Critical Thinking

A student asked his teacher, “What is Greed?” The teacher said, “In order to
answer your question, go through the chocolate factory next to our school and
pick the one chocolate you like the most. But there is a rule. As you pass through
the factory, you cannot turn back. You must pick the chocolate as you go forward
only.”
The student went to the chocolate factory. As he walked through, He saw the one
chocolate wrapped nicely, he instantly liked it but he wondered that he may find
much bigger one further. So, He walked further, then he saw another chocolate.
But again, he thought the same. When he started to reach near the end of the
factory, he couldn’t see any chocolates as big as the one he didn’t pick earlier and
started to regret his decision of letting it go.
Finally, he gave up. He went back to the teacher with an empty hand and gave an
explanation of what he did.
The teacher told him, “You did like the one chocolate very much but still you kept
looking for a bigger one. And later you realized that what you let go off was the
best chocolate you could find there. That my dear is called Greed.”
Moral: We let go of many good things in our life because of our greed of having
even better things. Our Human Nature is such that we always want better and
better. But in the search of better, we let go of many good things which could have
given us similar satisfaction and made us happy. Learn make your choice wisely.

Be Positive

In ancient times, a king had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove
the huge rock. Some of the king’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it.
Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the big stone out of the way.
Then a peasant
came along carrying a load of vegetables. On approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the
stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. As the peasant picked up his load of
vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note
from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what
many others never understand.
Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve one’s condition.

PURPOSE OF LIFE

Panning For Gold – A Story about Finding Your Purpose in Life
A frustrated young man went to see the wise man in his village.
“I don’t know what to do with my life. How do I find my purpose?” the young man
asked.
“Follow me,” said the old man.
Silently, they trudged together to a faraway river where they found dozens of
prospectors panning for gold.
“There are three types of prospectors here,” the sage said.
“What do you mean?” the young man inquired.
“There are those who strike gold straight away. Excited, they take their plunder,
cash it in and live comfortably for the rest of their lives. Then there are those who
pan for years. They know that there is gold here and they have seen others strike
it rich, so they persist until they too find the gold that they’ve been searching for.”
“What about the third type?” asked the young man?
“They are the individuals who get frustrated that they haven’t found what they are
looking for, so after a day, a week or a year or more, they give up, walk away and
never find gold.”
Slightly confused, the young man asked, “What has this got to do with finding my
purpose?”
“Aah yes, the age-old question.” the old man smiled and looked his companion in
the eye. “There are those in life who look for their purpose and seem to find it
almost immediately. From a young age they have a clear sense of purpose and
pursue their dreams with energy and enthusiasm. Some others have to look a bit
harder, perhaps for many years, but if they persist and keep looking, they will find
something to live for. Finally, there are those who want to know their purpose, but
they become frustrated with the search and give up too soon, returning to a life of
meaningless wandering.”
“Can everyone find their purpose?”
“Is there gold in the river?” The wise man responded.
“So, how do I find my own purpose?”
“Keep looking.”
“But what if I want to find it quicker?”
“Son, there are no guarantees that you will be able to find it quickly, the only

guarantee is that if you give up and stop looking for it, you’ll never find it.”
The young man looked despondent, feeling that he had wasted his time with the
old man.
He felt a reassuring hand on his shoulder, “I can sense your frustration, but let me
assure you, if you can find your true calling in life, you will live with passion, make
the world a better place, be richer than you could imagine and feel as though the
very face of God Himself is smiling upon you. That may happen next week, next
year or in the years ahead, but the search will be worth it and your life will never
be the same again. So for now, your purpose is to find your purpose.”
“Thanks.”
“Oh, and there’s one other thing that I forgot to mention.”
“What’s that?”
“Just as those men and women need to get down to the river with a pan to find
their gold, so we need to remain active to find our purposes, we don’t find it sitting
around at home doing nothing.”
It was getting late, so the two men turned for home and began their long walk
back to the village.
As they walked, the young man was deep in thought about what he had just
learned, and the wise man smiled to himself, knowing that conversations like this
were an important part of living his own purpose.
Now, over to you.
Do you know your purpose for life?
Are you still looking?
Or have you given up?

DECISION

Once the frog fell in a vessel of the hot water. The Water was still on a gas stove.
The frog still did not try to jump out of the vessel, instead just stayed in it. As the
temperature of the water started to rise, the frog managed to adjust its body
temperature accordingly. As the water started to reach the boiling point, the frog
was no longer able to keep up and manage its body temperature according to the
water temperature.
The frog tried to jump out of the vessel but with water temperature reaching its
boiling point, the frog was not able to bear it and couldn’t make it. What was the
reason that a frog couldn’t make it? Will you blame the hot water for it?
Moral: The frog couldn’t make it due to its own inability to decide when it had to
jump out. We all need to adjust according to the situations but there are times
when we need to face the situation and take the appropriate action when we have
the strength to do so before it’s too late. Walk out before you need to jump.

Lazy

Once, there was a man, Goobe (just a fictional name), who had lot of donkeys.
Goobe used the donkeys to carry load to different markets where it could be sold.
One day Goobe loaded bags of salt onto a donkey. On the way while crossing the
bridge, the donkey fell into the river and when it came out there was hardly any
salt left in the bags.
Upon reaching home, Goobe overheard the conversation of the donkeys. The
donkey which fell into the river told the other donkeys that if they fall into water,
the load gets lighter.
Next day, Goobe selected a donkey, loaded it up and began his journey. On the
way the donkey didn’t move forward until Goobe let it fall into water. When it got
out, something was weird. The load had become heavier instead of getting lighter.
Any idea why?
Because Goobe had loaded sponge on this day.
This is how Goobe taught a lesson to his lazy donkeys.

FOCUS

An ambitious and restless disciple was getting impatient with his guru’s style of
teaching one lesson at a time. He wanted to learn everything quickly and reap the
rewards of this learning quickly. He finally expressed his desire to complete his
course quickly and move to the next phase of his life. The guru nodded his head
and told him to come to him early next morning.
Next morning when the student arrived, he found the guru waiting for him near the
chicken coop. The guru then let the chickens free and asked the student to catch
them all in the next one hour. The student ran about trying to catch one and then
the other and finally at the end of his hour got exhausted and sat down dejected
as he had not been able to catch any. Then the master told him, now I ask you to
catch only the one with the ribbon round its neck. The student got up and despite
all the other chickens running around him just went after the ribboned one and
caught it with time to spare!.
The master smiled and said, “Focus is not our ability to stay attached to the ‘one’
but also the discipline to avoid the distractions of the ‘ninety nine”.
Moral: Success comes only when you get your priorities straight and your
actions following those priorities.

Teamwork

Once a manager had a team of around 40 people and most of them were bright, enthusiastic,
and hardworking young people.

But the manager had a problem in the team, individually everyone is excelling but as a team,
they are not sharing the information with each other which is very important for the team’s
growth. Once a manager had a team of around 40 people and most of them were bright,
enthusiastic, and hardworking young people.

During the outing, he invited everyone to a big room for a game consisting of 3 rounds. He told
everyone to blow a balloon which was kept on the table and write their name on the balloon
without tampering it. Hearing this all team members were able to blow a balloon and wrote their
names on it.

Then he told everyone to wait outside for the next round. After some time, he calls them back to
the room. After entering, team members could see there were more balloons without names
being added and scattered around.

The manager told them, they will be given 15 minutes to find the balloon they left behind with
their name on it, among the scattered balloons. The first three persons who find their balloons
will be winners and the one who pops the balloon will be disqualified.

Everyone started searching for their balloons and after 15 minutes Manager stopped the round
as no one was able to identify their balloons.

For the next round, the manager told them, if any team member finds a balloon with a name on
it, give the balloon to the person whose name was on it.

Everyone started searching and within a couple of minutes, every member of the team had their
balloon with their own name on it.

After that, Manager went to the dais and told, ” You see, in the 2nd round no one was able to
find their balloons as we were working on individual target but in the final round within a couple
of minutes everyone had their balloon with them, that’s the power of teamwork and sharing to
each other”.

The Frozen Bird

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to
the ground into a large field. While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped
some dung on him. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to
realize how warm he was. The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all
warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird
singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird
under the pile of cow dung, promptly dug him out and ate him.
Moral of the story:
(1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.
(2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
(3) And when you’re in deep shit, it’s smart to keep your mouth shut!

FOCIUS

A Story Parable: Pray First, Aim High, Stay Focused.
There once was a man who had nothing for his family to eat. He had an old
shotgun and three shells. So, he decided that he would go out and kill something
for dinner.
As he went down the road, he saw a rabbit and he shot at the rabbit and missed it.
Then he saw a squirrel and fired a shot at the squirrel and missed it.
As he went further, he saw a wild turkey in the tree and he had only one bullet, but
a voice came to him and said “pray first, aim high and stay focused.”

However, at the same time, he saw a deer which was a better kill. He brought the
gun down and aimed at the deer.
But, then he saw a rattle snake between his legs about to bite him, so he naturally
brought the gun down further to shoot the rattle snake.

Still, the voice said again to him, “I said ‘pray, aim high and stay focused.’ ”
So, the man decided to listen to the voice. He prayed, then aimed the gun high up
in the tree and shot the wild turkey.
The bullet bounced off the turkey and killed the deer. The handle fell off the gun
and hit the snake in the head and killed it. And, when the gun had gone off, it
knocked him into a pond.
When he stood to look around, he had fish in all his pockets, a dead deer and a
turkey to eat. The snake (Satan) was dead simply because the man listened to
God.
Moral of the story: Pray first before you do anything, aim and shoot high in your
goals, and stay focused on God.

THE EIGHTEENTH CAMEL

A wealthy merchant from the east passed away. In his will, the man stated equally
division of his wealth to three sons but his most treasured camels were divided in
rather challenging way.
According to the will the eldest son was to be given half of the camels, the middle
son was to be given one third of the camels, and the youngest son was to be
given one ninth of the camels. The merchant had seventeen cattle. As it was not
possible to divide 17 camels into half, one third or even into one ninth. The three
son started fighting with each other
Since the sons were not able distribute the camel among them, they went to a
wise man for advice. The wise man patiently listened about the sons’ dilemma.
After carefully understanding the situation the wise man brought one of his camels
and added to the seventeen camels of the merchant. That increased the total to
eighteen (18) camels.
Now, he started reading the deceased father’s will and divided the camels. Half of
eighteen is nine. So he gave the eldest son nine camels. One third of the eighteen
is six, so he gave the middle son six camels. The youngest son got one ninth of
the eighteen camels, so he gave him two camels.
After giving nine, six and two camels to the sons, he successfully distributed
seventeen camels. The wise man took back his camel.
Moral :The attitude of negotiation and problem solving is to find the 18th camel i.e.
the common ground. Once a person is able to find the common ground, the issue
is resolved. It is difficult at times. However, to reach a solution, the first step is to
believe that there is a solution. If we think that there is no solution, we won’t be
able to reach anywhere!