Motivational Stories

Once a group of 50 people was attending a seminar.

Suddenly the speaker stopped and started giving each person a balloon. Each one was asked to write his/her name on it using a marker pen. Then all the balloons were collected and put in another room.

Now these delegates were let in that room and asked to find the balloon which had their name written, within 5 minutes.

Everyone was frantically searching for their name, pushing, colliding with each other, and there was utter chaos.

At the end of 5 minutes, no one could find their own balloon.

The late Peter Marshall was an eloquent speaker and for several years served as the chaplain of the US Senate. He used to love to tell the story of the "Keeper of the Spring," a quiet forest dweller who lived high above an Austrian village along the eastern slope of the Alps.

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement he quieted down.

Effort gets things done. Patience sees them through. Both are crucial to success. Without patience, the passing setbacks and disappointments would soon overwhelm even the hardiest effort. Without effort, patience would accomplish very little.

When you can balance effort and patience, it is a powerful combination. You can make almost anything happen with enough effort, but not right away. The most effective effort is continuing effort, which patience makes possible.

As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth. Today, I know, this is “AUTHENTICITY”.

As I began to love myself I understood how much it can offend somebody if I try to force my desires on this person, even though I knew the time was not right and the person was not ready for it, and even though this person was me. Today I call it “RESPECT”.

A Zen master saw a scorpion drowning and decided to draw it from the water, and when he did, the scorpion stung him. Because of the pain, the master dropped the animal which fell in the water. The master attempted a second time to get it out of the water and the animal stung him again. Someone who was observing approached the master and said:

- Excuse me, but you are stubborn! Don’t you understand that whenever you’ll attempt to pull it out of the water, it will sting you? The master replied:

A Man and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: "You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?"

So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: "See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides."

There is a tribe in Africa where the birth date of a child is counted not from when they were born, nor from when they are conceived but from the day that the child was a thought in its mother’s mind. And when a woman decides that she will have a child, she goes off and sits under a tree, by herself, and she listens until she can hear the song of the child that wants to come. And after she’s heard the song of this child, she comes back to the man who will be the child’s father, and teaches it to him.

“I have given you many things in your life. I have tried to show you the importance of friendship, to instill in you a sense of value for your fellow man, a bond of love, a way of living and an understanding and compassion for the worth of the individual.

I have given you love and guidance. I have taught you to respect yourself and others, to value life rather than to ridicule it. I have given you a sense of purpose, a pattern for living and working with others in a cooperative way.

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther. Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.