Wednesdays Rewards

Good Morning everyone,

I hope this day brings you many reasons to smile, laugh and enjoy in the moments that make your day. There are opportunities all around us, it truly comes back to the choices we make and how we manage ourselves in Work, Life and to those we come into contact with. Keep smiling and make YOUR life what it needs to by reaping the rewards of having a positive attitude. Enjoy the inspiration and quotes and put them to use in your daily life!

In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us.

Flora Edwards

Sometimes creativity just means the daily work of helping others to see a problem in a different way.

Joseph Badaracco

Who Packed Your Parachute?

Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may

fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has

happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.

Charles Plumb, a US Naval Academy graduate, was a jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat

missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and

parachuted into enemy lands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese

prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.

One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came

up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.

You were shot down!" "How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb. "I packed your

parachute," the man replied.

Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, "I guess it

worked!" Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."

Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, "I kept wondering what

he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: A white hat, a bib in the back, and bell bottom

trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said good morning,

how are you or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot, and he was just a sailor."

Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of

the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his

hands each time the fate of someone he didn't know.

Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who's packing your parachute?"

Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. Plumb

also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down

over enemy territory - he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional

parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety. His

experience reminds us all to prepare ourselves to weather whatever storms lie ahead. As you

go through this week, this month, this year... recognize people who pack your parachute!

Some Wednesday Humor:

A lady is throwing a party for her granddaughter, and had gone all out. a caterer, band, and a hired clown.

Just before the party started, two bums showed up looking for a handout.

Feeling sorry for the bums, the woman told them that she would give them a meal if they will help chop some wood for her out back.

Gratefully, they headed to the rear of the house.

The guests arrived, and all was going well with the children having a wonderful time.

But the clown hadn't shown up.

After a half and hour, the clown finally called to report that he was stuck in traffic, and would probably not make the party at all.

The woman was very disappointed and unsuccessfully tried to entertain the children herself.

She happened to look out the window and saw one of the bums doing cartwheels across the lawn.

She watched in awe as he swung from tree branches, did mid-air flips, and leaped high in the air.

She spoke to the other bum and said, "What your friend is doing is absolutely marvelous.

I have never seen such a thing.

Do you think your friend would consider repeating this performance for the children at the party? I would pay him $50!"

The other bum says, "Well, I dunno. Let me ask him. 'HEY WILLIE! FOR $50, WOULD YOU CHOP OFF ANOTHER TOE?"

msorg424@aol.com