Once upon a time there was a Prince who, through no fault of his own, was cast under a spell by an evil witch. The curse was that the Prince could speak only one word each year. However, he could save up the words so that if he did not speak for a whole year, the following year he was allowed to speak two words.
One day he met a beautiful princess (ruby lips, golden hair, sapphire eyes,) and fell madly in love. With the greatest difficulty he decided to refrain from speaking for two whole years so that he could look at her and say "my darling". But at the end of the two years he wished to tell her that he loved her. Because of this he waited three more years without speaking (bringing the total number of silent years to 5).
But at the end of these five years he realized that he had to ask her to marry him. So he waited ANOTHER four years without speaking.
Finally as the ninth year of silence ended, his joy knew no bounds. Leading the lovely princess to the most secluded and romantic place in that beautiful royal garden the prince heaped a hundred red roses on her lap, knelt before her, and taking her hand in his, said huskily, "My darling, I love you! Will you marry me?"
The princess tucked a strand of golden hair behind a dainty ear, opened her sapphire eyes in wonder, and parting her ruby lips, said: "Pardon?"
Source: You Make Me Laugh Humor List.
I have spoken highly of twitter, and despite its many uses, I took the term micro-blogging to heart, and I have used twitter literally as "what happens between blog posts". However, one thing that I had trouble with at first was the 140 character limit! It forces you to think about what you want to say and get to the point.
According to Wikipedia, Mahadev Desai, the original translator of Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography, translated "Everyone should fast and stop work" to "Let all the people of India, therefore, suspend their business on that day and observe the day as one of fasting and prayer."
I think the use of twitter has forced me to be more cognizant of getting to the point, and I have started to take this lesson over to other mediums, mostly email, but also the telephone. Just the other day, a friend of mine emailed me regarding having been let go from his company and whether I thought the settlement they offered was fair. I ended up writing an easily 1000 word response expressing my sympathy, discussing my own experiences, sharing my thoughts and outlining some suggested courses of action. After I hit the send button I thought, how would I have responded in 140 characters or less. I knew right away: "Get a qualified opinion on the settlement offer. Consult a labor lawyer or expert." This would have been a much better response.
Further Reading: Some tips on living within 140 characters.
How about this for getting to the point: Subscribe to the Life Sutra today!
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