The other day I told you about some bad things that happened and how they seemed to be balanced by some good things. Only two days later it's happened again. I found out some very good news, and some very bad news. I can't tell you what the good news is; I can only tell you that it's something I've worked hard to achieve for almost 6 years. It was very satisfying news and it made me very happy. But of course it came along with some bad news. I guess it's all about balance.

Yesterday I had a meeting about an incident involving a Hong Kong artist whose privacy was invaded by the press. We are so frustrated because we want to protect ourselves from the kind of press who don't care about personal privacy, but we have to work together with the government to change the laws and it is very difficult. Then I found out that I might have to tear down a small building on my property. The building was a small garage and we made some changes to it so we could use it for filming. Even though we thought we were following the government regulations when we did this, we still might have to either put it back to its original condition or have it demolished and so that means ten staff members will have to be relocated. I spent hours trying to work out where I can put all of my design team; I was making phone calls and trying to figure it all out. It was so depressing and I couldn't get it off my mind. So after spending the day hearing bad news and worrying about so many things, I came home late at night and thought I would relax and go to sleep. But I turned the National Geographic channel on and what I saw made my brain even busier. It was a show about asteroids from space; about how they hit the Earth and the damage they do. The show talked about one asteroid that hit Siberia in 1908 and destroyed everything in an 800 square mile area, even leveling an entire forest. These asteroids pass by us all the time and some of them are big enough to totally destroy the Earth. So I got to thinking about all the things that happen; about how people fight and there are wars and this one hates that one and I realized that all of this could be over - boom! - in a matter of seconds. I wonder why we waste our time fighting and being unhappy. I wondered why I wasted my time worrying about all the bad things that happened today. About the depressing meeting, about finding out that I might have to tear down a building on my property. I was going crazy trying to figure all this out and then I saw the show about the asteroids and decided that I should stop all this worry and just relax and go to sleep. By the time I figured this all out it was nearly 4:00 in the morning, but I went to sleep happy. I knew that I wouldn't worry as much about all these problems in the morning.

Of course, the first thing I thought of when I woke up was the building that might have to be torn down and about relocating my staff. Then I thought about all the work we were doing for the invasion of privacy problem. The asteroid went completely from my mind and I was thinking only of all the troubles that I had.

Still thinking about all my worries and not thinking at all about asteroids, I showered and got dressed. I went into the living room and two happy puppies came running right at me completely covered in mud! There were puppy paw prints all across the floor and as they greeted me, they covered my clean clothes with more mud! What a terrible mess! Jonesie and JJ had been in the garden having some playtime in the dirt. Since the sun was shining I thought it was okay for them to run in the garden, but the only problem was that since it had rained so much the day before, all the dirt had turned to mud. The dogs were digging and running and they ended up covered with sticky brown mud; it was all over their chests and paws! And instead of keeping the mess outside, they came running through the house; now I had big puppy paw prints on the floor, on my clothes, and muddy puppies everywhere. There was only one thing to do - give them a bath. I asked the housekeeper to help me and we took the puppies into the shower and somehow we got them cleaned. By the time we finished, I was wet from my hair down to my shoes. I ended up looking like a mess and the puppies looked lovely.

After I got them all dried off and brushed, I was looking down at them and thinking how pretty they were when Jonesie got up and peed. I ran to get some tissues and as I was bending down to clean that up, JJ started peeing right behind me. So I ran to JJ to try to clean that mess up; I was running back and forth between them trying to give equal time to each mess! And when I finished with that, I turned and saw that Jonesie had left a pile right in the middle of the floor. Then it was JJ's turn and he left a pile. I'm not joking with you, this is really what happened! The puppies always have to use the toilet at just the same time. That means that if they have an accident, it's an accident times two, twice the mess. Maybe I should feed them at different times so they won't need to go at the same time. I think that dealing with two puppies may be worse than dealing with Matthew because at least he wears a diaper.

When I got to the office, my assistant showed me some things that made me think again about the balance of good and bad. Three kids from America sent drawings for the Build-a-School program using a total of US$40 in bills. Then I got two more letters with money from fans in China and in Hong Kong. I was so touched and amazed at how generous my fans are! I think that the good continues to balance with the bad. Bad news about privacy invasion and demolishing buildings balances with good news about something that I've worked very hard to get for years. Bad news about muddy puppies is balanced by more donations for my charities. It all evens out.

Here are some photos I took of the puppies all cleaned up:

(Photo by Jackie Chan)

(Photo by Jackie Chan)

(Photo by Jackie Chan)

Giving puppies a bath is not easy:

(Photo by Jackie Chan)

(Photo by Jackie Chan)

(Photo by Jackie Chan)

Photos ©2006 The JC Group

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