Heera Training & Management Consultants

eNewsletter April 2009



Dear Everyone,
 
Hi! And how are you all? Thank you very much for the overwhelming response to the March newsletter, with most of you wanting to know who the lady in the picture was. Nobody special, just a photo which I downloaded from the internet! From a training perspective, it was fun in March with trips to Sabah, Sarawak, Penang and Johore. Met some old work colleagues in Kota Kinabalu, which made the trip so much nicer.
I recently (on the recommendation of my good friend, Ashok Kumar, a voracious reader), had the pleasure of reading Mitch Albom’s bestselling book entitled ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’, the story of Morrie Schwartz, one of Albom’s professors at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, who died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Tuesdays with Morrie was based on weekly interviews that Albom conducted with his former professor prior to the latter’s death. During the interviews Morrie shared his philosophies of life in regards everything, from dying to marriage to life’s regrets.
 

"Dying is only one thing to be sad about, living unhappily is something else."


One of the most memorable parts of the book for me was when Morrie schedules an early ‘funeral’ so he could hear the eulogies (meaning - speech or written tribute praising someone who has died) of his close friends. As he says “Close friends choosing to honor me with eulogies while I am still alive would be wonderful."

As I read that part, I could not help but think that this was a wonderful idea, but not necessarily from an eulogy perspective. How many of us say nice things about people when they are not around to hear them; people who die, people who leave companies, people who shift homes etc. Wouldn’t it be better for us to say all those nice things when they are around and importantly, when they can listen to it? This would certainly be more sincere and meaningful. Sadly, we all have a tendency to only want to say nice things when the person we are referring to is absent. Hence I love the idea of having an ‘early funeral’ so that you can listen to all the eulogies delivered by all your dear friends.

From that perspective, I would hope that many of you will go say all those nice things that you have always wanted to say to whoever. Don’t wait till tomorrow. It may just be too late!!!!

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I do hope it has made your day a little bit better. Take care and have a great month ahead!!