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One of the things that we're going to do in this next time that we have
is I,m going to talk about
your
favorite subject.
Because I think your favorite subject
has to be you!
And so I want to begin
with a couple of stories.
You will find through this afternoon
that I'm one who loves stories.
And the first story that I want to tell us about a dog
and a leopard and a monkey.
This man took his dog into the forest
and ... somehow
the dog got separated from the man.
And the dog is having a pretty good time he's walking through the forest and he's
investigating a lot of things.
But then he happens to look up
and coming toward him is a leopard.
licking his jaws.
The leopard sees dinner
and the little dog wonders:
"What should I do? I cannot outrun the leopard."
And he happens to see over to the side a little pile of bones.
And so he goes over to that little pile of bones
and he watches as the leopard gets very near
He turns his back to the leopard
and says in a very loud voice - loud enough for the leopard to hear
"Wow! That was the
bests leopard I've ever had!"
Well the leopard upon hearing this was terrified!
And so he turns and he slinks and he begins to go away. But there was a monkey in a
tree
and the monkey in the tree saw this whole scene unfold and the monkey realized that
he too was in danger from a leopard, and he thinks, "This is my big opportunity!"
"I'm going to go and make a deal with the leopard."
And so the goes to the leopard
and he says,
"I know that you like a good dog and that you've been fooled a few times
but I know where a dog is
which would make you a great dinner."
"And if you will promise not to eat me
I'll take you to the dog."
And the leopard thinks that's a deal ... "Hop up on my back".
So the monkey hops up on the leopard's back and heads toward the dog
And the dog sees them coming and thinks "Oh, My, What
will I do now?"
And then as they get close
he again goes over to the bones, turns his back to the leopard
and says in a voice loud enough for the leopard to hear,
"I wonder where that monkey is that I sent to bring me another leopard."
Now there's something in that story isn't there!
That life sometimes ... where we find ourselves always in these enormous
dilemmas. The second story
is about three fish
three fish who were in
... not a large lake but a smaller pond
and they have enjoyed life in the pond. They've had their difficulties
here and there but nothing really major until one day they look up
and they see these men
on the bank -on the shore-
and they've got nets
and these big hooks and lines and poles
and suddenly the fish think
"We are in danger!"
And so one of the fish was intelligent
smart and was wise
and began to think,
"I need to get to a larger space
I need to get to a larger venue."
and so he begins -having said "you know it's very nice to be here and I
have my friends, but
sometimes
it's time to move it out
into something greater."
And so he begins the long journey
and finally found his way
into the sea
and was safe.
The second fish was not quite so bright
and he thinks, "You know maybe if I would just get up here and I would just sort of
flop around
on the surface
maybe they would think that everything was fine and I
would just
lie very still. Maybe they'll
think I'm dead and leave me alone."
But one of the fishermen cried, "Look
at this!"
There's the biggest fish
and he's dead!"
And he grabs him by the tail and throws him up on the bank.
Not a very bright move on the part of that fish!
The third fish thinks,
"Well now,
maybe that didn't work!
What I will do
is ... I will just get up and I'm gonna have all kinds of fun.
I'm just gonna jump around
I'm gonna play around. I'm going to act like everything is just great."
But pretty soon here came the nets and grabbed the fish
and put him in the frying pan!
And as he was being fried he thought
"You know if I ever get out of this
I'm going to go
to a larger place."
Now how many times
with our own lives
we sense ...
we can sometimes sense that
we're not quite where we would like to be?
Sometimes we look out and we see the possible dangers. Sometimes we look out
and we see that maybe this job isn't going to go the way exactly that I
might want it to go or maybe I've got disease
or maybe there's tragedy that comes to my life or to my family.
And we're always thinking about,
"How do I respond?"
And one of the things that I've discovered in my own life
is that the larger place for a human being
is always the place of joy.
That there's something about
life that loves to happen ... life that loves to happen at work. ... life that loves to happen.
And so at times in my own life
when I have been the most up against it
when I felt the greatest danger
... the times
when I felt the deepest
and most profound lonliness
... at times when I thought
there's no
where to turn ...
I looked deep within myself, and I
tried to summon
and define that place
of JOYFULLNESS.
Because if I could find that ...
one of the great things about JOY is [that] the flip side of joy is tragedy.
That's what makes it work
in the midst of all of this.