Friendliness

There is a difference between friendship and friendliness.

Friendship is a relationship between two people.
It is not fully within our control!

Friendliness is an attitude.
We can choose to be friendly at any time.
We can choose to be friendly to anyone.
Friendliness is fully within our control.

Friendliness starts with friendly thoughts.
Friendly thoughts can result in a smile, a sweet hello.
Friendly thoughts can result in a multitude of friendly words.
Friendly thoughts can result in a multitude of friendly actions.

Your friendliness may be greeted with nastiness,
but more often, it will provoke nice responses.
True friendship may follow.

Friendliness is an attitude, a choice.
It leads to peace of mind and happiness.
Let's choose friendliness for today :)

Openness

I was writing a small essay about  How clever! our Creator or the universe must have been to make us all so different, so diverse. And I truly think that diversity is the whole strength of humanity. Just to get a glass of fresh orange on the table, you need people who are interested in farming orange trees, people who are pluckers and people who like to be involved in the transport of oranges from where they grow to our shops, shopkeepers, glassmakers, and so many others.

Luckily not everyone just wants to be a lawyer or an executive. As true as it is for something as simple as a glass of orange, it is true for all other aspects of life too, that diversity is a superb richness. Our Creator was so clever to give us thousands of people with thousands of different opinions, different cultures, different religions, different perceptions, different talents, different interests. Being afraid of pluralism is one of the worst things that can happen to any of us. Let us learn all from each other, let us keep growing. Surely pluralism is not equal to absorbing all things from anyone. It is getting interested in the other person’s perspective, trying to understand them and only internalizing the gems of wisdom that look worth doing so.

I am grateful for the diversity of the people I am allowed to encounter in my job on a daily basis. Let us be open-minded, open-hearted and “open-souled”. 😊

Empathy

Better then any essay, i think, the poem below is a very nice illustration of empathy:

At the time, I was a five-year old boy
A visit to my auntie, always a joy
My cousin was playing with cars at the back
He just had a new one, the body in black
Orange lines on the side, oh boy, what a toy

Only a few minutes later, it is hard to believe
My cousin was called and he had to leave
This left us alone, that beautiful car, and me
The temptation was great, as great as could be,
I could not resist and became a thieve 

Into my pocket, very smoothly it went,
I was delighted, extremely content
When we reached home, I told to my mom
With much pride about what I had done
And that's where contentment would end

My mother, incredibly sweet, incredibly bright
Swallowed her anger but asked in a voice, slightly tight
Please consider for a minute or two
How you would feel if someone did this to you.
Deep in my mind, I considered this plight.

It was easy to see the horrible feeling
I'd caused in my cousin by carelessly stealing
Our next visit, I was allowed to put it silently back
That car, with orange stripes on a body of black
Since then, I ‘ve quit forever the stealing

I don't think that there ever could be
A more brilliant lesson in empathy

Ideals

Short essay on ideals

Ideals and idealism are often seen as something for the young and inexperienced, not rarely labelled as naive. I disagree with this quite a lot. I am 55 and still have my ideals. My ideals have been flexible and surely as we grow up we get insights and experiences that mould our ideals into ideas that tend to be a bit less absolute and more open.

For my young readers, please do not give up on your ideals easily. Be flexible but keep the flame, the passion that lies at the origin of ideals fully alive throughout your life.
For my not so young readers, please think back about your ideals when you were young and I am sure it will not take a big effort to blow again a wonderful soul in them and let them be a guide for what we do on a daily basis.

Ideals and idealism, something to cherish, something keep, something to revive.
Ideals and idealism, nothing naive about it, nothing to shun.

Greatness

When Michelangelo was asked about how he manages to create such great sculptures,

he said that God had put the wonderful sculpture already inside the big pieces of marble.

All he did was hacking away some of the extra marble to expose the superb sculpture.

I heard the above story yesterday and it was compared to our own "greatness"

Our God has put some greatness in each and everyone of us: all we need to do

is to remove some of the misconceptions about ourselves to expose our true nature.

Some religious people  get upset if we call anything in humans great.

But these people are not aware that our God has put a soul in each of us,

Our God has put His love inside our heart, God has put a bit of greatness 

inside our mind, our heart, our soul. 

The problem is that we often cover it with layers of dogma, and daily unhappiness,

by negative thoughts, and greed, by perception of limitation and grudges kept.

It is time to hack away anything prohibiting the love in our heart to be shared,

It is time to hack away anything prohibiting the light in our soul to shine.

Be confident, choose to love, to share, to help, to give service.

The sculpture inside will be exposed and all will enjoy our presence,

including ourselves, everyone around us and .... surely our God as well.

Nature

Today, there was a wonderful sunrise in Bachok.
I spent about 15 minutes outside, this morning.

The effect nature has on us is amazing.
On the days, I manage to make a walk
before I go to work, life seems easier.

Somehow, a walk in the morning energizes us in a special way.
I invite everyone to make an early walk tomorrow morning. :)

Luck

Essay on Luck

When my students were going for exams, I used to wish them good luck.
But if they need good luck, it may mean they have inadequately prepared for the exam.
I have changed my wishes to "success" instead of "good luck"

But still good luck is really a good thing, all of us need at times.
Unexpected good things happening is also called serendipity.

Can we consciously increase our chances to get good luck?
My Chinese friends are busy quite a lot with good luck and have symbols, things they believe are bringers of good luck, put up in a visible place in the house. Each time they see these symbols they are reminded to believe in good luck.

Can we increase our luck by believing in it?
What we can surely do, is to create by such beliefs, a higher state of awareness, increased alertness and we may become much better at noticing opportunities. While believers and non-believers may be presented with equal numbers of opportunities,
the chance that someone who is continuously reminded about good luck by symbols,
who is busy with it and somehow expects, is much more likely to notice the opportunities
that present themselves.


When in the morning, I sincerely pray to see the opportunities in my life to do good,
during the day that follows I manage sometimes to really see such opportunities and act.
I think something similar happens if we put a lot of thoughts of good luck in our minds.

Respect

Essay on respect   (also translated in Dutch: https://ziel4u.blogspot.com/2019/08/respect.html)

We can learn the essence of respect if we study the origin or etymology of it. The word respect comes from Latin and it means literally looking back. Even though the person is behind or below you in many ways, do not ignore her or him. Take the time to look back, to observe who and what is below you.

Respect is often used as an alternative word for admiration. Admiration is more of looking forward and looking upwards, rather than looking back. We can say we respect our leaders, our parents, our teachers. I think here is where respect is quite often a bit misunderstood.

If your parent, your teacher, your leader put themselves below you to lift you up, please do not step on their heads. When they put themselves behind you to help you and push you a bit forward, please do look back, ‘respect' and be grateful for how much love our Creator has planted in their heart. 

“Respect” out of fear, is not true respect. Respect that is demanded or expected is most often not true respect, but rather submission. “Respect” for an arrogant queen is not really respect. Respect comes from the heart and is given to someone who has truly earned our respect. 

As a child we admire our parents, we look up to them, we trust them, we love them. We grow up and we become more vigorous, more alert, more active and more adroit than our parents. If then, we look back at them with a grateful heart, filled with true love and appreciation; that is true respect.

If we look back at the garbage collector and appreciate simply the work he does very much, love him for it with a grateful heart, that too is true respect.

In conclusion, respect is the choice to look back at someone with a sense of awe, a sense of love and gratefulness. Even if you still prefer to use the word respect for the ones you truly look up to, the key is that you ‘respect' out of your free will. True respect cannot be imposed. Kings and Tsars claim to demand respect but in truth demand only submission (not rarely through endless useless protocols).