Life Lessons Learned (Throughout our life we continue to learn important life lessons from our loved ones and from our own experiences. These lessons help us in making right decisions, make progress in our education, career, family life and our overall personal growth. During March and April 2022, we had requested our community members to share their life learnings. We thank all of those who sent in their responses. We have selected a few of those responses in this article. We hope you find these interesting and educational.)
You Reap What You Sow
By Savita Jain, Washington DC, USA While picking leaves from the green mint plant for garnishing, my mother said, “remember my plants were not flourishing for the last few years? The tomato plant kept growing but wasn’t producing fruits”. “Yes, I do remember that. What did you do this time that all the plants have become so healthy?” I asked. Mom replied, “This time I paid special attention to the quality of the seeds I had sown. A healthy and quality seed affects the growth of the plant. Similarly, the future of children can also be improved with love, right values, belongingness, and the care they get in childhood. If you sow the seed and leave the seedling to others who may or may not give it proper attention, then the result may be disappointing. Never give a chance to the child to say, “My mother never taught me this or never told me about this.” Nothing can be more humiliating than this for a mother. If the seed has been sown, then give it time, love, and advice and watch it flourish, watch it become a good human. Four months pregnant daughter, which was me, understood her mother’s gesture. Today, while plucking mint leaves, I was giving the same lesson to my daughter. The same daughter who has grown up in a foreign country yet has got the best combination of culture and code of conduct. Today, on the occasion of Guru Poornima, my best wishes to my guru, my mother.
Regaining My Faith Girish B. Shah, Bloomingdale. Illinois, USA When we got visa to come to USA, we boarded an express train to go to Mumbai. At Surat station one couple who was travelling from Kanpur got down taking their luggage along with my wife’s carry-on. I just counted all the luggage and found out that my wife’s carry-on was missing. I pulled the chain. The train conductor came, and I filed a complaint against that couple. For several months we were in distress. It was an unbearable loss to us since my wife’s gold and silver jewelry was in that bag, including her mangal sutra. I totally lost faith in our religion. I was very disappointed because I had purchased this jewelry with the money I had earned by working very hard with dedication and honesty as a teacher of Economics. But miracle happened. The couple who had taken our carry-on, had a change of heart and they sent a letter to my relative’s address which was on that bag. Soon after we got the carry-on intact. And my belief and faith in our religion doubled. I apologized for being upset and asked for forgiveness.
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COMMUNITY CORNER
