Well, I believe most if not all, wants to be rich, certainly.. This is a thin 112pages book, bought for RM37.90 =_= But it's not thin just because there is less to gain from this book, it's just that the writer, Keith Cameron Smith did not waste time crapping, things written were dense and meaningful. Since the book is dense and thin, my summary will be short as well, hehe. So, here it is:
1. Millionaires think long-term:
a) Thinking day to day, the way poor people do, is where you will find day laborers and street beggars.
b) Thinking week to week, the way poor people do, is living paycheck to paycheck and barely make ends meet.
c) Thinking month to month, the way middle class people do, is being concerned with monthly liabilities such as mortgage loan, car loan, credit card payment and household expenses.
d) Thinking year to year, the way rich people do, is where people learn about fiscal responsibility, financial literacy and investment.
e) Thinking decade to decade, the way very rich people do, is where you will find business plans that reach far into the future.
2. Patience is a millionaire’s asset; impatience is a liability of the middle class:
a) Rich people has the discipline of delayed gratification because they want more freedom in life.
b) Middle-class people want instant gratification because they want more comfort in life.
3. Millionaires talk about ideas:
a) Rich people talk about great ideas and realizing them. They own car companies, sports teams and vacation spots. They produce movies, television shows and music and earn from them. They choose fortune over fame.
b) Middle-class people talk about things from rich people’s ideas and daydream on them. They talk about things like sports cars, soccer teams and holidays. They indulge in movies, television shows and music and spend on them. They are easily impressed by fame.
4. The rich loves to compliment others and gain their help and support; the poor loves to tear down others only to be alienated.
5. People who complain are literally cursing themselves. Always ask yourself what is life trying to teach you when you feel like complaining upon a challenge or hardship.
6. For the comfortable middle-class people, change is feared; for the confident rich people, change is opportunity. Fear blinds you to opportunities; confidence let you discover opportunities.
7. Fear is inevitable. The rich overcomes it with knowledge; the poor submits to it with negligence.
8. If you can live with the worst thing happening from your decision and the most likely thing to happen will lead you to the best thing happening, go for it!
9. We can’t please everyone and rejection is imminent; if you failed, you may be rejected but if you succeeded, you may still be rejected.
10. The rich plays to win; the poor plays to not lose only to lose in eventuality.
11. People often wish they would take more risks in life if they could live all over again, meaning that people have more regrets over things they didn’t do than the things they did.
12. Knowledge is priceless; negligence is costly:
a) Investment on a $20 book read may well worth a $20 000 idea and a $1 000 seminar attended may well worth a $1 million business plan.
b) Being penny-wise and pound-foolish by saving a $50 banknote for shopping instead of buying a good book may cost a loss of an undiscovered $50 000 idea. Worst off, craving for free advices may cost even greater loss when one listens to the opinion of another who thinks he knows something even when he has no real life experience.
13. The rich work for profits instead of wages; the poor trades their time for wages.
14. Happy millionaires are generous because they believe they will receive more in return.
15. Millionaires develop multiple income source by passive income from business that requires little personal management. They build teams of great people that complement one another, not compete with one another, to run their business, believing that those people will do even better than them.
16. Learn to increase your net worth the way rich people do, not learning to increase your paycheck only to be taxed more.
17. Rich people increase their investment and assets when their income increases; poor people increase their spending and liabilities as their income increases.
18. The rich makes money, spends money, then pay taxes; the poor makes money, pay their tax and left with little to spend.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
Summary Of... To Live Another Day by Mitch Albom
I'm glad that the previous post, 'Love Your Parents' got few good comments and I'm sorry that I forgot to post the summary for this book at the first place. And, my posts are not copy paste materials =_=. Of course, the books are not written by me, but i took hours and days to read them in order to summarise and select extractions from these brilliant books. Anyway, here it is, the summary of:
This is the story of a person’s life, about a boy and a man, known as Chick Benetto.
The boy has a little sister in his family of four. His parents divorced when he was still young and his mother, Posey had to raise him and her sister all by herself:
Pg22…
‘I’d take you,’ she whispered. ‘Whenever it is.’
‘Why can’t Daddy take me? I asked.
‘Daddy’s not here.’
‘Where is he?’
She didn’t answer.
When’s he coming back?’
She squeezed the corn puff and they crumbled into floury dust.
I was a mama’s boy from that day on.
It was hard being a single mother who is still very much attractive as jealous wives were afraid she would be too ‘charming’ for their husbands. The occasional pokers and teatime with friends and neighbors before the divorce were all over:
Pg74…
She made it seem like her choice. Just the three of us. For a long time, I believed New Year’s Eve was a family event, meant for squeezing chocolate syrup on ice cream and tooting noisemakers by a TV set. It surprised me to learn that my teenaged friends used the night for raiding the family liquor cabinet, because their parents were dressed up and gone by eight o’clock.
‘You mean you’re stuck with your mom on New Year’s Eve?’ they would ask.
‘Yeah,’ I’d moan.
But it was my charming mother who was stuck.
She had a tough time after divorce. She was a nurse in a local hospital until some jealous colleagues find that she was a distraction to the male doctors and had to leave the hospital shortly after:
Pg83…
I would later learn that she had been fired from the hospital. I would later learn that some staff members felt that she was too much of a distraction to the male doctors, now that she was single. I would later learn that there had been some incident with a senior member of the staff and my mother had complained about inappropriate behavior. Her reward for standing up for herself was the suggestion that ‘it isn’t going to work out anymore.’
Before long, she found herself working as a beauty parlor and did part-time house cleaning with a friend who used to clean her house before divorce. Things had never been easy as she tried to put Chick and his sister through college:
Pg105…
‘Here,’ I said, holding out my hand, ‘I’d take the bats.’
‘I’d go up with you.’
‘No, it’s all right.’
‘But I want to see your room,’
‘Mom.’
‘What?’
‘Come on.’
‘What?’
‘You know. Come on’
I couldn’t think of anything else that wouldn’t hurt her feelings, so I just pushed my hand out farther. Her face sank. I was six inches taller than her now. She handed me the bats. I balanced them atop the trunk.
‘Charley,’ she said. Her voice was softer now, and it sounded different. ‘Give your mother a kiss.’
I put the trunk down with a small thud. I leaned toward her. Just then two older students came bounding down the stairs, feet thumping, voices loud and laughing. I instinctively jerked away from my mother.
‘Scuse please,’ one of them said as they maneuvered around us.
She had always loved Chick very much, went out of her way to let him know that his mother loved him more than everything else. However, he always tried to play it cool and felt that he had grown up to be a ‘man’ that he felt ashamed with those kisses and hugs that she always tried to shower him with.
Chick had always been a proud man. Too proud that he once made the international stage in baseball in the World Series thus was reluctant to do those ‘normal’ jobs after his baseball days as he faced injury. Too proud that he felt whatever he did was right that his family left him.
His wife, Catherine had given him chances time after time but all were taken for granted. The family was constantly in monetary dilemma and she finally left him with their daughter, Maria. Even long after the separation, they were still reluctant to reconcile with him; Maria was going to be married and all they did was to notify him by a card without the sender’s address or any other means of contact. Chick felt devastated:
Pg7…
It seemed to taunt my absence. And you weren’t there. I didn’t even know this guy. My ex-wife did. Our old friends did. And you weren’t there. Once again, I had been absent from a critical family moment. This time, my little girl would not take my hand and comfort me; she belonged to someone else. I was not being asked. I was being notified.
I looked at the envelope, which carried her new last name (Maria Lang, not Maria Benetto) and no return address (Why? Were they afraid I might visit them?), and something sunk so low inside me I couldn’t find it anymore. You get shut out of your only child’s life, you feel like a steel door has been locked; you’re banging, but they just can’t hear you.
As the story goes, the book is all about filial piety towards parents and obligations towards the family. Below are more extractions from the book:
Chick’s mom used to write many notes for him, often reminding him the never-ending motherly love for him:
Dear Charley
Have lots of FUN in SCHOOL today!
I will see you at lunchtime and we’ll get a milkshake.
I love you every day!
Mom…
July 20, 1959
Dear Charley-
I know you are scared but there is nothing to be scared about. We have all had our tonsils out and look at us. We’re OK!
You hold onto this letter. Put it under your pillow before the doctors come in. They’re going to make you sleepy and just before you fall asleep you can remember my letter is there and if you wake up before I get to your room, then you can reach under the pillow and read this again. Reading is like talking, so picture me talking to you there.
And soon I will be there.
And then you can have all the ice cream you want! How about that?
I love you every day.
Mom…
September 8, 1967
Charley-
How do you like my typing! I’ve been practicing at work on Henrietta’s typewriter. Pretty snazzy!
I know you won’t read this until after I have left. But in case I forgot because I was too excited by the whole idea of you being at college, I want to tell you something. I am so proud of you, Charley. You are the first person in our family to go to a university!
Charley, be nice to the people there. Be nice to your teachers. Always call them Mr. and Mrs. , even though I hear now college students call their teacher by their first names. I don’t think that’s right. And be nice with the girls you go out with. I know you don’t want love life advice from me, but even if girls find you handsome, that is not a license to be mean. Be nice.
And also get your sleep. Josie, who comes into the beauty parlor, says her son at college kept falling asleep during his classes. Don’t insult your teacher that way, Charley. Don’t fall asleep. It’s such a lucky thing you have, to be taught and to be learning and not having to be working in a shop somewhere.
I love you every day.
And now I will miss you every day.
Love,
Mom…
To my Charley on his wedding day-
I know you think these notes are silly. I have watched you scrunch your face over the years when I give them to you. But understand that sometimes I want to tell you something and I want to get it just right. Putting it down on paper helps me do that. I wish I had been a better writer. I wish I had gone to college. If I had, I think I would have studied English and maybe my vocabulary would have improved. So many times I feel I am using the same words over and over , like a woman wearing the same dress every day. So boring!
What I want to say to you, Charley, is you are marrying a wonderful girl. I think of Catherine in many ways like I think of Roberta. Like a daughter. She is sweet and patient. You should be the same with her, Charley.
Here is what you are going to find out about marriage: you have to work at it together. And you have to love three things. You have to love
1) Each other.
2) Your children (When you have some! Hint! Hint!
3) Your marriage.
What I mean by that last one is, there may be times that you fight, and sometimes you and Catherine won’t even like each other. But those are the times you have to love your marriage. It’s like a third party. Look at your wedding photos. Look at any memories you’ve made. And if you believe in those memories, they will pull you back together.
I’m very proud of you today, Charley. I am putting this in your tuxedo pocket because know how you lose things.
I love you every day!
Mom
This is the story of a person’s life, about a boy and a man, known as Chick Benetto.
The boy has a little sister in his family of four. His parents divorced when he was still young and his mother, Posey had to raise him and her sister all by herself:
Pg22…
‘I’d take you,’ she whispered. ‘Whenever it is.’
‘Why can’t Daddy take me? I asked.
‘Daddy’s not here.’
‘Where is he?’
She didn’t answer.
When’s he coming back?’
She squeezed the corn puff and they crumbled into floury dust.
I was a mama’s boy from that day on.
It was hard being a single mother who is still very much attractive as jealous wives were afraid she would be too ‘charming’ for their husbands. The occasional pokers and teatime with friends and neighbors before the divorce were all over:
Pg74…
She made it seem like her choice. Just the three of us. For a long time, I believed New Year’s Eve was a family event, meant for squeezing chocolate syrup on ice cream and tooting noisemakers by a TV set. It surprised me to learn that my teenaged friends used the night for raiding the family liquor cabinet, because their parents were dressed up and gone by eight o’clock.
‘You mean you’re stuck with your mom on New Year’s Eve?’ they would ask.
‘Yeah,’ I’d moan.
But it was my charming mother who was stuck.
She had a tough time after divorce. She was a nurse in a local hospital until some jealous colleagues find that she was a distraction to the male doctors and had to leave the hospital shortly after:
Pg83…
I would later learn that she had been fired from the hospital. I would later learn that some staff members felt that she was too much of a distraction to the male doctors, now that she was single. I would later learn that there had been some incident with a senior member of the staff and my mother had complained about inappropriate behavior. Her reward for standing up for herself was the suggestion that ‘it isn’t going to work out anymore.’
Before long, she found herself working as a beauty parlor and did part-time house cleaning with a friend who used to clean her house before divorce. Things had never been easy as she tried to put Chick and his sister through college:
Pg105…
‘Here,’ I said, holding out my hand, ‘I’d take the bats.’
‘I’d go up with you.’
‘No, it’s all right.’
‘But I want to see your room,’
‘Mom.’
‘What?’
‘Come on.’
‘What?’
‘You know. Come on’
I couldn’t think of anything else that wouldn’t hurt her feelings, so I just pushed my hand out farther. Her face sank. I was six inches taller than her now. She handed me the bats. I balanced them atop the trunk.
‘Charley,’ she said. Her voice was softer now, and it sounded different. ‘Give your mother a kiss.’
I put the trunk down with a small thud. I leaned toward her. Just then two older students came bounding down the stairs, feet thumping, voices loud and laughing. I instinctively jerked away from my mother.
‘Scuse please,’ one of them said as they maneuvered around us.
She had always loved Chick very much, went out of her way to let him know that his mother loved him more than everything else. However, he always tried to play it cool and felt that he had grown up to be a ‘man’ that he felt ashamed with those kisses and hugs that she always tried to shower him with.
Chick had always been a proud man. Too proud that he once made the international stage in baseball in the World Series thus was reluctant to do those ‘normal’ jobs after his baseball days as he faced injury. Too proud that he felt whatever he did was right that his family left him.
His wife, Catherine had given him chances time after time but all were taken for granted. The family was constantly in monetary dilemma and she finally left him with their daughter, Maria. Even long after the separation, they were still reluctant to reconcile with him; Maria was going to be married and all they did was to notify him by a card without the sender’s address or any other means of contact. Chick felt devastated:
Pg7…
It seemed to taunt my absence. And you weren’t there. I didn’t even know this guy. My ex-wife did. Our old friends did. And you weren’t there. Once again, I had been absent from a critical family moment. This time, my little girl would not take my hand and comfort me; she belonged to someone else. I was not being asked. I was being notified.
I looked at the envelope, which carried her new last name (Maria Lang, not Maria Benetto) and no return address (Why? Were they afraid I might visit them?), and something sunk so low inside me I couldn’t find it anymore. You get shut out of your only child’s life, you feel like a steel door has been locked; you’re banging, but they just can’t hear you.
As the story goes, the book is all about filial piety towards parents and obligations towards the family. Below are more extractions from the book:
Chick’s mom used to write many notes for him, often reminding him the never-ending motherly love for him:
Dear Charley
Have lots of FUN in SCHOOL today!
I will see you at lunchtime and we’ll get a milkshake.
I love you every day!
Mom…
July 20, 1959
Dear Charley-
I know you are scared but there is nothing to be scared about. We have all had our tonsils out and look at us. We’re OK!
You hold onto this letter. Put it under your pillow before the doctors come in. They’re going to make you sleepy and just before you fall asleep you can remember my letter is there and if you wake up before I get to your room, then you can reach under the pillow and read this again. Reading is like talking, so picture me talking to you there.
And soon I will be there.
And then you can have all the ice cream you want! How about that?
I love you every day.
Mom…
September 8, 1967
Charley-
How do you like my typing! I’ve been practicing at work on Henrietta’s typewriter. Pretty snazzy!
I know you won’t read this until after I have left. But in case I forgot because I was too excited by the whole idea of you being at college, I want to tell you something. I am so proud of you, Charley. You are the first person in our family to go to a university!
Charley, be nice to the people there. Be nice to your teachers. Always call them Mr. and Mrs. , even though I hear now college students call their teacher by their first names. I don’t think that’s right. And be nice with the girls you go out with. I know you don’t want love life advice from me, but even if girls find you handsome, that is not a license to be mean. Be nice.
And also get your sleep. Josie, who comes into the beauty parlor, says her son at college kept falling asleep during his classes. Don’t insult your teacher that way, Charley. Don’t fall asleep. It’s such a lucky thing you have, to be taught and to be learning and not having to be working in a shop somewhere.
I love you every day.
And now I will miss you every day.
Love,
Mom…
To my Charley on his wedding day-
I know you think these notes are silly. I have watched you scrunch your face over the years when I give them to you. But understand that sometimes I want to tell you something and I want to get it just right. Putting it down on paper helps me do that. I wish I had been a better writer. I wish I had gone to college. If I had, I think I would have studied English and maybe my vocabulary would have improved. So many times I feel I am using the same words over and over , like a woman wearing the same dress every day. So boring!
What I want to say to you, Charley, is you are marrying a wonderful girl. I think of Catherine in many ways like I think of Roberta. Like a daughter. She is sweet and patient. You should be the same with her, Charley.
Here is what you are going to find out about marriage: you have to work at it together. And you have to love three things. You have to love
1) Each other.
2) Your children (When you have some! Hint! Hint!
3) Your marriage.
What I mean by that last one is, there may be times that you fight, and sometimes you and Catherine won’t even like each other. But those are the times you have to love your marriage. It’s like a third party. Look at your wedding photos. Look at any memories you’ve made. And if you believe in those memories, they will pull you back together.
I’m very proud of you today, Charley. I am putting this in your tuxedo pocket because know how you lose things.
I love you every day!
Mom
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Love your Parents
Today, I'd like to post some of the extracts from the book 'For One More Day' by Mitch Albom. It's about a person, as a father and as a son, a typical man named Chuck Benetto.
Chick still remembered the moment when ‘his mother stand up for him’ and how ‘he did not stand up for his mother’. Try to compare to that of your life with your parents right now ^^
‘Times My Mother Stood Up for Me’:
…Suddenly, out of nowhere, a German shepherd lunges at me. Awowwow! It is tethered to a clothesline. Awowwow! It rises on its hind legs, straining the leash. Awowwow!
I whirl and run. I am screaming. My mother dashes to me.
‘What?’ she hollers, grabbing my elbows. ‘What is it?’
‘A dog!’
She exhales. ‘A dog? Where? Around there?
I nod, crying.
She marches me around the house. There is the dog. It howls again. Awowwowowow! I jumped back. But my mother yanks me forward. And she barks. She barks. She makes the best barking sound I have ever heard a human being make.
The dog falls into a whimpering couch. My mother turns.
‘You have to show them who’s boss, Charley,’ she says…
…That night I ask my mother. What causes an echo? She gets the dictionary, and we sit in the den.
‘Let him do it himself,’ my father snaps.
‘Len,’ she says, ‘I’m allowed to help him.’
For an hour, she works with me. I memorize the lines. I practice by standing in front of her.
‘What causes an echo?’ she begins.
‘The persistence of sound after the source has stopped,’ I say.
‘What is one thing required for an echo?’
‘The sound must bounce off something.’
‘When can you hear an echo?’
‘When it is quiet and other sounds are absorbed.’
She smiles. ‘Good.’ Then she says, ‘Echo,’ and covers her mouth and mumbles, ‘Echo, echo, echo.’
My sister, who has been watching our performance, points and yells, ‘That’s Mommy talking! I see her!
My father turns on the TV set.
‘What a colossal waste of time,’ he says…
…I am nine years old. I am at the local library. The woman behind the desks looks over her glasses. I have chosen 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. I like the drawings on the cover and I like the idea of people living under the ocean. I haven’t looked at how big the words are, or how narrow the print. The librarian studies me. My shirt is untucked and one shoe is untied.
‘This is too hard for you,’ she says.
I watch her put it on a shelf behind her. It might as well be locked in a vault. I go back to the children’s section and choose a picture book about a monkey. I return to the desk. She stamps this one without comment.
When my mother drives up, I scramble into the front seat of her car. She sees the book I’ve chosen.
‘Haven’t you read that one already?’ she asks.
‘The lady wouldn’t let me take the one I wanted.’
‘What lady?’
‘The librarian lady.’
She turns off the ignition.
‘Why wouldn’t she let you take it?’
‘She said it was too hard.’
‘What was too hard?’
‘The book.’
My mother yanks me from the car. She marches me through the door and up the front desk.
‘I’m Mrs. Benetto. This is my son, Charley. Did you tell him a book was too hard for him to read?’
The librarian stiffens. She is much older than my mother, and I am surprised at my mother’s tone, given how she usually talks to old people.
‘He wanted to take out 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne,’ she says, touching her glasses. ‘He’s too young. Look at him.’
I lower my head. Look at me.
‘Where’s the book?’ my mother says.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Where’s the book?’
The woman reaches behind her. She plops it on the counter, as if to make a point by its heft. My mother grabs the book and shoves it in my arms.
‘Don’t you ever tell a child something’s too hard,’ she snaps. ‘And never-NEVER-this child.’
Next thing I know I am being yanked out the door, hanging tightly to Jules Verne. I feel like we have just robbed a bank, my mother and me, and I wonder if we’re going to get into trouble…
…’Do you know how to do this?’
‘Of course,’ I say. I have no idea how to do it.
‘Go ahead,’ she says.
I squeeze the cream from the tube. I dab it on my face.
‘You rub it in,’ she says.
I rub it in. I keep going until my cheeks and chin are covered. I take the razor.
‘Be careful,’ she says. ‘Pull in one direction, not up and down.’
‘I know,’ I say, annoyed. I am uncomfortable doing this in front of my mother. It should be my father. She knows it. I know it. Neither one of us says it.
I follow her instructions. I pull in one direction, watching the cream scrape away in a broad line. When I pull the blade over my chin, it sticks and I feel a cut.
‘Ooh, Charley, are you alright?’
She reaches for me, then pulls her hands back as if she knows she wouldn’t.
‘Stop worrying,’ I say, determined to keep going.
She watches. I continue. I pull down around my jaw and my neck. When I am finished, she puts her cheek in one hand and smiles. She whispers, in a British accent, ‘By George, you’ve got it.
That makes me feel good.
‘Now wash your face,’ she says…
‘Times I Didn’t Stood Up for My Mother’
…She cuts up white rags and old towels and wraps them around me, holding them in place with safety pins. Then she layers the rags with toilet paper and tape. It takes a long time, but when she is finished, I look in the mirror. I am a mummy. I lift my shoulders and sway back and forth.
‘Oooh, you’re very scary,’ my mother says.
She drives me to school. We start our parade. The more I walk, the looser the rags get. Then, about two blocks out, it begins to rain. Next thing I know, the toilet paper is dissolving. The rags droop. Soon they fall to my ankles, wrists, and neck, and you can see my undershirt and pajama bottoms, which my mother thought would make better undergarments.
‘Look at Charley!’ the other kids squeal. They are laughing. I am burning red. I want to disappear, but where do you go in the middle of a parade?
When we reach the schoolyard, where the parents are waiting with cameras, I am a wet, sagging mess of rags and toilet paper fragments. I see my mother first. As she spots me, she raises her hand to her mouth. I burst into tears.
‘You ruined my life!’ I yell….
…’You know what Len? Make it yourself next time. You and this whole Italian cooking thing. Charley, eat!’
My father sneers and shakes his head. ‘Same old story,’ he says.
I chew. I swallow. I look at him. I look at my mother. She drops her shoulders in exasperation. Now they are both waiting.
‘It’s not right,’ I mumble, looking at my father.
He snorts and shoots my mother a look.
‘Even the kid knows,’ he says…
…’Ho! Ho!’ she tries again.
Roberta is scrunched up like a bug, peeking over her fists. She whispers, ‘Chick, shut it off! You’ll scare him away!’ But I can only see the absurdity of the situation, how we are going to have to fake everything from now on: fake a full dinner table, fake a female Santa Claus, fake being a family instead of three quarters of a family.
‘It’s just Mom,’ I say flatly.
‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’ my mother says.
‘It is not! Roberta says.
‘Yes it is, you twerp. It’s Mom. Santa Claus isn’t a girl, stupid.’
I keep that light on my mother and I see her posture change- her head drops back, her shoulders slump, like a fugitive Santa caught by the cops. Roberta starts crying. I can tell my mother wants to yell at me, but she can’t do that and blow her cover, so she stares me down between her stocking cap and her cotton beard, and I feel my father’s absence all over the room. Finally, she dumps the pillowcase of small presents onto the floor and walks out the front door without so much as another ‘ho, ho, ho.’ My sister runs back to bed, howling with tears. I am left on the stairs with my flashlight, illuminating an empty room and a tree…
…’You’re a hypocrite!’
‘Don’t you use that word!’
‘Why not, Mom? You always want me to use big words in a sentence. There’s a sentence. You smoke. I can’t. My mother is a hypocrite!’…
…’I am taking these away,’ she yells, grabbing the cigarettes.
‘And you are not going out, mister!’
‘I don’t care!’ I glare at her. ‘And why do you have to dress like that? You make me sick!’
‘I what?’ Now she is on me, slapping my face. ‘I WHAT? I make you’- slap!- ‘sick? I make’- slap!- ‘you SICK?- slap!- ‘Is that what you’- slap!- ‘said?’- slap, slap!- ‘Is it? Is that what you THINK OF ME?’
‘No! No!’ I yell. ‘Stop it!’
I cover my head and duck away. I run down the stairs and out the garage. I stay away until well past dark. When I finally come home, her bedroom door is closed and I think I hear her crying. I go to my room. The cigarettes are still there. I light one up and start crying myself…
…The woman halts. She pulls the candy back.
‘Don’t you mean Miss Benetto?’ she says.
None of us know what to say. The woman’s expression has changed and hose drawn eyebrows are straining downward.
‘Now you listen to me, sweetie. Tell your mother that my husband doesn’t need to see her little fashion show by his shop every day. Tell her to not get any grand ideas, you hear me? No grand ideas.’
Joanie looks at me. The back of my neck is burning.
‘Can I have that one, too?’ Roberta asks, her eyes on the chocolate.
The woman pulls it closer to her chest.
‘Come on, Roberta, I mumble, yanking her away.
‘Must run in the family,’ the woman says, ‘You all want your hands on everything. You tell her what I said! No grand ideas, you hear me?’
We are already halfway across her lawn…
…In baseball, a player can tell when he’s holding his own bat and when he’s holding someone else’s. Which is how I felt with that shovel in my hands. It was someone else’s. It did not belong to me. It belonged to a son whose last words to her were not in anger. It belonged to a son who hadn’t raced off to satisfy the latest whim of his distant old man, who, in keeping the record intact, was absent from this family gathering, having decided, ’It’s better if I’m not there, I don’t want to upset anybody.’
That son should have stayed that weekend, sleeping with his wife in the guest room, having Sunday brunch with the family. That son would have been there when his mother collapsed. That son might have saved her.
But that son was not around…
Realize that the time you can have with your parents and your family isn’t infinity, but full of uncertainty. You never know what happens tomorrow, so do I. So, be a filial children to your parents and be a responsible parent to your children. Love your family, appreciate them…
Chick still remembered the moment when ‘his mother stand up for him’ and how ‘he did not stand up for his mother’. Try to compare to that of your life with your parents right now ^^
‘Times My Mother Stood Up for Me’:
…Suddenly, out of nowhere, a German shepherd lunges at me. Awowwow! It is tethered to a clothesline. Awowwow! It rises on its hind legs, straining the leash. Awowwow!
I whirl and run. I am screaming. My mother dashes to me.
‘What?’ she hollers, grabbing my elbows. ‘What is it?’
‘A dog!’
She exhales. ‘A dog? Where? Around there?
I nod, crying.
She marches me around the house. There is the dog. It howls again. Awowwowowow! I jumped back. But my mother yanks me forward. And she barks. She barks. She makes the best barking sound I have ever heard a human being make.
The dog falls into a whimpering couch. My mother turns.
‘You have to show them who’s boss, Charley,’ she says…
…That night I ask my mother. What causes an echo? She gets the dictionary, and we sit in the den.
‘Let him do it himself,’ my father snaps.
‘Len,’ she says, ‘I’m allowed to help him.’
For an hour, she works with me. I memorize the lines. I practice by standing in front of her.
‘What causes an echo?’ she begins.
‘The persistence of sound after the source has stopped,’ I say.
‘What is one thing required for an echo?’
‘The sound must bounce off something.’
‘When can you hear an echo?’
‘When it is quiet and other sounds are absorbed.’
She smiles. ‘Good.’ Then she says, ‘Echo,’ and covers her mouth and mumbles, ‘Echo, echo, echo.’
My sister, who has been watching our performance, points and yells, ‘That’s Mommy talking! I see her!
My father turns on the TV set.
‘What a colossal waste of time,’ he says…
…I am nine years old. I am at the local library. The woman behind the desks looks over her glasses. I have chosen 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. I like the drawings on the cover and I like the idea of people living under the ocean. I haven’t looked at how big the words are, or how narrow the print. The librarian studies me. My shirt is untucked and one shoe is untied.
‘This is too hard for you,’ she says.
I watch her put it on a shelf behind her. It might as well be locked in a vault. I go back to the children’s section and choose a picture book about a monkey. I return to the desk. She stamps this one without comment.
When my mother drives up, I scramble into the front seat of her car. She sees the book I’ve chosen.
‘Haven’t you read that one already?’ she asks.
‘The lady wouldn’t let me take the one I wanted.’
‘What lady?’
‘The librarian lady.’
She turns off the ignition.
‘Why wouldn’t she let you take it?’
‘She said it was too hard.’
‘What was too hard?’
‘The book.’
My mother yanks me from the car. She marches me through the door and up the front desk.
‘I’m Mrs. Benetto. This is my son, Charley. Did you tell him a book was too hard for him to read?’
The librarian stiffens. She is much older than my mother, and I am surprised at my mother’s tone, given how she usually talks to old people.
‘He wanted to take out 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne,’ she says, touching her glasses. ‘He’s too young. Look at him.’
I lower my head. Look at me.
‘Where’s the book?’ my mother says.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Where’s the book?’
The woman reaches behind her. She plops it on the counter, as if to make a point by its heft. My mother grabs the book and shoves it in my arms.
‘Don’t you ever tell a child something’s too hard,’ she snaps. ‘And never-NEVER-this child.’
Next thing I know I am being yanked out the door, hanging tightly to Jules Verne. I feel like we have just robbed a bank, my mother and me, and I wonder if we’re going to get into trouble…
…’Do you know how to do this?’
‘Of course,’ I say. I have no idea how to do it.
‘Go ahead,’ she says.
I squeeze the cream from the tube. I dab it on my face.
‘You rub it in,’ she says.
I rub it in. I keep going until my cheeks and chin are covered. I take the razor.
‘Be careful,’ she says. ‘Pull in one direction, not up and down.’
‘I know,’ I say, annoyed. I am uncomfortable doing this in front of my mother. It should be my father. She knows it. I know it. Neither one of us says it.
I follow her instructions. I pull in one direction, watching the cream scrape away in a broad line. When I pull the blade over my chin, it sticks and I feel a cut.
‘Ooh, Charley, are you alright?’
She reaches for me, then pulls her hands back as if she knows she wouldn’t.
‘Stop worrying,’ I say, determined to keep going.
She watches. I continue. I pull down around my jaw and my neck. When I am finished, she puts her cheek in one hand and smiles. She whispers, in a British accent, ‘By George, you’ve got it.
That makes me feel good.
‘Now wash your face,’ she says…
‘Times I Didn’t Stood Up for My Mother’
…She cuts up white rags and old towels and wraps them around me, holding them in place with safety pins. Then she layers the rags with toilet paper and tape. It takes a long time, but when she is finished, I look in the mirror. I am a mummy. I lift my shoulders and sway back and forth.
‘Oooh, you’re very scary,’ my mother says.
She drives me to school. We start our parade. The more I walk, the looser the rags get. Then, about two blocks out, it begins to rain. Next thing I know, the toilet paper is dissolving. The rags droop. Soon they fall to my ankles, wrists, and neck, and you can see my undershirt and pajama bottoms, which my mother thought would make better undergarments.
‘Look at Charley!’ the other kids squeal. They are laughing. I am burning red. I want to disappear, but where do you go in the middle of a parade?
When we reach the schoolyard, where the parents are waiting with cameras, I am a wet, sagging mess of rags and toilet paper fragments. I see my mother first. As she spots me, she raises her hand to her mouth. I burst into tears.
‘You ruined my life!’ I yell….
…’You know what Len? Make it yourself next time. You and this whole Italian cooking thing. Charley, eat!’
My father sneers and shakes his head. ‘Same old story,’ he says.
I chew. I swallow. I look at him. I look at my mother. She drops her shoulders in exasperation. Now they are both waiting.
‘It’s not right,’ I mumble, looking at my father.
He snorts and shoots my mother a look.
‘Even the kid knows,’ he says…
…’Ho! Ho!’ she tries again.
Roberta is scrunched up like a bug, peeking over her fists. She whispers, ‘Chick, shut it off! You’ll scare him away!’ But I can only see the absurdity of the situation, how we are going to have to fake everything from now on: fake a full dinner table, fake a female Santa Claus, fake being a family instead of three quarters of a family.
‘It’s just Mom,’ I say flatly.
‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’ my mother says.
‘It is not! Roberta says.
‘Yes it is, you twerp. It’s Mom. Santa Claus isn’t a girl, stupid.’
I keep that light on my mother and I see her posture change- her head drops back, her shoulders slump, like a fugitive Santa caught by the cops. Roberta starts crying. I can tell my mother wants to yell at me, but she can’t do that and blow her cover, so she stares me down between her stocking cap and her cotton beard, and I feel my father’s absence all over the room. Finally, she dumps the pillowcase of small presents onto the floor and walks out the front door without so much as another ‘ho, ho, ho.’ My sister runs back to bed, howling with tears. I am left on the stairs with my flashlight, illuminating an empty room and a tree…
…’You’re a hypocrite!’
‘Don’t you use that word!’
‘Why not, Mom? You always want me to use big words in a sentence. There’s a sentence. You smoke. I can’t. My mother is a hypocrite!’…
…’I am taking these away,’ she yells, grabbing the cigarettes.
‘And you are not going out, mister!’
‘I don’t care!’ I glare at her. ‘And why do you have to dress like that? You make me sick!’
‘I what?’ Now she is on me, slapping my face. ‘I WHAT? I make you’- slap!- ‘sick? I make’- slap!- ‘you SICK?- slap!- ‘Is that what you’- slap!- ‘said?’- slap, slap!- ‘Is it? Is that what you THINK OF ME?’
‘No! No!’ I yell. ‘Stop it!’
I cover my head and duck away. I run down the stairs and out the garage. I stay away until well past dark. When I finally come home, her bedroom door is closed and I think I hear her crying. I go to my room. The cigarettes are still there. I light one up and start crying myself…
…The woman halts. She pulls the candy back.
‘Don’t you mean Miss Benetto?’ she says.
None of us know what to say. The woman’s expression has changed and hose drawn eyebrows are straining downward.
‘Now you listen to me, sweetie. Tell your mother that my husband doesn’t need to see her little fashion show by his shop every day. Tell her to not get any grand ideas, you hear me? No grand ideas.’
Joanie looks at me. The back of my neck is burning.
‘Can I have that one, too?’ Roberta asks, her eyes on the chocolate.
The woman pulls it closer to her chest.
‘Come on, Roberta, I mumble, yanking her away.
‘Must run in the family,’ the woman says, ‘You all want your hands on everything. You tell her what I said! No grand ideas, you hear me?’
We are already halfway across her lawn…
…In baseball, a player can tell when he’s holding his own bat and when he’s holding someone else’s. Which is how I felt with that shovel in my hands. It was someone else’s. It did not belong to me. It belonged to a son whose last words to her were not in anger. It belonged to a son who hadn’t raced off to satisfy the latest whim of his distant old man, who, in keeping the record intact, was absent from this family gathering, having decided, ’It’s better if I’m not there, I don’t want to upset anybody.’
That son should have stayed that weekend, sleeping with his wife in the guest room, having Sunday brunch with the family. That son would have been there when his mother collapsed. That son might have saved her.
But that son was not around…
Realize that the time you can have with your parents and your family isn’t infinity, but full of uncertainty. You never know what happens tomorrow, so do I. So, be a filial children to your parents and be a responsible parent to your children. Love your family, appreciate them…
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Summary Of...
I love reading books, any price will not deter me from buying good ones. So, I hope to introduce some very good books I have read in my blog. With its summary, I hope you all can know briefly what the books are about:
This time around, it is 'The Top 10 Habits Of Millionaires' by Keith Cameron Smith
1. Millionaires think long-term:
a) Thinking day to day, the way poor people do, is where you will find day laborers and street beggars.
b) Thinking week to week, the way poor people do, is living paycheck to paycheck and barely make ends meet.
c) Thinking month to month, the way middle class people do, is being concerned with monthly liabilities such as mortgage loan, car loan, credit card payment and household expenses.
d) Thinking year to year, the way rich people do, is where people learn about fiscal responsibility, financial literacy and investment.
e) Thinking decade to decade, the way very rich people do, is where you will find business plans that reach far into the future.
2. Patience is a millionaire’s asset; impatience is a liability of the middle class:
a) Rich people has the discipline of delayed gratification because they want more freedom in life.
b) Middle-class people want instant gratification because they want more comfort in life.
3. Millionaires talk about ideas:
a) Rich people talk about great ideas and realizing them. They own car companies, sports teams and vacation spots. They produce movies, television shows and music and earn from them. They choose fortune over fame.
b) Middle-class people talk about things from rich people’s ideas and daydream on them. They talk about things like sports cars, soccer teams and holidays. They indulge in movies, television shows and music and spend on them. They are easily impressed by fame.
4. The rich loves to compliment others and gain their help and support; the poor loves to tear down others only to be alienated.
5. People who complain are literally cursing themselves. Always ask yourself what is life trying to teach you when you feel like complaining upon a challenge or hardship.
6. For the comfortable middle-class people, change is feared; for the confident rich people, change is opportunity. Fear blinds you to opportunities; confidence let you discover opportunities.
7. Fear is inevitable. The rich overcomes it with knowledge; the poor submits to it with negligence.
8. If you can live with the worst thing happening from your decision and the most likely thing to happen will lead you to the best thing happening, go for it!
9. We can’t please everyone and rejection is imminent; if you failed, you may be rejected but if you succeeded, you may still be rejected.
10. The rich plays to win; the poor plays to not lose only to lose in eventuality.
11. People often wish they would take more risks in life if they could live all over again, meaning that people have more regrets over things they didn’t do than the things they did.
12. Knowledge is priceless; negligence is costly:
a) Investment on a $20 book read may well worth a $20 000 idea and a $1 000 seminar attended may well worth a $1 million business plan.
b) Being penny-wise and pound-foolish by saving a $50 banknote for shopping instead of buying a good book may cost a loss of an undiscovered $50 000 idea. Worst off, craving for free advices may cost even greater loss when one listens to the opinion of another who thinks he knows something even when he has no real life experience.
13. The rich work for profits instead of wages; the poor trades their time for wages.
14. Happy millionaires are generous because they believe they will receive more in return.
15. Millionaires develop multiple income source by passive income from business that requires little personal management. They build teams of great people that complement one another, not compete with one another, to run their business, believing that those people will do even better than them.
16. Learn to increase your net worth the way rich people do, not learning to increase your paycheck only to be taxed more.
17. Rich people increase their investment and assets when their income increases; poor people increase their spending and liabilities as their income increases.
18. The rich makes money, spends money, then pay taxes; the poor makes money, pay their tax and left with little to spend.
This time around, it is 'The Top 10 Habits Of Millionaires' by Keith Cameron Smith
1. Millionaires think long-term:
a) Thinking day to day, the way poor people do, is where you will find day laborers and street beggars.
b) Thinking week to week, the way poor people do, is living paycheck to paycheck and barely make ends meet.
c) Thinking month to month, the way middle class people do, is being concerned with monthly liabilities such as mortgage loan, car loan, credit card payment and household expenses.
d) Thinking year to year, the way rich people do, is where people learn about fiscal responsibility, financial literacy and investment.
e) Thinking decade to decade, the way very rich people do, is where you will find business plans that reach far into the future.
2. Patience is a millionaire’s asset; impatience is a liability of the middle class:
a) Rich people has the discipline of delayed gratification because they want more freedom in life.
b) Middle-class people want instant gratification because they want more comfort in life.
3. Millionaires talk about ideas:
a) Rich people talk about great ideas and realizing them. They own car companies, sports teams and vacation spots. They produce movies, television shows and music and earn from them. They choose fortune over fame.
b) Middle-class people talk about things from rich people’s ideas and daydream on them. They talk about things like sports cars, soccer teams and holidays. They indulge in movies, television shows and music and spend on them. They are easily impressed by fame.
4. The rich loves to compliment others and gain their help and support; the poor loves to tear down others only to be alienated.
5. People who complain are literally cursing themselves. Always ask yourself what is life trying to teach you when you feel like complaining upon a challenge or hardship.
6. For the comfortable middle-class people, change is feared; for the confident rich people, change is opportunity. Fear blinds you to opportunities; confidence let you discover opportunities.
7. Fear is inevitable. The rich overcomes it with knowledge; the poor submits to it with negligence.
8. If you can live with the worst thing happening from your decision and the most likely thing to happen will lead you to the best thing happening, go for it!
9. We can’t please everyone and rejection is imminent; if you failed, you may be rejected but if you succeeded, you may still be rejected.
10. The rich plays to win; the poor plays to not lose only to lose in eventuality.
11. People often wish they would take more risks in life if they could live all over again, meaning that people have more regrets over things they didn’t do than the things they did.
12. Knowledge is priceless; negligence is costly:
a) Investment on a $20 book read may well worth a $20 000 idea and a $1 000 seminar attended may well worth a $1 million business plan.
b) Being penny-wise and pound-foolish by saving a $50 banknote for shopping instead of buying a good book may cost a loss of an undiscovered $50 000 idea. Worst off, craving for free advices may cost even greater loss when one listens to the opinion of another who thinks he knows something even when he has no real life experience.
13. The rich work for profits instead of wages; the poor trades their time for wages.
14. Happy millionaires are generous because they believe they will receive more in return.
15. Millionaires develop multiple income source by passive income from business that requires little personal management. They build teams of great people that complement one another, not compete with one another, to run their business, believing that those people will do even better than them.
16. Learn to increase your net worth the way rich people do, not learning to increase your paycheck only to be taxed more.
17. Rich people increase their investment and assets when their income increases; poor people increase their spending and liabilities as their income increases.
18. The rich makes money, spends money, then pay taxes; the poor makes money, pay their tax and left with little to spend.
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