Gifts From the Heart

According to legend, a young man while roaming the desert came across a spring of delicious crystal-clear water. The water was so sweet he filled his leather canteen so he could bring some back to a tribal elder who had been his teacher. After a four-day journey he presented the water to the old man who took a deep drink, smiled warmly and thanked his student lavishly for the sweet water. The young man returned to his village with a happy heart.Later, the teacher let another student taste the water. He spat it out, saying it was awful. It apparently had become stale because of the old leather container. The student challenged his teacher: "Master, the water was foul. Why did you pretend to like it?"The teacher replied, "You only tasted the water. I tasted the gift. The water was simply the container for an act of loving-kindness and nothing could be sweeter. Heartfelt gifts deserve the return gift of gratitude."

I think we understand this lesson best when we receive innocent gifts of love from young children. Whether it's a ceramic tray or a macaroni bracelet, the natural and proper response is appreciation and expressed thankfulness because we love the idea within the gift.

Gratitude doesn't always come naturally. Unfortunately, most children and many adults value only the thing given rather than the feeling embodied in it. We should remind ourselves and teach our children about the beauty and purity of feelings and expressions of gratitude. After all, gifts from the heart are really gifts of the heart.

Michael Josephson
www.charactercounts.org

The Grind

Worshipping God

'Let us pray to whatever God we worship, remembering as my dad taught me throughout my childhood, that Christ was not a Christian, Mohammed was not a Mohammedan, Buddha was not a Buddhist and Krishna was not a Hindu'

Gotham Chopra's foreword in Deepak Chopra's THE DEEPER WOUND.

University rankings

Check your Alma mater

Africa: http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/eng-rankingafrica.htm

World (pdf): http://ri.epfl.ch/webdav/site/ri/shared/Rankings.pdf

South Africa occupies the top ten African universities but our best university is number 398 on the world rankings! I have been looking for University of Malawi's rank, its supposedly 64th in Africa but considering the world rankings below on Africas top universities, I would have to guess the world ranking is not so pleasing at present, in time I guess then...


The InternetLab Ranking of 30 Top African Universities
(Rank
University
Country
World Rank)

1
University of Cape Town
South Africa
398

2
Universiteit Stellenbosch
South Africa
566

3
Universiteit van Pretoria - University of Pretoria
South Africa
718

15
University of Dar Es Salam
Tanzania
2,819

16
University of Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
3,072

17
Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane
Morocco
3,174

20
University of Zululand
South Africa
3,724

The Terror Barrier

The first ten years of my stay here on Planet Earth were spent in Owen Sound, Ontario. I can vividly remember the hot summer day I was taken by an older member of my family to Harrison Park where there was a fine swimming pool. The older kids were going up the ladder and jumping or diving off the high diving board. They were having a great time. Wanting to be accepted by the older kids, I too went up the ladder, reluctantly, but I climbed it.I will never forget the terror that gripped my mind and body when I looked down. Their coaxing did absolutely no good. There was no way I was going off that board. I climbed back down the ladder. That was the first time in my life that I can recall coming up against the Terror Barrier. I not only lost out on the excitement and thrill that would have been gained by jumping. I lost a little self-respect also.

If you think hard enough, you will recall the first time you came face to face with the Terror Barrier. You either stepped through it to freedom or back into bondage, imprisoned by your own fears.I continued to step back from anything I truly feared until I was twenty-six years of age. Then with the encouragement of a caring person, I said "no more" and I have been free ever since.

The Terror Barrier comes up in front of us every time we attempt to make a major move in life, into an area we have never traveled before.I have sold businesses in Canada, the U.S.A. and England for years and I could not even guess at the number of times I have sat with men and women who come right up to that barrier wanting to go ahead but not being able to. These were people who could have succeeded and wanted to, but didn't.Is that Terror Barrier holding you or your business back? Do what I did and crash through. The compensation is incredible.

Bob Proctor

UK Insurance bosses jailed for fraud

A former insurance chief has been jailed for seven years after being convicted of defrauding investors. Michael Bright, 63, was in charge of Independent Insurance when it collapsed in 2001 in one of the industry's most high-profile insolvencies. Finance director Dennis Lomas received a four-year sentence. Deputy manager Philip Condon was given three years. A jury had heard how the trio masked the firm's financial problems by withholding details of claims.

Probe
About 1,000 jobs were lost in the collapse of the company - which had previously been regarded as a financial success story.

The three men were charged in December 2005 after a probe by the Serious Fraud Office and City of London police into the firm's closure. The SFO said that the insurer's accounts for 2000 showed a £22m profit when they should have indicated a loss of at least £180m.

London's Southwark Crown Court heard that the trio knew that the market value of the company would drop "dramatically" if full details of the firm's losses were known.
Bright, of Smarden, Kent was convicted of two counts of conspiracy to defraud.
Lomas, 56, of Haywards Heath, West Sussex, was found guilty of the same offences.
Meanwhile Condon, 48, from Sevenoaks, Kent, was convicted of one conspiracy to defraud charge and cleared of another. Bright and Lomas were also found guilty of "making incomplete disclosure" of its reinsurance agreements between 1998 and 2001.

Damning audit
The court heard the trio hid the company's ailing health from fellow directors, professional advisers and investors in a bid to protect their reputations, jobs and salaries.
Undisclosed liabilities were "buried", figures manipulated and "bad" reinsurance contracts concealed. Jurors were told they even "suppressed" a damning internal audit which highlighted major concerns a year before the company went under.

The three men insisted they only ever did their job openly, honestly and to the best of their abilities.

Some of the firm's 500,000 private and corporate policyholders have been given a total of £357m from the Financial Services Authority's compensation scheme since the collapse.

-BBC NEWS