Character of the Week

Genghis Khan(born Temüjin) was the founder and first Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death. He was ruthless, pragmatic and his will was iron. The Great Khan turned enemies into trusted generals, created one of the first international postal systems and was tolerant of different religions. As Father of modern Mongolia, here is some of the wisdom he left with the world and what can be understood about the conqueror.

“There is no good in anything until it is finished.”

“If you're afraid - don't do it, - if you're doing it - don't be afraid!”

“The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth, to see those dear to them bathed in tears, to clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters.”

“An action committed in anger is an action doomed to failure.”

“Conquering the world on horseback is easy; it is dismounting and governing that is hard.”

“I am the flail of god. Had you not created great sins, god would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.”

The Nails

There once was a little boy who had a very bad temper. His father decided to hand him a bag of nails and said that every time the boy lost his temper, he had to hammer a nail into the fence.

On the first day, the boy hammered 37 nails into that fence.

The boy gradually began to control his temper the next few weeks, and the number of nails he was hammering into the fence slowly decreased.

He discovered it was easier to control his temper than to hammer those nails into the fence.

Finally, the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father the news and the father suggested that the boy should now pull out a nail every day he kept his temper under control.

The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence.

“You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there.”

Control your anger, and don’t say things to people in the heat of the moment, that you may later regret. Some things in life, you are unable to take back.

The Struggle

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly.

One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole.

Until it suddenly stopped making any progress and looked like it was stuck.

So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily, although it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.

The man didn’t think anything of it and sat there waiting for the wings to enlarge to support the butterfly. But that didn’t happen. The butterfly spent the rest of its life unable to fly, crawling around with tiny wings and a swollen body.

Despite the kind heart of the man, he didn’t understand that the restricting cocoon and the struggle needed by the butterfly to get itself through the small opening; were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings. To prepare itself for flying once it was out of the cocoon.

Our struggles in life develop our strength. Without struggles, we never grow and never get stronger, so it’s important for us to tackle challenges on our own, and not be relying on help from others.

Full of Kisses

Some time ago, a man punished his 3-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and he became infuriated when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree.

Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father the next morning and said, “This is for you, Daddy.”

The man became embarrassed by his overreaction earlier, but his rage continue when he saw that the box was empty. He yelled at her; “Don’t you know, when you give someone a present, there is supposed to be something inside?”

The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and cried;

“Oh, Daddy, it’s not empty at all. I blew kisses into the box. They’re all for you, Daddy.”

The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and he begged for her forgiveness.

Only a short time later, an accident took the life of the child.

Her father kept the gold box by his bed for many years and, whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there.

Love is the most precious gift in the world.

The Blind Girl

There was a blind girl who hated herself purely for the fact she was blind. The only person she didn’t hate was her loving boyfriend, as he was always there for her. She said that if she could only see the world, she would marry him.

One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her – now she could see everything, including her boyfriend. Her boyfriend asked her, “now that you can see the world, will you marry me?”

The girl was shocked when she saw that her boyfriend was blind too, and refused to marry him. Her boyfriend walked away in tears, and later wrote a letter to her saying:

“Just take care of my eyes, dear.”

When our circumstances change, so does our mind. Some people may not be able to see the way things were before, and might not be able to appreciate them. There are many things to take away from this story, not just one.

This is one of the inspirational short stories that left me speechless.

The Caterpillar

Think of the caterpillar.

It spends most of its life on the ground, envying the birds and indignant at its fate and its shape.

“I am the most disliked of all the creatures,” it thinks. “Ugly, repulsive, and condemned to crawl along the ground.”

One day, though, Mother Nature asks the caterpillar to make a cocoon. The caterpillar is startled -it has never made a cocoon before.

It thinks that it is building his tomb, and prepares to die.

Although unhappy with life it has led up until then, it complains to God:

“Just when I finally became accustomed to things, Lord, you take away what little I have.”

In desperation, it locks himself into the cocoon and awaits the end.

Some days later, it finds that it has been transformed into a beautiful Butterfly. It is able to fly to the sky, and it is greatly admired.