My Heart Will Go On!!

Back to cinemas in 3D

Father Forgets by W. Livingston Larned

Listen son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes  ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guilty I came to your bedside.
There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for the school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.
At breakfast I found fault too. You spilled things and you gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread the butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and said, "Goodbye Daddy!" and I frowned and said in reply, "Hold your shoulders back!".
Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. A I came up the road, I spied you, down on your knees playing marbles. There were holes i your stockings. I humiliated you before your friends by marching you ahead of me into the house. Stockings were expensive and if you had to buy them you would be more careful.
Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. "What is it you want?" , I snapped.
You said nothing but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone pattering up the stairs.
Well, son it was shortly after my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came to me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault. It was not that I did not love you, it was that I expected too much from youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.
And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me goodnight. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in thee darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!
I know you would not understand these things, if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow, I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you and suffer when you suffer, laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual, "He is nothing but a boy...just a little boy!"
I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby.

The Awesome Junaid Jamshed :D

Dont Criticize, Condemn Or Complain.

The content below has been taken from Dale Carnegie's book:

What was the secret of Lincoln's success in dealing with people. He not only criticezed but wrote letters and poems ridiculing people and dropped these letters on country road where they were sure to be found. In the autumn of 1842, he ridiculed a vain politician by the name of James Shield through his letters. Shield found out who wrote the letter and started after Lincoln and challenged him to find a duel. Lincoln was bad at duelling but he could not get out of it and save his honour. On the appointed day he and Shields met on a sandbar in the Mississippi river, prepared to fight to death. But at the last minute, their seconds interrupted and stopped the duel.

This was the most lurid personal incident in Lincoln's life.It taught him an invaluable lesson in the art of dealing with people.Never again did he write an insulting letter.

Yet if any man ever had to criticize, surely it was Lincoln. Lets take one illustration:

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought during the first three days of July 1863. During the night of July 4, Lee began to retreat Southward while storm clouds deluged the country with rain. When Lee reached the Potomac with his defeated army he found river infront of him and a victorious Union army behind him. Lee was in trap. Lincoln saw that. He had a golden opportunity to capture Lee's army and end the war immediately so he ordered Meade to attack immediately. But General Meade did the very opposite of what he was told to do. Lincoln was furious and wrote this letter to Meade:
"My dear General,
I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape. he was within our easy grasp. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. I do not expect that  you can now effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone"
What do you suppose Meade did when he saw the letter. Meade never saw the letter. Lincoln never mailed it. It was found among his papers after his death.
Here the author makes a guess: After writing that letter, Lincoln looked out of the window and said to himself.."Just a minute. Maybe I ought not to be so hasty. It is easy enough for me to sit in the quiet of the White House and order Meade to attack. But if I had been up atthe gettusburg and if I had seen as much blood as Meade and if my ears had been pierced with the screams of the wounded and dying, maybe I would not be so anxious to attack either. Anyhow, it is water under the bridge now. If I send this letter, it will relieve my feelings but it will make Meade to justify himself. It will make him  condemn me. It will arouse hard feelings and impair all his furthur usefulness as a commander and perhaps force him to resign from my army".