Seems so innocent

Today I bring you a collection of stories I have kept in my personal library.These are contributions from sources I could no longer identify, but I hope you enjoy these.

Story number 1: A second grader came home from school and said to her mother, “Mom, guess what? We learned how to make babies today.” The mother, more than a little surprised, asked fearfully, “That’s interesting. How do you make babies?” “It’s simple,” replied the girl. “You just change ‘y’ to ‘i’ and add ‘es’.”

Story number 2: It was the end of the day when I parked my police van in front of the station. As I gathered my equipment, my K-9 partner, Jake, was barking, and I saw a little boy staring at me. “Is that a dog you got back there?” he asked. “It sure is,” I replied. Puzzled, the boy looked at me and then towards the back of the van. Finally he said, “What did he do?” 

Story number 3: While making rounds, a doctor points out an X-ray to a group of medical students. “As you can see,” she says, “the patient limps because his left fibula and tibia are radically arched. Michael, what would you do in a case like this?” “Well,” ponders the student, “I suppose I’d limp too.” 

And here is the last story for the day: We were listening to a lecture on psychic phenomena in our Comparative Religions course. Our instructor told us about a woman who contacted the police working on a missing-persons case. “She gave eerily detailed instructions on where to find the body,” the teacher said. “In fact, the detectives did find the body just as she had described. Now what would you call that kind of person?” While the rest of us pondered the question, a sheriff’s officer taking the course raised his hand and replied, “A suspect.” 

Sometimes the most obvious answer is found in simplicity, yet we complicate matters.

Children are innocent and they ask the most profound questions. Questions they ask may seem so simple and even make us laugh, yet when you try to answer them it may not be easy at all. Maybe this is the reason why children are happy and adults rarely are. We have complicated life with so many non-essentials such that we cannot enjoy its simplicity.

Life is really simple, yet men have complicated it to such an extent that we have made religion complicated and legalistic, and we have made relationships with men difficult. “Do to others… as if you were the others…” This is simple, direct and easy to understand, but it seems human beings are incapable of keeping things simple.

I see business in the same predicament as well. The bigger an organization grows, the more it increases its complexity. The more successful an event goes, the more the organizers want to add more to it and then complicate the whole thing.

There was a time when it was easy to write, you simply use “him” to represent humans and now you have to be very careful with gender sensitivity. There was a time when right is right and wrong is wrong, yet today everything is “relative” and it all depends on what situation you are in. There was a time when white is white and black is black, but today you have white lies, yellow, neon blue lies, so forth and so on.

No wonder life is so stressful these days. No wonder people in leadership positions, whether in business or in the religious scene, are more involved with image management and behavior modifications rather than just focusing on loving God and developing character.

And now there are so many books reminding us to keep everything simple and what they teach us are so complicated, simplification is becoming complicated as well.

I honestly do not have any idea on how to deal with this because whatever it is, it will only complicate things.

Simplify things and simplify business, your sales should be more than your expenses. Simplify leadership, remove bureaucracies and this way you remove egos. Simplify finances, and make sure your income is more than what you give away. Simplify relationships and protect your marriage, love God, love your spouse and your kids. Technology is supposed to simplify life, yet it has been the single most potent tool that has complicated our lives.

Love God and love your neighbor. I guess nothing can be simpler than this. And when you say… “Yeah, but it’s not that simple…” I guess you would be right.

(Experience two inspiring days with Francis Kong learning leadership and life skills in his widely acclaimed Level Up Leadership on July 18-19 at the brand new Shangri-La Hotel at the Fort. For further inquiries contact April at +639285591798 or Success Options at 7270291 / 7275692 or register online at www.levelupleadership.ph)