我养了一只蜗牛， 晚饭后，我决定带它去散步，我走了十步，
它还末能够走过一尺。我心急了，拼命拉它，它痛了，用求情的眼神
来乞求我，似乎在说“我已尽了力”。我仍然觉得它走得太慢，
我再大力拖它，令它身体受到损害，开始流血。我才猛然醒觉，
我的散步方式跟蜗牛的散步方式不同。
我的慢，跟它的慢，根本就有天壤之别。
在我眼中，它太慢 ，在它眼中，已经尽了最大的努力。
我以为我在散步，它认定我在亡命的奔跑。
原来，每一个人，对不同的事物，都有他们自己不同的理解。
有人觉得“我每天工作八小时，然后其余时间留给自己去享受生命，
我赚得虽然不多，但活得充实，够了。
但这样的人生取态在另一个人眼中，就会变成“这个人怎么这样懒惰，
不思进取！！以他这样的年纪，他应该每天工作二十五小时，
不眠不休，像我一样，人生才有意义嘛！
朋友，每一个人对生命都有不同的看法，
不要企图把自己的一套加诸第二个人上。
这个世界上，有人喜欢做蜗牛， 有人喜欢做白兔，各自精采.！
而我？我只想做回自己喜欢的工作，而心底深处，我正努力去学做一只蜗牛
星 雲大師有一位徒弟，台大畢業後，到夏威夷讀碩士，又到耶魯讀博士，花了好多年的時間，終於得到博士，非常歡喜。有一天他回來，對星雲說：「師父，我現在得 到博士學位了，以後要再學習什麼呢？」星雲說：「學習做人。」學習做人是一輩子的事，沒有辦法畢業的。星雲覺得人生，不管是士農工商、各種人等，只要學習 就有進步，今天要跟大家分享需要學習的事。
第一、「學習認錯」。人常常不肯認錯，凡事都說是別人的錯，認為自己才是對的，其實不認錯就是一個錯。認錯的對象可以是父母、朋友、社會大眾、佛祖，甚至向兒女或是對我不好的人認錯，自己不但不會少了什麼，反而顯得你有度量。學習認錯是美好的，是一個大修行。
第二、「學習柔和」。人的牙齒是硬的，舌頭是軟的，到了人生的最，牙齒都掉光了，舌頭卻不會掉，所以要柔軟，人生才能長久，硬反而吃虧。心地柔軟了，是修 行最大的進步。一般形容執著的人說，你的心、你的性格很冷、很硬，像鋼鐵一樣。如果我們像禪門說的調息、調身、調心，慢慢調伏像野馬、像猴子的這顆心，令 它柔軟，人生才能活得更快樂、更長久。
第三、「學習忍」。這世間就是忍一口氣，風平浪靜，退一步海闊天空；忍，萬事都能消除。忍就是會處理、會化解，用智慧、能力讓大事化小、小事化無。各位要生活、要生存、要生命，有了忍，可以認清世間的好壞、善惡、是非，甚至接受它。
第四、「學習溝通」。缺乏溝通，就會產生是非、爭執與誤會。現在中國大陸、香港和台灣，兩岸三地最重要的就是溝通，相互了解、相互體諒、相互幫助，大家都是龍兄虎弟，互相爭執、不溝通怎麼能和平呢？
第五、「學習放下」。人生像一只皮箱，需要用的時候提起，不用的時就把它放下，應放下的時候，卻不放下，就像拖著沉重的行李，無法自在。人生的歲月有限，認錯、尊重、包容才能讓人接受，放下才自在啊！
第六、「學習感動」。我們看到人家得好處，要歡喜；看到好人好事，要能感動。感動是一個愛心、菩薩心、菩提心，在我幾十年的歲月裡，有許多事情、語言感動 了我，所以我也很努力的想辦法讓別人感動。>第七、「學習生存」。為了生存，我要維護身體健康，身體健康不但對自己有利，也讓朋友、家人放心，所以 也是孝親的行為。
Interesting question, isn’t it? In the Age of Rudeness, we may be losing touch with what etiquette and good manners are all about. In fact there may be those among us who haven’t experienced it.
Good manners are civilized behavior. That’s as opposed to wild behavior. Whether that was a particular rule in your household, or culture, all cultures have “rules” and they are learned, not innate. All cultures have rules and if you violate them, you’ll be excluded. Manners must be really ingrained; a matter of who you are, not how you are. The attitude must be without thinking, but the particulars require great thought. It’s always easier to revert to the feral state. There are those among us who still blurt out “thank you,” “you’re welcome,” ”excuse me,” and “May i?”But there are a lot more among us who don’t!
So, to have good manners we must learn the actions- the “trivialities of deportment” – and then stop and think when we’re with others. Then we can avoid being tactless. Avoiding being rude, has a lot to do with emotional intelligence which, like good manners, can be learned. EQ requires self-awareness and empathy – the ability to understand how your behavior affects others and their feelings. It requires a strong interface between emotions and thinking.
It’s easier to be rude and it’s harder to be polite. But what happens when everyone behaves that way? Then we have a rudeness epidemic. And how will we change that? One person at a time! As Mother Teresa said, when the house is dirty don’t complain or call a committee, pick up the broom and start sweeping.
After four billion years of organic evolution on this planet, life reached its greatest diversity and complexity in the tropical rain forest (Sponsel et al., 1996). Yet in recent decades this diversity has become endangered. This is due to the deforestation that has been work for centuries and the rate of deforestation in tropics is still increasing rapidly. According to Repetto, current rate of deforestation has exceeded 0.4 hectares per second (Sponsel et al., 1996), and each hectare may contain millions of species. There are more and more species extincting from year to year. Thus, deforestation has become one of the major environmental issues that directly affected not only countries and locations, but also a global perspective. In general, we can classify the causes of deforestation into three main groups, which are timber industry, agriculture development or expansion and major development projects that are implemented by the local government.
Firstly, according to the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP), “Logging is undoubtedly the primary cause of degradation and indirectly of deforestation too (Sponsel et al., 1996).” Logging for export is a major factor of deforestation in Southeast Asia and it has been playing a significant role in Southeast Asian nation’s economic development. For example, in 1985, Malaysia is the largest exporter of tropical hardwood logs which had exported 11.4 million cubic meters of logs (Sponsel et al., 1996). The revenue that was brought into Malaysia from this exported timber had reached the value of RM1.6 billion (US$650 million) in1985 (Hurst, 1990). The high revenue leads to illegal logging which further destroys the forest area. Even though the local government has implemented a number of regulations to control a logging operation, but the timber extraction is still dominated by economic consideration. Thus, due to the economy benefit, logging is just a first step in the chain reaction of deforestation.
Secondly, the agriculture expansion is another major cause of forest clearance. Rural population growth and promotion of cash crops for export are the underlying causes of demand for new land. As the population grows, large numbers of people will be seeking farming land or moving to the cities. For example, in Malaysia, forest clearance for agriculture development has been co-ordinate by federal government, Federal Land Development Agency (FELDA) since independence (Hurst, 1990). The main purpose of FELDA is to help provide land for the landless. They provide large areas of rubber estates or even now oil palm plantations to the landless as an agribusiness or commercial agriculture. The FELDA policies had created job opportunities for more than 500,000 people and have been relocated in more than 100,000 family units (Hurst, 1990). According to Marcoux (2000, June), oil palm plantations are a major catalyst of deforestation in Malaysia and Indonesia. These two world’s biggest palm oil producers had about 6.7 million hectares of oil palm plantation in 2002(Marcoux, 2000). Hence, the rapid expansion of the agriculture will further clearly cut the forest and there will be one day where Malaysia is running out of land. 
Thirdly, some of the major development projects that are implemented by the local government also contribute to the deforestation. The expansion of the road network is one of the projects that provide a significant effect to the forest. For example, North-South Expressway (NSE) in Malaysia which is the longest expressway in Malaysia running form Bukit Hitam in Kedah to Johor Bahru in south Malaysia, opened up millions of kilometres of previously inaccessible forest to link up many major cities in western Peninsular Malaysia, acting as a 'backbone' of the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Another development project is the dam construction. For example, some of the largest dam that had been constructed in Thailand like Bhumibol (318 sq. km); Khao Leam (353 sq. km); Sirikit (260 sq.km); Sirindhorn (292 sq.km); Srinagarind (419 sq. km) and Ubolratana (410 sq. km) (Hurst,1990). The surface areas indicate how much forest had been destroyed. Furthermore, the construction of the dams will cause farmers’ losing their lands and therefore government need to provide resettlement programmes to find new lands for them. As a result, more forests will be clearly cut. Thus, these unavoidable rural development projects have brought a great “pain” to the forest and it is still continuing “attacking” the forest.
Our planet earth cries out. Is anyone listening? Our failure to hear the cries has pre-destined our demise. Refuse to treat the planet earth the way it needs to be treated, and we seal our own fate. We have completely altered earth’s health, result from a course of growth, and development, and its ability to defend, or protect itself. In turn losing its ability to protect us, feed us and allow us to flourish. We were supposed to consider the planet, before we consider ourselves.
The planet “allows” us to exist here because of its own specific components, which we have basically destroyed, and keep destroying. Man made these decisions for totally selfish, self serving reasons. There was no board meeting for debate whether these choices were acceptable to earth. There was absolutely no consideration for earth whatsoever. People of earth were given life because of the Earth, and sun. Out utter indifference to that fact, is where the wrong path for mankind was chosen.
The planet earth provides us with every necessary component, nutrient, cure, and element to sustain life for millions of years, and beyond. Our lack of fore site, our sheer ignorance, and continued indifference has caused, and will continue to cause extreme permanent damage. We were supposed to live off the earth, and gear things in such a way as to allow the planet to flourish, in turn allowing us to flourish in harmony.
Gear your life around “Only What Grows from the Earth”. We already have all the replacements for everything from oil, to heating, to electric, etc. If our concentration were geared towards more land oriented production, to feed the planet, and replenishing the planet, we could survive, and Mother Earth would blossom and flourish. We have a vast array of options which would be beneficial for both human survival, and Earth’s preservation. We just need to wake up and realize each small family unit can make a huge difference by making all the necessary changes starting right at home.
So, care about our beautiful planet, and let our children, grandchildren, can look back in history, and be thankful that we corrected it before it was too late. Let’s “Get Up”, and fight for our Mother Earth.
