Poseidon was sitting at his desk working. The administration of all the waters was a huge task. He could have had as many assistants as he wanted, and in fact he did have a large staff, but since he took his job very seriously and went through all the calculations himself anyway, assistants were of little use to him.

One couldn’t say that the work made him happy either; he only did it because it was his to do. Yes, he had often requested happier work, as he put it, but whenever they came back to him with suggestions, it turned out that nothing appealed to him as much as what he was doing. It was actually very difficult to find anything else for him.

It was hardly possible to put him in charge of a particular sea, quite apart from the fact that the calculations involved were no less onerous, just more trivial, since great Poseidon was only ever in line for an executive post. And if he was offered a job in a different department, the very thought of it was enough to turn his stomach, his divine breath became restless, his bronze thorax quaked.

Not that they took his complaints all that seriously: if a great power kicks up, then you have to be seen to give into him, even in the most hopeless cause; no one seriously thought of having Poseidon removed from office, he had been god of the seas from the beginning of time, and would have to remain such.

The thing that most angered him — and this was the principal cause of his unhappiness in his job — was when he got to hear what people thought it involved, that is, forever parting the waves with his trident. And when all the time he was sitting at the bottom of the ocean up to his ears in figures, the occasional visit to Jupiter was really the only break in the monotony; a visit, moreover, from which he usually returned in a towering bad temper.

He hardly ever clapped eyes on the seas, only fleetingly on his hurried way up to Olympus, and he had never sailed them as such. He tended to say he was waiting for the world to end first, because there was bound to be a quiet moment just before the end when he had signed off on his last calculation and would be able to take himself on a little cruise somewhere.

Franz Kafka, Poseidon

The moral of the story: The only thing more insane than the modern office workplace is what we make of it. Too often, it’s our ego that’s keeping us from walking away.

Punti Chiave:

• Il centro storico e Spaccanapoli.
• Il Vesuvio e la vista sul Golfo.
• La pizza napoletana, patrimonio dell’UNESCO.

A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, no, and that he lost them in the park. The policeman asks why he is searching here, and the drunk replies, “this is where the light is”.

David H. Freedman, Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us

The moral of the story: Truth and wisdom are found where you least want to look.

Punti Chiave:

• La Mole Antonelliana e il Museo del Cinema.
• La Sacra Sindone e le chiese barocche.
• Le piazze storiche e i caffè storici.

When the little wave was in a state of panic, another wave came across and asked the little wave, “Why are you distressed, my friend?”
 

The little wave said, “We are all going to crash against the shore and face our end! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn’t it terrible?”
 

The second wave answered with a smile, “No, you don’t understand. You’re not just a wave; you are a part of the ocean.”

Punti Chiave:

• La casa di Giulietta e il famoso balcone.
• L’Arena di Verona, tempio della musica lirica.
• Il Ponte Pietra e le vie medievali.

He then dropped the bill on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked up, now crumpled and dirty $20 bill. “Does anyone still wants the bill?” he asked. Still, the hands went into the air.
 

The speaker said, “Today, we have all learned a valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the bill, you still wanted it because it did not lose its value.”
 

“Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We may feel as if we are worthless, but no matter what happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value.”
 

Moral: Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, we are priceless. The worth of our lives comes not from where we are from or who we know, but from who we are.

Punti Chiave:

• L’Università di Bologna, la più antica d’Europa.
• Le Due Torri, simbolo della città.
• La gastronomia: tortellini, mortadella e ragù alla bolognese.

The farmer picked up the dead rabbit and took it home, frustrating the hell out of the fox. The farmer cooked and ate the rabbit for dinner and sold its fur at the market. The farmer thought to himself, “If I could get a rabbit-like that every day, I’d never have to work again.”
 

The next day, the farmer went right back to the tree and waited for another rabbit to die similarly. He saw a few rabbits, but none of them ran into the tree-like before. Indeed, it was a very rare incident, but the farmer did not realize it. “Oh well,” he thought cheerfully, “There’s always tomorrow.” Since he was just waiting for the rabbit to hit a tree and die, he did not give any attention to his field. Weeds grew in his rice field. Soon, the farmer had to be hungry as he ran out of his rice and never caught any other rabbit too.
 

Moral: Do not wait for good things to come without doing anything. Do not give your life to luck without working for success.

Punti Chiave:

• I Sassi di Matera, abitazioni scavate nella roccia.
• Chiese rupestri e affreschi medievali.
• La storia di una città che da simbolo di povertà è diventata capitale della cultura.

The monk told the man to concentrate only on the green color for a few weeks and avoid other colors. The man was desperate to get rid of the pain and was determined, ready to go to any extent. The wealthy man appointed a group of painters, purchased green paint barrels and directed that every object, his eye was likely to fall to be painted green.
 

After a few weeks, the monk came to visit the man to follow up on the man’s progress. As the monk walked towards the man’s room, the appointed painter poured a bucket of green paint on the monk.  The monk could see that the whole corridor and the room were painted green. As the monk inquired about the reason for painting everything green, the wealthy man said that he was only following the monk’s advice to look at only green.
 

Hearing this, the monk laughed and said, “If only you had purchased a pair of green spectacles worth just a few dollars, You could have saved a large share of your fortune. You cannot paint the world green.”
 

Moral: Let us change our vision, and the world will appear accordingly.

Punti Chiave:

• I cinque borghi pittoreschi: Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola e Riomaggiore.
• Sentieri panoramici tra vigneti e scogliere.
• La cucina locale con il pesto genovese e i frutti di mare freschi.

One fine day the wise man woke up in a good mood and went into the porch to notice buckets of garbage thrown there. The man took a bucket, and cleaned his porch. He carried a bucket and went to knock on his envious neighbor’s door. 
 

The envious neighbor heard a knock at his door and gleefully thought, “I finally got him!”. He answered his door, ready to quarrel with his prosperous neighbor.  However, the wise man gave him a bucket of freshly picked apples, saying, “The one who is rich in something, shares it with others.”

Moral: Respond to negativity with kindness. What you give to the world reflects what you have within you. A wise person chooses generosity over resentment.

Punti Chiave:

• I vigneti delle Langhe e del Monferrato.
• I castelli medievali e le residenze reali.
• La cultura gastronomica con il tartufo d’Alba.

After a couple of minutes, he told them the same joke, and only a few of them smiled.

When he told the same joke for the third time, no one laughed anymore.
 

The wise man smiled and said,” You can’t laugh at the same joke over and over. So why do you cry over the same problem over and over?”

Moral: Don't dwell on past sorrows. Just as you stop laughing at the same joke, learn to stop grieving over the same problem repeatedly. Move forward with a positive mindset.

Punti Chiave:

• Le Dolomiti e i loro panorami spettacolari.
• I laghi alpini come il Lago di Garda e il Lago di Molveno.
• Sport invernali e rifugi di montagna.

After all the students had a cup of coffee in their hands, the professor said: “Did you notice all the nice looking cups are taken, and only the plain inexpensive ones are left behind. While it is normal for everyone to want the best for themselves, but that is the source of problems and stress in your life. “The cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most of the cases, it’s just more expensive and hides what we drink.”, the professor continued.
 

“What  all of you wanted was coffee, not the cup, but all of you consciously went for good-looking expensive cups and then began eyeing on each other’s cups.”
 

“Let’s consider that life is the coffee, and the jobs, houses, cars, things, money and position are the cups. However, the type of cup we have does not define or change the quality of our lives.”
 

Moral: Sometimes, we fail to enjoy the coffee by concentrating only on the cup we have. Being happy doesn’t mean everything’s around you is perfect. It means you’ve decided to see beyond the imperfections and find peace. And the peace lies within you, not in your career, jobs, or the houses you have.

Punti Chiave:

• La magnificenza dell’Etna, il vulcano attivo più alto d’Europa.
• I templi greci di Agrigento e Siracusa.
• La cucina siciliana e i suoi dolci irresistibili.

In a big city with busy streets and rumbling traffic, a man works in an office.  He shuffles papers into stacks, delegates assignments, cradles the phone on his shoulder and punches the keyboard with his fingers. He juggles with numbers, contracts get signed and much to the delight of the man, a profit is made. All his life, he will work. He was formulating the plans and forecasting the future. His annuities will be sentries, and Capital gains will be bridged. An empire will be built.
 

The two builders of the two castles have very much in common. They both shape granules into grandeurs. They both make something beautiful out of nothing. They both are very diligent and determined to build their world. And for both, the tide will rise, and the end will come. Yet, that is where the similarities cease. The little boy sees the end of his castle while the man ignores it. As the dusk approaches and the waves near, the child jumps to his feet and begins to clap as the waves wash away his masterpiece. There is no sorrow. No fear. No regret. He is not surprised; he knew this would happen. He smiles, picks up his tools and takes his father’s hand, and goes home.
 

The man in his sophisticated office is not very wise like the child. As the wave of years collapses on his empire, he is terrified. He hovers over the sandy monument to protect it. He tries to block the waves with the walls he made. He snarls at the incoming tide. “It’s my castle,” he defies. The ocean need not respond. Both know to whom the sand belongs.
 

Go ahead and build your dreams, but build with a child’s heart. When the sun sets, and the tides take – applaud. Salute the process of life and go home with a smile.

Moral: Life is temporary, and so are our achievements. Build your dreams with passion but embrace change with grace. True wisdom lies in understanding that nothing lasts forever and finding joy in the journey rather than fearing the inevitable end.