Up where we belong...

"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens." 

- Jimi Hendrix

"Up Where We Belong" is a quite an inspirational song from the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman performed by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes. Although this was oldie in my youth, I loved this song in my high-school days. Do you remember the lyrics...

Keeping love alive

You know very well that love is, above all, the gift of oneself!

- Jean Anouilh

Once upon a time, a mother and her son were walking along the beach. Suddenly, the boy asked: "Mom, how do you keep love alive?"

The mother looked at her son and replied, "Take some sand in your hand and squeeze it as hard as you can." The boy did as instructed, but the harder he squeezed the sand, the faster it escaped his hand, running through his fingers. "But like this the sands falls out." complained the boy.

"Yes," said the mother. "Now, open your hand wide." The boy opened his hand and the wind blew away all the remaining sand. "I can't keep it in my hand that way either!"

Black door of fear

"If you listen to your fears, you will die never knowing what a great person you might have been."

- Robert H. Schuller

Once upon a time, a terrible and ruthless king waged war on neighboring kingdoms. During war, all captured spies were treated the same. Any captured spy was sentenced to death, but the king had fallen upon a strange custom. He permitted the condemned spy to make a choice. He could either face a firing squad or pass through the big black door covered in engravings of gruesome scenes of torture.

As the moment of execution drew near, the king ordered the spy brought before him for a short, final interview, the primary purpose of which was to receive the answer to his query. "You can choose, either you will die by the arrows of the firing squad, or ... you can pass through those big black door and never have a chance to walk back. Which shall it be?"