Why Anything Can Happen With a Positive Attitude!

Before I discuss why anything can happen with a positive attitude, I should define what it is. This kind of concept can be subjective to define, but I believe the attitude is to look at the bright side of things. Someone who has a positive thinking will feel doubly happy when something good happens. He or she looks at the bright side of things whenever things are not going well. Every cloud has a silver lining. People with positive attitudes are the ones who always find silver linings, and try to make things better. Thus, their unhappiness on unhappy occasions is only about one-tenth of the unhappiness of someone who does not have a positive thinking.

Additionally, those with positive attitudes have a different way of measuring degrees of success. Let's say you are walking to the nearest station, and are halfway there. What do you consider your progress? Have you reached the station? Maybe you have not. Maybe you feel you have not reached the station until the moment you step inside. In this sense, even if you have completed 99% of your journey, you have not reached the station. In contrast, a person with a positive nature thinks even his or her first step to the station accounts for 1% of reaching it. If that person came half the way, he or she would say they had completed 50% of their journey.

In this way, his process of approaching the station would be considered having come 99% of the way.

Do you see the difference? If one continued to think he or she had not yet reached the station, the walk would become painful. On the other hand, if one felt closer with every step, the walk would be enjoyable. Those feeling pain would quit walking and not arrive at their destination. In contrast, those with positive attitudes would surely reach the station-the final goal. The probability of people successfully achieving something is high if they enjoy the process, and can feel 30%, 50%, or 80% accomplished, for example. People with positive attitudes would surely accomplish the task 100% since they enjoy the process.

Those who are positive have a different way of coping with negative happenings. Those who feel pain in the process are not strong enough to continue experiencing negative and painful happenings. The people who enjoy the process would effectively cope with negative occasions, simply because they do not want to quit.





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A Few Ideas About Organizing You Can't Afford to Miss!

My boss used to tell me that giving business documents to me for filing was almost the same as throwing them out. I was a terrible organizer. Whenever my section manager or assistant manager asked me to show them a record of orders, business correspondence, or even bills, I was unable to locate them. While I don't call myself a perfect organizer now, a change in my way of thinking has made a big difference. When my wife wants me to get old business records, telephone bills, or email dialogues with our clients, she has them in a matter of a minute.

This is a story of Mr. Kaji, who was as awful as I was at organizing. He was severely reprimanded by his company's managers and requested to improve his organizing practices. He thought about the way he remembered the documents, and he focused on the documents he could not find in his files. He noticed he did not remember categories, but he remembered when he came across the documents. The next day, he suggested to his boss that he change the filing method to one that works for him. His boss reluctantly approved Kaji's request. A month later, Kaji's bosses saw the difference: Kaji no longer misplaced the documents. He could locate what they needed in a minute. When his boss asked what he did to improve his methods of organizing, Kaji answered that he decided to ignore the categories of documents.

Instead, he started to organize the documents in chronological order.

Kaji found it confusing that some documents belonged in different categories. First, he took copies and filed duplicates in files of different categories. However, that took a lot of time, yet he would sometimes still forget to file a copy in one of the related categories. So he started to file documents in files labeled only by date, such as "Feb 01 - Mar 31, 2011." Additionally, he used his favorite small notebook to take notes on a document whenever he felt he needed help remembering something.

People's preference varies, and this is just a suggestion. However, this method of organizing documents in chronological order helps the organizer remember where they are. Additionally, this chronological method of filing has advantages. You neither have to go through the category files to find the document, or open several category files to find it. You can just put the filing document in the front of the file folder, which will save you a lot of time.


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Music of Nature

An ancient Chinese philosopher, Zhuangzi, was known as a founder of Taoism. His philosophy was written in a form of fables. These stories contain profound wisdom of life, truth in nature, and a way of thinking. Many of them are useful to us who are living more than 200 years later than his age. Here is one of the interesting stories.

One day, Zhuangzi was meditating, folding his legs crossed. He looked unconscious. He appeared to be not feeling anything. He looked almost dead. One of his students walked close to him, meditating. Worried, this student asked Zhuangzi if he was okay. The student needed to shout into his ears to bring him back to consciousness. Asked again what he was doing, Zhuangzi answered that he was listening and enjoying music of nature. "Music of nature?" the student asked again, puzzled. The student had never heard of it.

The master then explained to his student. All nature's activities have scenes, colors, smells, shapes, and music. If wind blows through a forest, it creates sounds. When a flower blooms, it gives out a sound. The sound of birds flying, a bug buzzing, a dog barking, or even human footsteps form music of nature.

The master continued. The interesting thing is that this music of nature can be heard not by the people who can hear sound, but by the people who are willing to listen to the sound. It is a message from nature. It alerts people about the coming storm. It reminds people the spring is near. It tells them that the next day will be rainy.

If one is not willing to listen to this music, it is just sound, and may be taken as noise. However, the music of nature always gives meaning to those who are willing to listen and take it seriously. The master asked the student if he had seen the color of the wind.

This story is nothing specific for people who do not feel something from it and try to pick up on its meaning. It took me a long time to understand that this story was more meaningful than it seemed when I first read it. The story teaches us that we can pick up messages from nature if we are willing to receive them. It might not be only about the nature. If you are willing to listen to music or a message from nature, society, a market, or any of our surroundings, you will be surprised what there is to learn. There may be messages that bring you success, or perhaps for a happy and peaceful life.






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Which Country Is Kind to Dogs, US or Japan?

An Indoor Dog Park is opened in Japan, I have heard a while ago.  I have noticed that there is a difference of approaches to pets between US and Japan.  However, it is nice surprise to learn that Japanese attitude toward animals and pets are improving.  Although US situation for pets are not totally friendly, Japan was more or less worse.  I hope Japanese people more conscious and awaken about their pets and the animals we live with.

I have never heard that there is a dog park in Japan, but the indoor one opened recently looks nice including indoor dog run ground and cafe in which dog owners can enjoy eating with their favorite dogs.  I do not buy the admission is $10, because dog parks in here in US are free admission.  Still it is good going that some Japanese people are aware of their dogs' amusement and health.

One another thing I see a difference between Japan and US is that there is "No Wild Dog or Unleashed Dog" wondering around in cities in Japan.  Here in Hayward, I occasionally come across dogs wondering around unleashed and unattended.  If a wondering dog was found in Japan, he would be taken immediately.  It is why there is no non-attended and non-leashed dog found in Japan.  It is interesting to know that even the treatment of dogs have a difference in different countries.







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The Big Oak Tree and a Philosopher

Zhuangzi was an ancient philosopher who lived around the third century BC. He was one of the founders of Taoism, along with Laozi. His style of delivering his principles and ideas was a little different from that of other philosophers. He did not leave any written records explaining his philosophy. Instead, he left many stories that contain significant and profound meanings. From the written records that do exist, he seems to have been a naturalist. His stories tell us a lot about nature and natural features, such as a tree, an insect, a fish, a bird, or a spirit. He uses trees several times in his stories to teach people the true nature of existence. A mahogany tree appears in several of his stories, but for this story he used an oak tree.

In one part of ancient China there was a gigantic oak tree. The tree was so immense that 100 cows could stand under its shade. The trunk was so thick that 200 people would not be enough to encircle it. A lot of people came to see the tree every day from sheer curiosity. A carpenter and his disciples lived nearby, but the master carpenter did not pay any attention to the oak tree. One of the disciples asked his master why he did not cut the tree down and build houses; after all, the tree could be used to build hundreds of houses. The master answered that the tree was useless because it was too old and too hard to cut and craft.

The best thing to do was to leave it alone.

The oak tree appeared in the master's dreams that night. The tree asked; "How dare you call me useless?" It then mentioned how other oak trees were cut and killed by human beings to build houses, ships, or furniture, and to serve people's selfish reasons and purposes. "Being useless was useful for me as it meant I could survive." The oak tree pointed out that, despite its uselessness to human beings, it had been useful in providing nests for birds and insects. Its leaves, falling down in autumn, gave nutrition to the land and grew other trees, plants, and flowers. The oak tree finished by saying: "Do not judge usefulness only by the measures of human beings. Nature is not only for human beings. Human beings should not forget that they survive only thanks to nature."

The carpenter woke up the next morning and thought about what the oak tree had said. He talked with other villagers and decided to make the oak tree a subject of worship as a part of their local religion.





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A Story About Big Calabash

One day, an ancient Chinese philosopher, Hui Shi, was visiting his philosopher friend Zhuangzi. Hui Shi told Zhuangzi that the Calabash tree presented by his king bore a large Calabash fruit. The Calabash was too large to be used as a bottle like it usually would be. Hui tried to use it as water jar, but it was too heavy to carry when full of water. He cut it in half and tried to use it as a water ladle. Again, Hui found it was too big, and that it would not work. He could not come up with any other good ideas for its use. He decided that it was useless, and threw out it.

Zhuangzi looked at Hui shook his head, telling him that Hui did not know how to determine the value of things or how to use them. A cat is not as big as a bull, but it catches mice. A bull is not as fast as a cat, but it provides milk. Everything that exists in the world has value, characteristics, and purpose, regardless of its size. It was not the big Calabash that was useless. It was Hui's vision that made it useless. Zhuangzi continued, "If I were you, I would have cut it in half and made each half a boat. One could be gifted to your king as a token of appreciation. You could use the other to enjoy nature out on the West Lake."

Zhuangzi told him not to determine the value of things by size, appearance, or weight. He said everything that exists in the world has value, characteristics, meaning, and purpose. It is only humans who do not understand the value, characteristics, meanings, and purposes things.

This is where the story ends. The author sees more meaning behind the story. There are more interpretations between the lines. Zhuangzi, a naturalist and a philosopher, always took the position of upholding something natural, instead of artificially changing things based on human beings' selfish reasons. The author believes Zhuangzi is not just saying this about nature. His intention might be to extend this thinking to people. I wonder what readers would think if I replaced the above key sentences with: All the people who exist in the world are valuable, and have characteristics, meanings, and a purpose. Do not judge them by height, weight, appearance, personality, scholastic background, or behavior. If you say someone is useless, they are not the one who is useless; it is you who is the useless one.

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Fragrant Olive Tree and Rain in Tokyo

There were several empty houses in my area when we moved into this house in May 2009. The number of foreclosure and short sale houses increased in 2010, when we were getting settled. The worst timing was from the spring to summer of 2010: The house on the northeast corner of our block was vacated in April, and our next-door neighbor disappeared in June. It appears that the situation is getting better, although the pace of improvement is painfully slow. A family bought our next-door neighbor's house in August 2010, and another family is moving into the house on the northeast corner of our block. The following is the story of my friend, Sean, whose next-door neighbor house had been empty for a while, as my case. See what happened when a new family moved into the house.

The house next door to Sean was vacant for a relatively long time. It is not a good feeling to have an empty house next door. So when a family finally moved in, Sean's family welcomed them, and the new neighbor family started to settle in. Their house needed a lot of repairs and renovations, and in their repair work, they cut several trees in their backyard. One of the trees was a fragrant olive tree, which used to give out an aroma in autumn. Because the tree in their neighbors' backyard was Sean's wife's favorite, she was sad when she saw her neighbor cut it.

One day Sean and his wife met the neighbor family outside their house. Sean asked how the backyard work was going, and the neighbor answered that is the work was progressing slowly. Sean's wife mentioned that they had cut the fragrant olive Tree. The neighbor family was surprised. They did not know the tree they had cut was a fragrant olive tree.

They did not even check what type of tree they were cutting down. They said they would not cut it if they knew. They were in such a hurry that they did not pay attention to what they were cutting. The tree was cut. It was too late.

This story reminds me of a Japanese proverb referring to rain in Tokyo: "If he were not in a hurry to go, the traveler would not have been wet; rain finished after he ran into the rain, as the rain in Tokyo is fickle."

In today's age of personal Computers and digital technology, people like speed. Company management teams teach employees that it is more beneficial to work at a fast pace even if it sacrifices their work's quality. I doubt it is right to emphasize speed and ignore output results. I believe the age of speed is close to its end. We should take our time when we think and do things, especially important work.





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Thinking About Nature and Us

The stock market is still facing many ups and downs. The international community is not stable due to earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power plant damages in Japan. Despite the uncertainties in the economy and society, our lives continue. There is a middle school in the block next to our home. As a part of the park that they call "Green Road," there is a vacant land covered with grasses in the north side of the school. It looks like an idol land, but it used to look lovely and green, adding a breathing space in our neighborhood.

It was November last year when they started to build huge buildings on that vacant space. As construction went on, we found that they were constructing gymnasium buildings forming a part of the middle school. The buildings look stylish and elegant. However, I sometimes miss the sprawling green space that exist before they started to build these buildings.

This construction reminds me of an ancient Chinese myth. It is a story showing a naturalistic character of "Taoism." In the North Sea, there was a kingdom ruled by legalism. Its king's name was "Shuku." In the South Sea, there was a kingdom ruled by emotionalism. Its king's name was "Kotsu." There was a kingdom in the Central Sea. Its king's name was "Konton." The three kings often met in Konton's palace. King Konton did not have a fix body shape. He did not have eyes, ears, noses, and mouth. He looked like a cloud, which could not be touched.

Since Shuku and Kotsu had an excellent time in Konton's palace, they decided to give Konton a gift. They decided to give Konton eyes, ears, nose and a mouth. Despite the expectation of Shuku and Kotsu after they finished making holes for Konton, Konton died.

Konton is a Japanese words meaning 'Chaos'. According to the Japanese myth, Konton controls nature. Shuku means 'people who emphasize order'. Katsu means 'people who advocate the importance of human emotion'. Based on good will or human wisdom, if human beings change nature too much, it will nature to be destroyed. This myth teaches us it may not be smart to change nature too much. If we destroy nature, it destroys us directly or indirectly.

I personally believe building a new facility and buildings is a good change for the school, students and our neighbors. However, as you see what is happening with the Japanese nuclear power plant, human beings would never be able to predict what happens after they make a change. I hope this new development of our neighborhood middle school will not cause any destruction of nature, giving an adverse affect to our neighbors.






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Dr Hua Tuo and a Jail Guard

There is always a point where legend or myth takes shape as the beginning of history, as if there were an overlapping period between myth and history. This transit time is rather long, longer than people often imagine. Some people lived in the transition period as legend became historically proven fact. Dr. Hua Tuo was one of these. He was a legendary physician in ancient China. His birth year is unknown; his death, according to records, was in 208 AD. He was a doctor who performed surgery in the early third century, and he was the first doctor to use anesthesia for his surgeries in China. He treated and cured several historical figures who would have died without his care. These patients include Cao Cao, the first emperor of the Wei Dynasty of the Three Kingdoms.

His name appears historical documents including the "Book of Later Han" and the "Records of Three Kingdoms". Both records are reliable sources. Historians have concluded that Dr. Hua was a genuine historical figure, but the stories about him are full of myths. For example, one story states that when he treated a general, he predicted that the general's sickness would return in 18 years. It happened, but as Hua Tuo was dead when the general was sick again, the general died because Hua Tao could not treat him. Another story tells how people believed that Hua Tuo had invented a prescription for the elixir of life.

In later life, Dr. Hua served Cao Cao, the first emperor of Wei Dynasty in the Three Kingdoms period. Dr. Hua was the only one who could ease Cao's chronic migraines. Dr. Hua eased Cao's pain whenever it occurred, but did not cure it completely. The emperor asked the doctor if he knew any way to get rid of his migraine forever. Tuo thought for a moment, and then answered that he would be able to cure the migraine, but that the cure involved surgery on the emperor's head. Emperor Cao was old and suspicious.

He did not believe the doctor could cure his migraine by cutting open his head. Instead, the emperor, Cao, suspected the doctor was trying to kill him. He put the doctor in prison and later executed him.

While the doctor was in jail, he met a young jail guard, Wu. Wu had studied medicine before becoming a jail guard. Wu treated Dr. Hua like his father during the doctor's time in jail. Dr. Hua told Wu, before his execution, that Wu could have all of his medical books after his death. Wu received Dr. Hua's entire collection, including a book describing a prescription for the elixir of life. Young Wu was glad. He resigned from his position at the jail and went home to study the doctor's books. At home, Wu found his wife burning the entire collection. He was upset and asked his wife why she was burning them. She said it did not make sense to be a general surgeon because the emperor had put Dr. Hua in jail and killed him. Hua Tuo's entire collection of medical books was burned to ashes. Nothing significant was left. This is why human beings today do not have the elixir of life.

Even though there is no elixir of life, it is unfortunate that the genius doctor's medical books were lost. However, the author understands Wu's wife's reasoning and actions. Which would you prefer: life or execution? Would you run the risk of being executed if you could be a legendary doctor?



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Chinese Version of the Story of the Phoenix

It is delightful to find some same or similar figures in Western and Oriental cultures. This mythological bird is one of them. In the Western world, it is called the "Phoenix" or "Fire Bird." Oriental culture represented by the Chinese call the bird "Fenghuang." Japanese uses the same Chinese characters and call it "Houou." This sacred bird appears in various mythologies. It is not just a European and East Asian creature. The bird appears in mythologies of the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Egyptians, and Indians. The common characteristic is that this bird has eternal life. It jumps into a volcano to refresh its life and body, and flies again.

The Chinese version of this bird also appears in Zhuangzi, an ancient story by a Chinese philosopher, as the gigantic bird with eternal life called "Huang." According to the Zhuangzi story, a gigantic bird lives in the northern ocean. Under water, the ocean is shaped like big fish eggs. When the stormy season comes, it flies from the deep ocean. It looks like an island coming out of the sea. Emerging from the water, it now looks like a bird. It spreads its wings and flies south where the water of the Milky Way pours into the land. Huang flies high with its wings creating massive wind. The wind from Huang's wings gives new birth to plants, grasses, flowers, fruits, and animals in these lands. The bird is the origin of life, giving new life on earth by flying.

Sparrows and pigeons watched Huang flies long distances, laughed and said migrating 10,000 miles or more does not make sense, since they can fly 10-20 miles and find enough food.

These birds never understand that the foods they are getting are grown because the Huang bird flies.

This story contains some intriguing meanings. Those who are satisfied with the small world in which they are living can never understand the big picture. For sparrows and pigeons, the world is restricted to 10 - 20 miles from where they live. They will never understand that there is a wider world outside their territory. Those who stick to their own small world can never understand the expanse of the whole world.

The second interpretation of this story is to be one's own size. The Huang can fly high in the sky and travel around the world because it was created that way. If sparrows or pigeons tried to fly the same distance the Huang flies, they would get lost and die. It is safer and smarter to stay within ones own size and ability.

In ancient China, when a farmer dreamt of being a king, his family, relatives, and friends laughed at him. He told those critics that sparrows and pigeons will never understand the spirit and ability of the Huang. He did not become the king of the entire Kingdom of China, but instead became a regional lord, while his friends were required to serve him and follow his orders. The final point this story makes is that one can never be a Huang if he does not dream big.



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