A life-altering conversation
Only about a month later I would have a conversation with my friend Kent that would change my life forever. I call this day the most important day of my life. I had an epiphany.
My plan with buying a house was to find roommates to help with the mortgage payments. I had done this in Virginia. I had two roommates which made my mortgage payments quite low. In Dallas I convinced Kent to move in one of the two spare bedrooms I had. I had bought a large three-bedroom house with two living areas on the west side of the Dallas/ Ft. Worth Airport.
Shortly after Kent moved in we stayed up late one night talking about our different upbringings. We sat up literally for hours in a tête-à-tête; each of us trying to prove who had the more difficult childhood. The only problem with my argument was that every time Kent mentioned his problem he ended by saying he still loved his father. And the point of his comment was that his father had to be more difficult than mine because it was written in the article in the pool house. Plus, except for my dad’s many prejudices he is really a nice guy, which is the best way to describe him. Today my dad gets along with everybody even my mom. When he is not mad he is like a big teddy bear.
Just like my conversations with Laurie I went through the litany of complaints about my bad parents. I started out by saying my parents did “this”, explaining one of the many faults I had found with my parents, and he would respond by saying that “my dad sent me to military school, and I still love him”. And I would say, “but my parents did something else”, and he would say his father never showed any love for him, and he still loved his father. I would bring up something else my parents did that destroyed my childhood, and he would respond with “my father never had the time to attend any of my school events because he was so busy at work, but I still love him”. This one really hit home because my dad never missed any sporting event I had ever played in. He loved his sports and seeing his kids involved in them. Like I said, this went on for hours. He broke me down. I ran out of arguments, and for probably the first time in my life I admitted I was wrong.
The conversation brought me to tears. Ten years would pass before I would cry again. What Kent taught me that wonderful night was the pain I had as a child didn’t matter. They were my parents and they taught me what I needed to know about life to be successful. They did the best that they could with their limited resources and we turned out to be pretty good kids. I actually got on the phone with them in tears telling them how much I loved them and thanked them for being such great parents. I even called up Laurie in tears telling her of my epiphany about my parents.
This was important to me because it opened up my mind to my future. I no longer had the anger of my childhood clouding up my conscious and unconscious mind. I could look at life objectively. I learned what is probably the most important lesson in life. I believe that maturity actually begins when you come to this realization. Mental growth really begins when you let go of the painful memories of the past. The difference between a truly healthy positive mind and an unhealthy negative mind is the healthy one has forgiven his or her parents for being parents. There have been no rulebooks on raising kids. My parents thought the best way was with the belt, but they did it in love.
The reality is most parents love their children, they just might not be able to show it but you cannot live the rest of your life blaming your parents or anyone else for the problems in life. If you think about your parents from their perspective you would probably have to understand that your parents love you, regardless of how they treated you, they brought you into this world. Think about that!!!
I have looked back at that lesson for many years and have been forever grateful for the lesson Kent taught me. This lesson brings me to the point of this book. I have learned the most important thing you can teach yourself to have a healthy mind, which is an absolute necessity for a healthy relationship. If you can forgive your parents for the way they brought you up then you can get over the past and begin to live for the future.
Again, it is faultfinding vs. problem solving. Faultfinding is having those negative experiences of the past and then having you interpret that they may occur in the future, except this time it is not by your parents but by someone else, your partner. If you want a happy and healthy relationship then it is absolutely essential that you look at your partner for who he or she is, not by who your parents are. Your partner is obviously not your parent.
Problem solving is looking at each problem as it occurs objectively, with an open mind, without the painful experiences caused by someone else. Life is actually quite simple today; we are the ones who make it more difficult. We can eat. We have houses over our heads. We have cars, cellular telephones, all of the trappings in life. But getting along with our partner is actually easier than not getting along. We don’t need to make life more difficult than it really is.
Since that conversation with Kent I have never found fault in anything my parents have ever done to me. I have actually looked at all of the good things they have taught me. I am not a bad person, and it is thanks to them. I like to joke that my goal in life is to simply stay out of jail, though seriously speaking my parents have taught me how to live a morally good life.
If you can get over your past you can live your future!!!
by Tim Kellis
www.HappyRelationships.com
The objective of this book is to provide keys to a happy relationship and real, logical help to couples so they can stay out of the divorce trap. Good luck on your journey as you learn how to have a happy relationship so that you can maintain a healthy, harmonious, loving, affectionate and intimate marriage.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Let not our ego misjudge anyone.....
A lady in a faded grey dress and her husband, dressed in a home-spun suit walked in timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard and probably didn't even deserve to be in Harvard. "We want to see the President "the ma n said softly. "He'll be busy all day "the secretary snapped. "We'll wait" the lady replied. For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president..
"Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave" she said to him. The President, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple. The lady told him "We had a son who attended Harvard for one y ear. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus." The president wasn't touched....He was shocked. "Madam "he said, gruffly, " we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery." "Oh, no," the lady explained quickly” We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard." The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, and then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard."
For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university ? Why don't we just start our own?" Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment. Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the University that bears their name: -Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.
Most of the time we judge people by their outer appearance, which can be misleading. And in this impression, we tend to treat people badly by thinking they can do nothing for us. Thus we tend to lose our potential good friends, employees or customers.
Remember In our Life, we seldom get people with whom we want to share & grow our thought process. But because of our inner EGO we miss them forever. It is you who have to decide with whom you are getting associated in day to day life.
Small people talk about others,
Average people talk about things,
Great people talk about ideas.
The best mirror is an old friend.
"Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave" she said to him. The President, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple. The lady told him "We had a son who attended Harvard for one y ear. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus." The president wasn't touched....He was shocked. "Madam "he said, gruffly, " we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery." "Oh, no," the lady explained quickly” We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard." The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, and then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard."
For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university ? Why don't we just start our own?" Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment. Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the University that bears their name: -Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.
Most of the time we judge people by their outer appearance, which can be misleading. And in this impression, we tend to treat people badly by thinking they can do nothing for us. Thus we tend to lose our potential good friends, employees or customers.
Remember In our Life, we seldom get people with whom we want to share & grow our thought process. But because of our inner EGO we miss them forever. It is you who have to decide with whom you are getting associated in day to day life.
Small people talk about others,
Average people talk about things,
Great people talk about ideas.
The best mirror is an old friend.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
High dynamic range (HDR) imaging
In image processing, computer graphics, and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of luminances between light and dark areas of a scene than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows.
High dynamic range imaging was originally developed in the 1930s and 1940s by Charles Wyckoff. Wyckoff's detailed pictures of nuclear explosions appeared on the cover of Life magazine in the mid 1940s. The process of tone mapping together with bracketed exposures of normal digital images, giving the end result a high, often exaggerated dynamic range, was first reported in 1988 by Zeevi, Ginosar and Hilsenrath.[1] Later introduction in 1993[2] resulted in a mathematical theory of differently exposed pictures of the same subject matter that was published in 1995 by Steve Mann and Rosalind Picard.[3] In 1997 this technique of combining several differently exposed images to produce a single HDR image was presented to the computer graphics community by Paul Debevec.
This method was developed to produce a high dynamic range image from a set of photographs taken with a range of exposures. With the rising popularity of digital cameras and easy-to-use desktop software, the term HDR is now popularly used[4] to refer to this process. This composite technique is different from (and may be of lesser or greater quality than) the production of an image from a single exposure of a sensor that has a native high dynamic range. Tone mapping is also used to display HDR images on devices with a low native dynamic range, such as a computer screen.
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/high-dynamic-range.htm
http://www.flickr.com/groups/hdr/
http://fiveprime.org/hivemind/Tags/hdr,k10d
http://www.visualphotoguide.com/taking-high-dynamic-range-hdr-photos
http://range.wordpress.com/2006/07/15/modern-hdr-photography-a-how-to-or-saturday-morning-relaxation/
High dynamic range imaging was originally developed in the 1930s and 1940s by Charles Wyckoff. Wyckoff's detailed pictures of nuclear explosions appeared on the cover of Life magazine in the mid 1940s. The process of tone mapping together with bracketed exposures of normal digital images, giving the end result a high, often exaggerated dynamic range, was first reported in 1988 by Zeevi, Ginosar and Hilsenrath.[1] Later introduction in 1993[2] resulted in a mathematical theory of differently exposed pictures of the same subject matter that was published in 1995 by Steve Mann and Rosalind Picard.[3] In 1997 this technique of combining several differently exposed images to produce a single HDR image was presented to the computer graphics community by Paul Debevec.
This method was developed to produce a high dynamic range image from a set of photographs taken with a range of exposures. With the rising popularity of digital cameras and easy-to-use desktop software, the term HDR is now popularly used[4] to refer to this process. This composite technique is different from (and may be of lesser or greater quality than) the production of an image from a single exposure of a sensor that has a native high dynamic range. Tone mapping is also used to display HDR images on devices with a low native dynamic range, such as a computer screen.
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/high-dynamic-range.htm
http://www.flickr.com/groups/hdr/
http://fiveprime.org/hivemind/Tags/hdr,k10d
http://www.visualphotoguide.com/taking-high-dynamic-range-hdr-photos
http://range.wordpress.com/2006/07/15/modern-hdr-photography-a-how-to-or-saturday-morning-relaxation/
Picture of the Year/2008
The annual Picture of the Year competition is an event where the images that became Featured Pictures during the last year are voted by members from all of the Wikimedia projects, to produce a single Picture of the Year.
Click on the subject line to view more of these.....
Liu Bolin - Chinese artist who has decided to transform himself into invisible
I am sure that this must have taken a lot of effort and time....
Click on the link below to see more from the artist....
http://funpresident.com/2009/07/liu-bolin-chinese-artist-who-has-decided-to-transform-itself-into-invisible/
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