A woman who called off her $30,000 wedding has invited homeless people to come and eat the food prepared for the reception.

Sarah Cummins, 25, broke off her wedding, then realised that her sit-down reception dinner for 170 at the Ritz Charles was non-refundable.

Feeling “really sick” about throwing away the food she had ordered for the reception, she began contacting local homeless shelters and has invited people to come along.

“We’re doing all the same stuff, just arranging the tables differently, so there’s no head table for the bridal party, no cake table or gift table,” Cummins told Media.

Purdue University pharmacy student Sarah Cummins, 25, has spent the past few years planning her dream wedding. She’s spent years saving and working overtime to pay for the $30,000 extravaganza.

Cummins arranged for two buses to pick up about 170 residents and their families.

The most dreadful word a Pakistani student can hear in his student life is ‘fail’. Although Pakistani’s have proved to show the world, their extraordinary talent in an assortment of fields- be it education, politics and many others there are students in Pakistan that persist to struggle to achieve preferred positions, designations and most of all grades. We all know how concerned our parents are about our grades, and not so providentially some students who could not grab the utmost of their scores and grades they live their sophomore years with the constant ranting by the society. Not only does the society blame them, but their parents too are ashamed of them?

So does a failure in grades means that the person is a total failure? Well absolutely not, Pakistani students need to realize this. FAILING in itself demands us to; give it another go for least a statistically significant number. What if you fail? A failure helps us shape us our dreams and aspirations and work hard for them. Talk about JK Rowling, Bill Gates and the element if failure has made their success worth it. Talking about a few of their success stories we might get a better insight on what made them work hard even after the failures. This way, many people can know, as a matter of fact that how necessary it is to continue with the same zeal and zest even after you have failed once. You need to have faith in God, and believe that your capabilities will make you, find your way through it.

J. K. Rowling; We owe that woman for Harry Potter, don’t we? Rowling may be undulating in a lot of Harry Potter  today, but before she published the series of novels she was nearly penniless, severely depressed, divorced, trying to raise a child on her own while attending school and writing a novel. Rowling went from depending on welfare to survive to being one of the richest women in the world in a span of only five years through her hard work and determination.

Oprah Winfrey; Most people know Oprah as one of the most iconic faces on TV as well as one of the richest and most successful women in the world. Oprah faced a hard road to get to that position, however, enduring a uneven and often abusive childhood as well as numerous career setbacks.

Bill Gates; Gates didn’t seem like a shoe-in for success after dropping out of Harvard and starting a failed first business with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen called Traf-O-Data. While this early idea didn’t work, Gates’ later work did, creating the global empire that is Microsoft.

Albert Einstein; Most of us take Einstein’s name as synonymous with genius, but he didn’t always show such promise. Einstein did not speak until he was four and did not read until he was seven, causing his teachers and parents to think he was mentally handicapped, slow and anti-social. Eventually, he was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School. It might have taken him a bit longer, but most people would agree that he caught on pretty well in the end, winning the Nobel Prize and changing the face of modern physics.

Isaac Newton; was undoubtedly a genius when it came to math, but he had some failings early on. He never did particularly well in school and when put in charge of running the family farm, he failed miserably, so poorly in fact that an uncle took charge and sent him off to Cambridge where he finally became into the scholar we know today.

The reason for providing you with the history of their stories and all is to stimulate courage inside of you and optimism will help many people around the world to continue to have success stories after failures. Going through these failures and successes is what makes you work passionately for your preferred profession or career.

There are several ways in which people describe it- good, sad, tension free, stressful, busy, frustrating, etc. But have we been looking at it the way it really is? Well, few of us do, few of us don’t. Somewhere deep inside we all do know that life of this world is nothing but temporary and we fail to realize it often.

Let me tell you some secrets which you know, but still needs some brushing to actually realize.

Nobody really understands life much but yes, everyone is at his own different level of experiencing, enhancing and living it. Life of this world is doubtlessly temporary, so how can your problems be permanent? Some people move on with the problems, some don’t and for the rest of it, giving up seems easy. Its easy to blame it all on life and luck, etc. instead for seeing through it because it gives a temporary fix to your problems. Let’s face it,we all fool ourselves to an extent that we stop seeing the reality at some point. Though its quite sad, but may be it’s now an evolutionary change in human behavior.

Problems, however, are meant to make us strong, change our mind set,increase our tolerance and patience basically. Remember only you can make you happy. Every thing comes with positivity and negativity and it is on us how we take it in, so get through it. No wonder there is a term ”depression” in our society. Half of the people self diagnose themselves as depressed ,frustrated, etc.’ which is kind of bad because they start losing hope. There is no way to know your strength and ability if you cry over your problems and run from it or them. Once you start seeing a positive side of a mere situation you will learn and grow. All your scars wont heal until you let go. Best way of not being bothered by certain issues is to simply ignore them when you can while you can. Once you start telling yourself the truth you will grow stronger and be more stable.

There is a lot this life has to offer. Smile a lot and often. Well that doesn’t hurt or does it? Not facing issues will only pile them up for later. Its like doing homework; just finish it off in time so that you don’t need to think of it ever again. The main problem comes when we start ignoring the truth about ourselves. We know it, that’s why it is hard to accept and move ahead. Problems are like weak chains we are held in, once you are confident enough that you are stronger than those chains, just break through. Don’t give your problem the power to control you.

When you feel you are nothing, or that you can’t do something and such random thoughts float through your brain, which by the way was made for much more efficient work than just thinking absolute nonsense which we are prone to these days, just remember we were born alone except though in case of twins and so on which makes it unreasonable. So yeah, we were born alone and we will die alone, a thought which is always buzzing in our ears is somehow true and hard to accept for people like me who believe in ‘carpe diem’ . But yes, when you feel alone this is what you should tell yourself- You are good the way you are and always have been. We don’t need people or particular person to tell us that we are capable of this and that. We know who we are. We only have to believe in ourselves for once and it will be easy. There is a lot that can be written over this, but it all points towards the same thing and that is ”BELIEVE AND BECOME”.

Learn to be alone, positive and yet like it. There’s nothing more freeing and empowering than learning to like your company and moving forth in life with a renewed zeal always.

Firdos Rehman
MGM Medical College

No goal is ever met without a little sweat. Well, in the case of Daniel Cabrera, a Filipino boy from Mandaue City, it wasn’t little but quite a lot of sweat.

Daniel belongs to a poverty-stricken family. He was deprived of all necessities that one should have in life; home, quality education, even his father who died leaving his mother as the sole caretaker of her five children. Fate tested them a lot; their house was burned down and they had to live in the store where Daniel’s mother worked for an inadequate amount of pay. Forced by the cruel hands of poverty, Daniel was often seeing begging in the streets for the obvious purpose of gathering some money.

But then patience is always bitter; but its fruit is sweet. This boy, in spite of all the thorns he faced in his dry life, is oozing with determination and hopefulness. He didn’t give up on all of it, he continued. He didn’t give up when his father died. He didn’t become desperate when his house burned down and even now, he didn’t stop just because fate was testing him. Daniel studied on a sidewalk beside McDonald’s, benefiting from the light the restaurant gave.

And then…social media to the rescue! Daniel was captured studying at the place and his photo was uploaded on Facebook by a medical technology student. People from all around the world responded to the photo and it went viral. This world isn’t totally cruel yet; because of that photo, Daniel and his family received plenty of donations and help from many people. Before the photo, he only had a single pencil after one of his fellow students stole his second pencil from him. That viral photo went much farther than just likes and comments and shares; Daniel was granted a major educational scholarship from the Anti-Crime and Terrorism through Community Involvement & Support party that will be enough to help him through his way to college. Cherry on top; a scholarship from McDonald’s Philippines – a basic educational scholarship that covers his school expenses, supplies and uniform up to grade 12.

Every single person that came to know about his story encouraged his persistence. Kenneth Yang, McDonald’s Philippines president and CEO said: ”As Filipinos, we are proud to meet a boy so determined to succeed in life. It is with an open heart that we grant him a scholarship to help him achieve his goals.” Through the scholarship, Daniel will get a monthly allowance as well. He vowed to study even harder, now that so many people have provided him help.

Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC) has taken this chain of good deeds a step farther. RHMC has started an initiative, Ronald McDonald Read to Learn, which will benefit more than 400 first graders of Daniel’s school; including his younger brother, Gabriel. Daniel’s mother is also grateful to all the people who stepped out to help. ”Our family can’t be more thankful for all the support given to us,” she said, according to the release. “As a mother, my main priority is really for my children to finish their studies.”

A determined today leads to a successful tomorrow. Daniel aims to be a policeman. We all wish him best of luck. Indeed, he has given an inspirational message to the entire world.

Razzan Sehar
Angels International College  

Jacob Lewis, 22 years of age, had quite a hard time with quite a lot of hard work which eventually paid off. Being homeless and extremely poor, Jacob had to go through a lot to turn his dream into reality; to get elite education without any support from his family. He was dropped out of college at the age of 17 and then returned to his studies as a mature student, after he felt the need to when his friends and mates were seen graduating.

“At the start of this year I was working 24 hours a week to support my studies and make ends meet, I was barely eating.”

Jacob, after a fall-out with his family, was left with no roof over his head. Jacob was forced into sleeping on friends’ sofas – but spent every waking hour at the college. He lost his zero-hours contract with a nightclub after he asked to take time off for the sake of giving his exams. But he didn’t give up.

 “I was on a zero-hours contract and my employer wouldn’t let me have time off for an exam,” he recalled. “I had never missed a shift and I wasn’t prepared to jeopardize my A-levels for £6.50 an hour.” “It was a challenge; but not an impossible one.”

He also gave some credit of his success to his college who gave him benefit through its student hardship fund; Coleg y Cymoedd is the largest A level provider in Caerphilly and Rhondda Cynon Taf with over 500 learners receiving results. Jacob said he put an extreme effort to make his results outstanding; he spent 12 hours a day in the library. After seeing his result, this effort was worth it.

Jacob obtained 4A*s in his A levels – in the subjects of history, law, sociology and the Welsh Baccalaureate.  He acquired 100% both in history and overall in law. Jacob is his college’s first student to be placed in the Cambridge University. He stated: “I’m absolutely delighted with my results and I hope this shows Welsh students that with hard work and dedication this can be done and dreams can come true.”

Jacob said he didn’t have any firm career or future plans ready after he finishes his education. But he has a sincere “commitment to try and make the world a better place.”

Furthermore, Jacob’s college’s principal Judith Evans stated that she is too extremely proud of all the success Jacob received. “We are so proud of him and are delighted to have been part of his journey.”

Razzan Sehar
Angels International College

“In a world of universal deceit, simply telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

The above mentioned saying is applicable to our present contemporary world too. We live on a planet where deceptions, lies, betrayal and bitterness are so common that its discouraging to see how many people are shocked by honesty, but not by deceit.Honesty is precious, but rare. Example of such rarity was seen in the city of Jaipur, India where a Muslim rickshaw driver showed marvelous honesty, when he could have easily obtained a huge (but temporary) gain.

Abid Qureshi, a man with a minute income with a wife and a baby girl to feed, found a bag with money inside it worth one lac seventeen  thousand rupees. He could have easily, very very easily taken this amount home, told his wife about it and perhaps would have started a better life which was not possible with the few rupees he received everyday by driving people to their destinations in his ordinary rickshaw. He could have started a life with that one lac seventeen thousand; he could have given his small family better clothes, better food to eat or perhaps a better house to live and a new business to look after. But no. He didn’t do it.

He didn’t bring that amount home, he didn’t look with greedy eyes upon that money that wasn’t his at all, he didn’t think about giving his daughter and wife those clothes, that food, that house, that business which was all triggered by something that wasn’t permitted; neither in his religion, nor in the moral rules that a respectable person should abide by.

So ladies and gentlemen, this man waited 6 hours for the real owner of this money, but to no avail. Even then in those 6 hours, when he could’ve decided to hide that money in his home, he didn’t think about possessing something that clearly wasn’t his and was ‘haraam’ (forbidden).

His wife, Amina, and he decided that honesty is better than sugar-coated crap. They, without any form of greed, handed over the money to the police station.

We still don’t know whether that money would be returned to its respective owner. Maybe somewhere in the way, some person will have his greed overcome his honesty. Maybe somewhere in the way poverty will force a person’s honesty to wane, eventually causing deceit to win. But the thing here is that honest hearts produce honest actions.

The rickshaw driver did his part. He earned respect, appreciation, trust, and surely, his loyalty will be returned. Indeed, no legacy is as rich as honesty.

Razzan Sehar 
Angels International College

An incident of Brooklyn narrates that a man had simply wished “Happy Hanukkah” to a random group of people when this greeting landed him in the hospital at the hands of a gang of Antisemitic goons aboard a packed train. He could’ve even lost his life in the scuffle if it wasn’t for a modest Muslim from Bangladesh, a complete stranger, who came to his rescue.