Posted in Simple but true, tagged childhood, compassion, empathy, Family, Greed, hope, kindness, Life, Love, people, reflection, Reflections, thoughts, Unconditional on December 19, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Some time ago a good friend had been gathering clothes
Unconditionally given by people she knows
One boy
No country
No fixed home
No family
She says
please take anything you want
He picks only
one sweater
one t-shirt
She says:
Would you not like one shirt?
I already have three shirts, thank you
Maybe someone else need them
Posted in Thoughts, tagged animals, elephants, Life, philosophy, reflection, Reflections, thoughts on November 7, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Posted in Thoughts, tagged compassion, kindness, Life, Love, nature, philosophy, reflection, Reflections, snails, thoughts on October 4, 2012 | 3 Comments »
I don’t know if picking up
the snail slowly crossing the road
and putting her/him down
in the grass on the other side
was helping?
Maybe I confused the snail?
Posted in Thoughts, Words of music, tagged broken heart, esperanza, hope, Inspiration, kindness, Life, Love, memories, Music, philosophy, poetry, reflection, soul rebel, thoughts, Travel on May 19, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Some times things are not the way they seem
and yet we are sure they are.
As a young man, or not yet a man but a boy,
I sat on the railing of a very high bridge.
my feet dangling
my eyes looking down the gorge.
The place I lived in seemed to be the entire world
and at the moment it was not a happy one.
The war hadn’t even begun for years to come
yet inside me it was already there.
I thought about leaning forward and letting go.
Letting go of the thoughts that haunted me.
Letting go of my reality painfully pounding me.
And also,
letting go of life.
Looking back,
I don’t see why
I just did not take one step.
One step
out of my reality
to see that there is more to things than they seem.
Or that even though they are
the way they seem,
one step away,
one small step away,
another reality,
another adventure
is waiting.
I did not let go,
I just sat there
for hours
staring at the black river
making its way forward.
I left
with no money in my pocket
and a broken heart in my chest
to find goodness
in places and strangers I did not know.
I also found,
war
pain
hunger
sorrow
and things
I wish I did not see,
but
never
will I stop
flowing forward
from reality to reality
For what would life have been worth
had I let go of the railing
not having felt
pure
unselfish kindness
love
friendship
and
tiny moments of inner peace.
“If you are not living good,
I beg you, travel wide.
Said I am a living man
I’ve got work to do…”
Bob Marley – Soul Rebel
Mentally or physically, please step out of your reality and into another.
When you feel you can do nothing for yourself, do something for others.
Please do good.
You might find things weren’t the way they seemed.
Posted in Thoughts, tagged hope, Inspiration, kindness, Life, Love, philosophy, reflection, Reflections, thoughts on April 18, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Imagine if every person on Earth did at least one act of kindness today.
Imagine the kindness explosion and the positive ripple effect it would give!
Perfect love!
Posted in The little positivity, tagged happiness, hope, Illness, Inspiration, Life, lifestyle, Love, mental-health, Music, pain, Peace of mind, people, philosophy, reflection, Reflections, Satisfaction, thoughts on March 11, 2012 | 19 Comments »
Why do you seem so content when you have constant pain?
my friend asked.
I think I have no goal in life but to notice the small pieces of happiness and try to do good.
Maybe happiness is not to be reached.
Maybe it is just there for all to see who are not in a hurry to reach there.
Small pieces of positivity
in the midst of pain or daily life,
small moments of joy
if noticed,
will make me think before I die
I lived a happy life
For me happiness is:
Knowing that a special person knows she has inspired me to do better
Giving a homeless friend a place to sleep, an occasional visit to the cinema or sharing a meal
Hearing my father say to a woman that left me three years ago -I love you my child.
An invite to eat or sleep in an unknown’s home when travelling
A kind smile or look from a passerby
Listening to old people’s stories
Seeing a young person get up for an elderly person to sit down
The smell of rain on dry asphalt
You
To give love
Knowing that I don’t need things I see many others have
Music
Bringing a Thai meal for my 80-year-old grandmother and grandfather to tickle their taste buds in their otherwise bland non-spicy diet
Knowing that one of my friends sends haphazardous text messages with hugs to another troubled friend
Thinking about the bread my grandmother baked
Sitting in the place where my late grandfather and I reasoned for hours
and
knowing that my heart, soul and mind is who I am,
not my body,
nor what I can or can’t do.
Posted in Thoughts, tagged amor, compassion, Culture, empathy, esperanza, hope, Inspiration, kindness, Life, Love, memories, Mexico, reflection, Reflections, thoughts, Travel, Unconditional good on February 27, 2012 | 11 Comments »
In my life I have indeed met some truly good people.
I come to think of it today since
I might have left a truly good woman
giving unconditional love.
Sometimes I feel there is something wrong with the world,
but hen I remember:
If we see good we don’t think that all is good.
When we see one thing or person being bad,
we generalize and many think that all persons or situations similar must be equally bad.
So why should not the opposite also be true?
You see one thing good = more things are good!
If it is, the world is not half as bad as I thought.
There is at least as much good as there is bad.
In fact the people that do good (uncoditionally) are many times not seen,
but they are there, among us everywhere.
Many of them are not older than they can show with their fingers.
I am talking about unconditional good
without any expectation of getting anything back at all:
leaving nice and comforting notes in a book at the library for a mother to be,
so called guerrilla goodness.
Or letting a refugee live in your house until ready to move on.
Or the unselfish goodness that happens when you most need it:
Some 18 years ago (before mobile phones and digital cameras)
I left my home in a hurry. Brokenhearted I spent my last money and flew to the other side of the world.
In the south of Mexico I chopped and cleared jungle for roads to pass,
people gave me food that was left over when restaurants closed,
poor families sharing what little food they had on trains that traveled so slow it took days to get where you were going.
Those were unselfish acts as well as the five Mariachis escorting me from parts of Mexico City in which I would not have lasted long.
Or the veterinarian taking me into his home, treating my typhoid fever for weeks without asking for nothing in return.
But above all
the little Zapotec boy
with torn clothes,
not a half man tall,
that just before nightfall
high up in the Oaxaca mountains
spent all his money
to pay the bus
for a skinny bearded long-haired-giant
a stranger
whom he had never met before
also giving me half his bread to eat
even though I did not understand a word of Chatino.
That is unconditional good
and
I have not forgotten you little hero
Posted in Education, Love, tagged amor, education, Inspiration, kindness, Love, reflection, Reflections, thoughts on November 13, 2011 | 18 Comments »
When I was eight I had an old lady as my teacher. At least I thought she was old. She always had long dresses with flowers on.
Once the whole class was invited to her home. It was a small apartment. She had baked cookies. I liked them and asked for the recipe. I found it some years ago among the few belongings I still have. It said “Teacher Märta´s cookies” in bad handwriting.
An accident had just changed my life and I was feeling quite emotional. I always liked her and felt it was a shame I had never told her so.
I thought she must be dead by now, but recalled where she lived back then. I looked her name up in the digital phone book here in Sweden. She still lived at the same address!
I remembered her with love in my heart and gave her a call. I told her my name, and would you believe it but she remembered me, some 30 years later. She even asked me how my two best friends from then were doing.
She was eighty years old by now. We talked for a long while.
Her remembering me just filled my heart with joy and brought tears to my eyes. She told me I had been one of her favorite pupils. Something I would have never guessed, since I could never keep my mouth shut and never remember to raise my hand in class.
Even my mother was surprised when I said I had called her. She told me that she thought that Märta did not like me.
I think subconsciously that she was the one that planted the seed of becoming a teacher in me.
Just thinking about this still brings tears to my eyes.
Märta Carlsson, I still love you
Posted in Love, The little positivity, Thoughts, tagged amor, Family, Friends, Inspiration, kindness, Life, Love, philosophy, poetry, reflection, Reflections, relationships, thoughts on October 11, 2011 | 17 Comments »
You can never lose love.
Or at least I have never lost it.
It resides within my heart and comes in various forms.
Sometimes it fills it to the brim and from time to time it lingers hidden in the core.
Never is my heart without it for always someone loves me or I someone,
even though at times it is hard at the moment of changing shapes.
9 years is the longest relationship- non-stop-love I have had.
When it changed its shape there was pain and grief,
but never was it lost!
Nine years of love is carried within me forever like the love from my grandfather was with me for 32 years until he died.
Is that love lost?
I think I am still carrying 32 years of continuous love with me until it is time for me to die.
So is it 32 years of love or now 36?
4 years have passed since his death and I still love him even if he is not here.
And who knows if the love my grandmother feels for me will ever be lost?
For its magnitude fills more than our hearts.
It spills over and floods into and joins all LOVE;
Love;
the positive energy that flows like an invisible wind over all man- and womankind.
Unseen by some but available to all who dare to love without expecting anything in return.
Love can´t be lost:
http://bournefield3.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/to-my-mum-with-love-always/
http://kathleenmae.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/hero-of-all-time/#comments
Posted in Education, The little positivity, tagged compassion, education, empathy, esperanza, future, hope, Inspiration, kindness, Life, Love, miracle, reflection, Reflections, thoughts on September 22, 2011 | 11 Comments »
Sometimes something that is a little bit bad can bring out something good.
A couple of 12/13-year-old-boys was teasing a girl at the school I teach. Not saying anything really bad, just teasing her, which is enough to make someone sad.
A few days later I spoke to one little boy and asked him if he knew why I wanted to talk to him. (He had just jumped on the teasing train as the last person, not really knowing what it was about).
His big eyes looked up on me like two huge question marks.
When he heard that a girl was sad and realized he had a part in it,
compassion, empathy and sadness filled the big brown eyes.
A small heart grew greater than his little body and was crying out.
With tears watering his eyes,
small almost silent words formed on his lips as he asked
“How can one make sadness go away when you have hurt someone?”
“We must find the girl so that I can apologize”
Sitting there I understood that I had just witnessed a small miracle. In that boys heart lies our future. And it can be a good one.
