Changing the World

These days when we are all experiencing the effects of the Covid 19 Pandemic, I have heard people claiming that they would like to do something to help but wondering what to do since- they say- it is impossible that one person can have any effect in the current flow of events. Just when I was thinking about it, I bumped into this text from The Daily Om which I believe provide some help.

"Each of us is more than capable of helping the world, despite our fears and limitations and the uncertainty that holds us back.  . If we vow to make the world a better place one day at a time, the true significance of small good deeds reveals itself to us.  

We make our homes, workplaces, communities, and countries better and brighter when we think positive thoughts that echo outward, give donations of time or money, smile at everyone we meet, and lend those in need of aid our assistance.  

Even enthusiastically sharing ideas with others generates positive energy that then serves as the motivation for more tangible change. 

 

Helping the world often takes no more than a moment, just a wish for the world is a beautiful gesture and can be done by even the busiest of people effortlessly. The gift you give each day need not be grand or attention-worthy because the broader benefits are the same no matter the literal repercussions. Once a day, you can affect reality, and you can reap the rewards of knowing that you are making the world a better place, day by day."

The need for change

We have all had the experience of realizing that something in our lives is not working. This knowledge can come as a sudden realization or a nagging feeling of doubt that grows stronger, waking us up to the fact that something needs to change.

The first step is remembering that your life is made up of parts that belong to an interconnected whole. Changing one thing can change everything. Because of this, small changes often have a big effect. Sometimes much bigger changes are necessary, but the only way to know for sure is to take the time to really understand the problem. 

Examine your life as an entirety--your work- especially at these times of health crisis, your relationships, where you live--and determine what specifically is not functioning the way you would like.

The key to making changes that work is to accept the necessity of change as part of life. As we change, we may find it necessary to fine-tune our relationships, work, and living situations. Our lives are living, breathing entities that reflect our dynamic selves.

(Extracted from The Daily Om)

Un mes de la partida de mamá

Hoy hace un mes que mamá partió. Extraño abrazar diariamente su frágil cuerpecito y besarla y decirle cuánto la quiero. Ella ya no podía hablar ni me reconocía como su hija pero creo que sentía mi cariño y lo aceptaba. Y también prodigaba cariño y mucho, eso es algo que nunca perdió, era su esencia. Abrazaba y besaba a sus muñecas y peluches como si fueran bebés. Les hablaba, les daba de comer y los acunaba con ternura. Tenía un instinto maternal inmenso, mi casa siempre estuvo visitada por niños en las diferentes etapas de nuestra vida y siempre trataba de tenerlos contentos y bien cuidados.

Yo antes creía que era papá el jefe de la familia y que mamá hacía lo que él decía como se acostumbraba en esa época, pero el haber pasado tanto tiempo acompañándolos en su vejez me hizo dar cuenta que si bien liderar era trabajo de papá, la guerrera era mamá. Fue la mejor compañera para papá quién generalmente veía las cosas con un tinte pesimista y tomaba su tiempo para tomar decisiones.

Mamá apoyaba la economía familiar haciendo ropa de los retazos de tela que le daban a papá en la fábrica textil dónde trabajó hasta jubilarse y no solamente cosía para nosotros sus hijos sino también dejaba algunas prendas en concesión donde sus caseras del mercado. Cuando ya no había telas, preparaba mermeladas para nuestro consumo y también para vender entre las vecinas.

Siempre ayudaba economizando los gastos, enseñándonos a ser útiles y considerados con los demás, sin importar las condiciones en las que vivíamos cuando niños, no siempre de bonanza económica. No recuerdo que hayamos tenido celebración de cumpleaños cuando niños, pero siempre tuvimos libros que teníamos que pasarnos por turno porque no nos compraban un libro a cada uno sino uno para los tres hermanos, así que teníamos que leerlos rápido para pasarlo al siguiente apenas hubiéramos terminado. Y nunca pasamos hambre, siempre hubo comida para todos y para el que llegara a la casa gracias a su capacidad para distribuir el dinero que papá le daba… y eso que ella consideraba que no era buena con las cuentas por no haber terminado la primaria.

Sé que está en un mejor lugar, de la mano de papá, disfrutando del amor que siempre los unió. Él le dedicó la canción “You light up my life”= Tú iluminas mi vida, como muestra de su cariño hacia ella, ambos iluminan la mía.

Thank you all !!!

Muchas gracias querida familia y amigos por sus consoladoras palabras. Aún no tengo el coraje para organizar mi vida sin mamá después de todos estos años así que estoy parapetada entre mi oficina y mi habitación y trato de no pasar por la de ella hasta mañana en que tendré compañía y podré hacerlo sin flaquear.

Mientras trabajo en mi oficina siento que en cualquier momento puedo pararme e ir a su habitación y darle un beso, jugar con su muñeca, verla sonreír, sentir su cariño, saberla bien para luego regresar a mi oficina a seguir trabajando. Imagino que esto nos pasa a todos los que experimentamos la pérdida de un ser amado: creamos vínculos y hábitos alrededor de los que amamos y cuando ya no los tenemos con nosotros, nos cuesta dejarlos.

Si bien yo fuí la engreída de papá y él era mi héroe, el haber tenido a mamá conmigo todos estos años, verla deteriorarse (lentamente por fortuna) y volverse tan vulnerable y frágil hizo que todas mis decisiones de vida giraran en torno a ella por lo que ahora me cuesta no tener esta responsabilidad ni la recompensa de saberla bien... aunque sé que está bien.

Tiempo al tiempo, ayuda mucho sentir el afecto de la familia y los amigos, gracias por eso.

mamá

Gracias familia y amigos por sus palabras, recuerdos y testimonios de la vida de mamá. Me alegra saber que disfrutaron de sus consejos y su cariño en tantas diferentes formas. 

Gracias a mis hermanos y cuñadas por hacer posible rodearla de amor y cuidados hasta sus últimos momento. Gracias Li por ser otra hija más, Javier, Evitsa, Alexis, Oscar por su constante apoyo. 

Gracias a mis tíos, primos, amigos del colegio, de la universidad, del trabajo, de vida porque de una u otra forma crearon una red de apoyo para permitirme estar con ella la mayor parte del tiempo sin descuidar mis otras responsabilidades. 

Yo creí que después que murió papá yo acomodé mi vida alrededor de la de ella pero en verdad, fue ella quien acomodó la mía. El Alzheimer se llevó a mi mamá fuerte, activa, a la que le gustaban las muñecas, los peluches,coser y las plantas; a la que no le gustaba ver televisión pero sí leer y copiar poemas, pero no se llevó su esencia. Su amor maternal, su sonrisa, siempre estuvo ahí, hasta el último día. 

Ella y papá nos enseñaron a tener siempre un lugar en la casa para el que llegara cansado y una palabra amable para el abatido. 

No siento dolor porque murió en mis brazos así como papá murió en los suyos, quién no querría descansar rodeado de aquellos que lo aman. A pesar que su fragilidad y condición hacían presagiar un final inminente, siento que se fue muy pronto y me quedó todavía mucho amor para darle porque fue mucho lo que me amó. Ahora está con papá, su "vida" como se llamaban entre ellos y la sé feliz. Gracias a todos, los quiero.

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

Chinese New Year - Year Of The Rat

BY MADISYN TAYLOR The Year of the Rat is sure to offer the type of enjoyable challenges that will enable us to become all we can possibly be. Chinese New Year this time around is the Year of the Rat, which brings with it the promise of prosperity. The Chinese admire the rat for its quick mind and ability to gather valuables and save them for the future. Since 2020 is the Year of the Rat, the year ahead should offer many opportunities to acquire wealth, as well as the ability to make choices that enable us to provide comfort for a long time to come. This is especially true for those born in the year of the rat. Since the rat sign is the first in the Chinese zodiac calendar, we may feel the energy of a cycle beginning. We may also feel a pioneering spirit that helps us to forge ahead with a completely new endeavor. Looking beyond Western culture's distaste for rats, we may be able to appreciate their intelligence, resourcefulness and adaptability. This quality might offer us hope that whatever challenges we may face will only serve to make us stronger and more able. The rat's ability to solve problems is well-known, so we can choose to enjoy any challenge that helps us keep our minds sharp while also making life more of a game. A competitive nature may develop within us, leading us to use the rat's ability to focus on priorities. The rat can also remind us to be less worried about pleasing everyone we meet and more focused on our goals. We should be aware of the rat's habit for collecting and not allow ourselves to become so focused that we neglect those around us. Being constantly on the alert for opportunity can be stressful, so we can make the decision to balance our pursuit of prosperity with the enjoyment of good food and atmosphere and the people we trust to offer us both support and space. With the energy of challenge and possibility, the year is likely to be exciting without being explosive. The Year of the Rat is sure to offer the type of enjoyable challenges that will enable us to become all we can possibly be.

Happy New Year !!!

  

I read this a long time ago and could not write down the name of the author because of the state of the paper where it had been written so if anyone bumps into it (original is in Spanish, this is my attempted translation), please let me know so as to give him/her due credit. 

New Year´s Proposal

As I get older my perception of things has changed and I have reached the conclusion that there are no bad years. Some are years of deep learning and others are like a constant break, but they are not bad years. 

I strongly believe that the way to assess the past year has to do with how much we loved, we forgave, we laughed, we learnt new things; how much we challenged our ego and our attachments. And that is why we shouldn´t be afraid of suffering or failure because they are both learning episodes.

We need to understand that life and how we live it is up to us; how we hook to things we don´t like depends solely on how we raise our willpower. If we do not like the life we live, we should develop the necessary strategies to change it, that is in our willpower. “To be happy is a decision”, let´s not forget it.

According to this, what we need to do to build a better 2020 is basically three things:

To learn to love, To transcend and To be happy.

These are the three things we should work on everyday, How? I believe there are three factors that can help us achieve them:

1)      To learn to love responsibility as an opportunity to grow up. A job-whether paid or not- dignifies the soul and the spirit and is good for our mental health. Let´s stop thinking that getting tired is something negative. On the contrary, it is a privilege because it means that we are giving the best of us. We have come to this world to get tired…we will have centuries to sleep when we are dead.

2)      To value freedom as a way of defeating myself and understand that to be free is not to do what I want. Perhaps next year we should exert our freedom doing what we have to do with pleasure and say that we are happily tired so as to be able to love more and better.

3)      The third and last issue to consider next year is to develop willpower, that wonderful skill of being capable of waiting, postponing immediate gratification in order to obtain something better. In my opinion, this is the greatest thing to cultivate all along the 21^st century.

So, it is due to these factors that we should focus on:

·         Sitting at the table with all the members of the family, at least once a week, preferably every day.

·         Turning off the screens (TV, laptops, mobile phones, etc.) while we are eating; let´s not answer the phone and feel that the only sound to be heard is that of our voices.

·         Treating each other well, with love; love our country, treat it well-as family. Greet the people you meet in the elevators, the security people, the bus drivers, smile…at least once or several times a day.

·         Making your house a home with the smell of food, scruffy-and even stained- cushions, some untidiness that shows that people live there. Our houses- no matter how much money you have-are becoming a place so perfect that seems that nobody can live inside.

·         Having contact with nature, play, laugh, have the time to share with the grandparents, print the photos so they can see them as they prefer them, enjoy their wisdom and make our children share time with them so they can understand their history.

·         Trying to grow up spiritually. Transcendence and giving meaning to our actions is connected to the new century intelligence: spiritual intelligence.

·         Reduce the use of technology for the sake of face-to-face conversation, playing old games, family reunions, meeting with friends… at home. Value intimacy, warmth and love among the members of our family.

If we manage to do this or at least commit to try, we are aiming at happiness; this does not mean a life without problems but the understanding that happiness is linked to the attitude we have to face our share.

Next year will come with what it has (challenges, wonders, the good, the bad and the ugly), let´s welcome it with love and gratitude for what we will learn from it.

               “Sufrimos demasiado por lo poco que nos falta, y gozamos poco de lo mucho que tenemos” (Shakespeare).