more pervasive

One of the more pervasive and destructive mental tendencies I've seen is that of focusing on what we want instead of what we have. It doesn't seem to make my difference how much we have, we just keep expanding our list of desires, which guarantees we will remain dissatisfied. The mind-set that says "I'll be happy" when this desire is fulfilled is the same mind-set that will repeat itself once that desire is met.

We want this or that. If we don't get what we want, we keep thinking about all that we don't have and we remain dissatisfied. If we do get what we want, we simply recreate the same thinking in our new circumstances. So, despite getting what we want, we still remain unhappy. Happiness can't be found when we are yearning for new desires.

erected between us

first fell in love with husband when we would sit and talk in the living room of my old apartment in front of the (ceiling-to-floor) windows with the long, white curtains, drinking cups of scalding, black coffee. We would just sit and talk-sometimes until sunrise. I was so completely thrilled to have finally found that one special person and our wedding way was the happiest day of my life.

However, it was not long after our honeymoon when my husband climbed into the tomb called "the office" and wrapped his mind in a shroud of paperwork and buried himself in clients, and I said nothing for fear of turning into a nagging wife. It seemed as if overnight an invisible wall had been erected between us.

When our daughter, Desiree was born she quickly became the center of my world. I watched her grow from infant to toddler, and I no longer seemed to care that my husband was getting busier and spending less time at home. Somewhere between his work schedule and our home and young daughter, we were losing touch with each other. That invisible wall was now being cemented by the mortar of indifference.

Desiree went off to preschool and I returned to college to finish my degree, and I tried to find myself in the courses I took; I complained with all the other young women on campus about men who are insensitive. Sometimes late at night I cried and begged the whispering darkness to tell me who I really was, and my husband lay beside snoring like a hibernating bear unaware of my winter.

One day

One day I told Daniel that the great failing in my life had been that I didn‘t take a year
or two off to travel when I finished college. This is the best way, to my way of thinking,
to broaden oneself and develop a larger perspective on life. Once I had married and begun
working, I found that the dream of living in another culture had vanished.
Daniel thought about this. His friends said that he would be insane to put his career on
hold. But he decided it wasn‘t so crazy. After graduation, he worked as a waiter at
college, a bike messenger and a house painter. With the money he earned, he had enough to go
to Paris.
The night before he was to leave, I tossed in bed. I was trying to figure out something to
say. Nothing came to mind. Maybe, I thought, it wasn‘t necessary to say anything.

rather than waiting

Luckily, there is a way to be happy. It involves changing the emphasis of our thinking from what we want to what we have. Rather than wishing you were able to take a vacation to Hawaii, think of how much fun you have had close to home. The list of possibilities is endless! Each time you notice yourself falling into the "I wish life were different" trap, back off and start over. Take a breath and remember all that you have to be grateful. When you focus not on what you want, but on what you have, you end up getting more of what you want anyway. If you focus on the good qualities of your spouse, she'll be more loving. If you are grateful for your job rather than complaining about it, you'll do a better job, be more productive, and probably end up getting a raise any-way. If you focus on ways to enjoy yourself around home rather than waiting to enjoy yourself in Hawaii, you'll end up having more fun. If you ever do get to Hawaii, you'll be in the habit of enjoying yourself. And, if by some chance you don't, you have a great life anyway.

Make a note of yourself to start thinking more about what you have than what you want. If you do, your life will start appearing much better than before. For perhaps the first time in your life, you'll know what it means to feel satisfied.

school science fair

His finest hour, though, came at a school science fair. He entered an exhibit showing how
the circulatory system works. It was primitive and crude, especially compared to the fancy,
computerized, blinking-light models entered by other students. My wife, Sara, felt
embarrassed for him.
It turned out that the other kids had not done their own work-their parents had made their
exhibits. As the judges went on their rounds, they found that these other kids couldn‘t
answer their questions. Daniel answered every one. When the judges awarded the Albert
Einstein Plaque for the best exhibit, they gave it to him.
By the time Daniel left for college he stood six feet tall and weighed 170 pounds. He was
muscular and in superb condition, but he never pitched another inning, having given up
baseball for English literature. I was sorry that he would not develop his athletic talent,
but proud that he had made such a mature decision.

floor screaming

Just then the attendant appeared from the back of the store shouting, "Lady, get down on the floor. I've just been robbed and shot at!"

Sharon quickly dropped to the floor screaming, "Have you seen my boyfriend? He has auburn hair." The man did not reply but went back to the cooler where he found me choking on my vomit. The attendant quickly cleaned my mouth and then called for the police and an ambulance.

Sharon was in shock. She was beginning to understand that I was hurt, but she could not begin to comprehend or imagine the severity of my injury.

When the police arrived they immediately called the homicide division as they did not think I would survive and the paramedic reported that she had never seen a person so severely wounded survive. At 1:30 a.m. my parents who lived in Houston, were awakened by a telephone call from Brackenridge Hospital advising them to come to Austin as soon as possible for they feared I would not make it through the night.

closed the door

I never considered myself unique, but people are constantly telling me, "you are a miracle." To me, I was just an ordinary "guy" with realistic goals and big dreams. I was a 19-ye ar-old student at the University of Texas and well on my way toward fulfilling my "big dream" of one day becoming an orthopedic surgeon.

On the night of February 17, 1981 I was studying for an Organic Chemistry test at the library with Sharon, my girlfriend of three years. Sharon had asked me to drive her back to her dormitory as it was getting quite late. We got into my car, not realizing that just getting into a car would never quite be the same for me again. I quickly noticed that my gas gauge was registered on empty so I pulled into a nearby convenience store to buy $2.00 worth of gas. "I'll be back in two minutes," I yelled at Sharon as I closed the door. But instead, those two minutes changed my life forever.

loved each other

What does it matter in the course of a life-time if a father never tells a son what he

really thinks of him? But as I stood before Daniel, I knew that it does matter. My father

and I loved each other. Yet, I always regretted never hearing him put his feelings into

words and never having the memory of that moment. Now, I could feel my palms sweat and my

throat tighten. Why is it so hard to tell a son something from the heart? My mouth turned

dry, and I knew I would be able to get out only a few words clearly.

“Daniel," I said, "if I could have picked, I would have picked you."

I looked closely

In the doorway of my home, I looked closely at the face of my 23-year-old son, Daniel, his backpack by his side. We were saying good-bye. In a few hours he would be flying to France. He would be staying there for at least a year to learn another language and experience life in a different country.

It was a transitional time in Daniel‘s life, a passage, a step from college into the adult world. I wanted to leave him some words that would have some meaning, some significance beyond the moment.

But nothing came from my lips. No sound broke the stillness of my beachside home. Outside, I could hear the shrill cries of sea gulls as they circled the ever changing surf on Long Island. Inside, I stood frozen and quiet, looking into the searching eyes of my son.

What made it more difficult was that I knew this was not the first time I had let such a moment pass. When Daniel was five, I took him to the school-bus stop on his first day of kindergarten. I felt the tension in his hand holding mine as the bus turned the corner. I saw colour flush his cheeks as the bus pulled up. He looked at me-as he did now.

small of stature

Now, as I stood before him, I thought of those lost opportunities. How many times have we

all let such moments pass? A boy graduates from school, a daughter gets married. We go

through the motions of the ceremony, but we don‘t seek out our children and find a quiet

moment to tell them what they have meant to us. Or what they might expect to face in the

years ahead.

How fast the years had passed. Daniel was born in New Orleans, LA., in 1962, slow to walk

and talk, and small of stature. He was the tiniest in his class, but he developed a warm,

outgoing nature and was popular with his peers. He was coordinated and 6)agile, and he

became adept in sports.

Baseball gave him his earliest challenge. He was an outstanding pitcher in Little League,

and eventually, as a senior in high school, made the varsity, winning half the team‘s games

with a record of five wins and two losses. At graduation, the coach named Daniel the team‘s

most valuable player.

I had not returned

Entering the convenience store was like entering the twilight zone. On the outside I was a healthy, athletic, pre-med student, but on the inside I was just another statistic of a violent crime. I thought I was entering an empty store, but suddenly I realized it was not empty at all. Three robbers were in the process of committing a robbery and my entrance into the store caught them by surprise. One of the criminals immediately shoved a .38 caliber handgun to my head, ordered me to the cooler, pushed me down on the floor, and pumped a bullet into the back of my head - execution style. He obviously thought I was dead because he did not shoot me again. The trio of thieves finished robbing the store and left calmly. 。

Meanwhile, Sharon wondered why I had not returned. After seeing the three men leave the store she really began to worry as I was the last person she saw entering the store. She quickly went inside to look for me, but saw no one-only an almost empty cash register containing one check and several pennies. Quickly she ran down each aisle shouting, "Mike, Mike!"

engraving on the inside

Then tragedy struck our lives, when my husband's younger brother was killed on September 11, 2001, along with thousand of other innocent people. He made it out okay and spoke to his wife to say he was going back in to help those that were still trapped. He was identified only by the engraving on the inside of his wedding band.

Attending my brother's memorial service was an eye-opening experience for the both of us. For the first time, we saw our own marriage was almost like my in-laws. At the tragic death of the youngest son they could not reach out console one another. It seemed as if somewhere between the oldest son's first tooth and the youngest son's graduation they had lost each other. Their wedding day photograph of the young, happy, smiling couple on the mantle of their fireplace was almost mocking those two minds that no longer touched. They were living in such an invisible wall between them that the heaviest battering with the strongest artillery would not penetrate, when love dies it is not in a moment of angry battle or when fiery bodies lose their heat; it lies broken and panting and exhausted at the bottom of a wall it cannot penetrate.

Recently one night, my husband told of his fear of dying. Until then he had been afraid to expose his naked souls. I spoke of trying to find myself in the writings in my journal. It seemed as if each of us had been hiding our soul-searching from the other.

We are slowly working toward building a bridge—not a wall, so that when we reach out to each other, we do not find a barrier we cannot penetrate and recoil from the coldness of the stone or retreat from the stranger on the other side.

seven weeks ago

That‘s all I could say. I wasn‘t sure he understood what I meant. Then he came toward me

and threw his arms around me. For a moment, the world and all its people vanished, and there

was just Daniel and me in our home by the sea.

He was saying something, but my eyes misted over, and I couldn‘t understand what he was

saying. All I was aware of was the stubble on his chin as his face pressed against mine. And

then, the moment ended. I went to work, and Daniel left a few hours later with his

girlfriend.

That was seven weeks ago, and I think about him when I walk along the beach on weekends.

Thousands of miles away, somewhere out past the ocean waves breaking on the deserted shore,

he might be scurrying across Boulevard Saint Germain, strolling through a musty hallway of

the Louvre, bending an elbow in a Left Bank café.

What I had said to Daniel was clumsy and trite. It was nothing. And yet, it was everything.

In his room

What is it going to be like, Dad? Can I do it? Will I be okay? And then he walked up the

steps of the bus and disappeared inside. And the bus drove away. And I had said nothing.

A decade or so later, a similar scene played itself out. With his mother, I drove him to

William and Mary College in Virginia. His first night, he went out with his new schoolmates,

and when he met us the next morning, he was sick. He was coming down with mononucleosis, but

we could not know that then. We thought he had a hangover.

In his room, Dan lay stretched out on his bed as I started to leave for the trip home. I

tried to think of something to say to give him courage and confidence as he started this new

phase of life.

Again, words failed me. I mumbled something like, "Hope you feel better Dan." And I left.

to catch up

with that he let out a whistle, "Here, Dolly!" he called.

Out from the doghouse and down the ramp ran Dolly followed by four little balls of fur. The little boy pressed his face against the chain link fence. His eyes danced with delight.

As the dogs made their way to the fence, the little boy noticed something else stirring inside the doghouse. Slowly another little ball appeared; this One noticeably smaller. Down the ramp it slid. Then in a somewhat awkward manner the little pup began hobbling toward the others, doing its best to catch up.

"I want that one," the little boy said, pointing to the runt.

The farmer knelt down at the boy's side and said, "Son, you don't want that puppy. He will never be able to run and play with you like these other dogs would."

With that the little boy stepped back from the fence, reached down, and began rolling up one leg of his trousers. In doing so he revealed a steel brace running down both sides of his leg attaching itself to a specially made shoe. Looking back up at the farmer, he said, "You see sir, I don't run too well myself, and he will need someone who understands."

The world is full of people who need someone who understands.

Koobor the Koala and Water-1

Then he sang a special song and the tree began to grow and grow, with Koobor sitting in the

middle of it, holding the buckets.

His relatives came back hot and tired after searching for food all day. They could not find

their water buckets or Koobor. Then they saw him in the tallest of all the trees, with water

buckets hanging from the branches.

"Koobor, bring those buckets down now, or we will beat you" they cried. "No! I'm not coming

down" shouted Koobor. "It's your turn to be thirsty!"

Several men started to climb the tall tree, but Koobor threw the water buckets at them,

knocking them to the ground.

Finally, two men managed to climb up, dodging the buckets. They grabbed Koobor, beat him

very badly and threw him down.

His broken body smashed into the earth, where it changed into Koobor the Koala.

The animal climbed into a nearby tree and began munching gum leaves. Then he looked down at

the people on the ground.

"From now on, you may kill me if you need food, but you must cook my body before you take

off my skin or break my bones.

This is my law. If you don't follow it, I will come back and dry up all the rivers and lakes

and you will always be thirsty."

This is why Koalas don't need water to


keep alive and why aborigines always follow Koobor's law when cooking a dead koala. They are

frightened that he will come back and take all their water, leaving them thirsty forever.