No matter how much time and effort you lavish in making it look good, it will leave you when you die. Your third boyfriend is your possessions, status and wealth. When you die, it will all go to others.

Your second boyfriend is your family and friends. No matter how much they have been there for you, the furthest they can stay by you is up to the grave.

And your first boyfriend is your spirit. Often neglected in pursuit of wealth, power and pleasures of the world.

However, your spirit is the only thing that will follow you where ever you go. Cultivate, strengthen and cherish it now, for it is the only part of you that will follow you to the throne of God and continue with you throughout Eternity.

Thought for the day: Remember, when the world pushes you to your knees, you're in the perfect position to pray.

Pass this on to someone you care about - I just did. Being happy doesn't mean everything's perfect. It means you've decided to see beyond the imperfections.