Empathy

You can get along with anybody as long as you able to put yourself in his shoes and walk in them for a while.

Everybody has a reason to act, talk, and express emotions in a certain way because there is something behind, something that created a pattern in human behavior.  Each person carries the burden of his past, carefully registered in special parts of the brain and unfortunately in so many cases the past invades the present making the people to judge their current situations applying the conclusions long outdated.

It is really painful to see people who find themselves trapped in past, stumbling over the same mistakes again and again, without trying to learn a lesson and move forward.  So often the former sorrows and unhappiness affect the present state of being that people blindly and unconsciously cease to leave in the moment and to approach everything comes in their life as a totally new experience. As a result the people attract more bitter situations, they are prone to fight against anything because the whole outside world seems to be for them a big enemy. 

These people are not to be blamed because the past can really be a course and it requires a lot of courage and inner power to overcome the fears, resentments, doubts which poisoned the soul and the mind during the years.

Each person has its own struggles; nobody is perfect that’s why all we need is little empathy. Just to stop and try to understand the other person’s actions and then ask ourselves how would we react in a similar situation having the same background as his?  Suddenly things become more clear and the accusations irrelevant…

Showing understanding is so simple and human; usually all we need is just a person who would listen and empathize.

“Hatred is never ended by hatred but by love.” Buddha

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
– Mark Twain

(sarcastic but true)

I was here!

Imagine that today is your last day in this world. Could you say that you really were here?

Gandhi – “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it”…because nobody else will.

Actually…I can

“A room of one’s own” Virginia Woolf

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” 

This famous quote from the essay called “A room of one’s own” by V. Woolf emphases the main idea the author is approaching in her work. 

In this essay, Woolf attempts to analyze the women’s status in literature during the history…or rather the lack of their presence, particularly, as writers (with few exceptions) until 19th century. The author goes deep in her research and explain the condition of a woman in a society mainly dominated by men. Woolf points out that in a situation when the female was seen just as wife and mother, inferior to the other sex ; when she didn’t have any education, privacy, right to own property or vote; when she was calling witch or morally depraved for wanting to study, write or act – it was just impossible for her to become a poet or a novelist…being the subject of people’s mockery, she simply would not survive. ” Most women have no character at all”;” Cats do not go to heaven though they have souls of a sort and women cannot write the plays of Shakespeare, even they write something” – that’s the cruel reality for a very long period of time.  

” Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.
Whatever may be their use in civilised societies, mirrors are essential to all violent and heroic action. That is why Napoleon and Mussolini both insist so emphatically upon the inferiority of women, for if they were not inferior, they would cease to enlarge. That serves to explain in part the necessity that women so often are to men.”

The result of this situation was that the history, the literature, the painting and music, the politics and discoveries were entirely dominated by men. Women appear as muses, as characters seen through the eyes of men…they seem to live somehow in a shadow, without opinion, dreams or right to express themselves.

Woolf concludes that a woman needs to be financial independent and to have privacy in order to be able to write, otherwise it’s almost impossible to do that:

“Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but for the beginning of time. Women have had less intellectual freedom then sons of Athenian slaves. Women, then, have not had a dog’s chance of writing poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and room of one’s own.”

At the end of her essay, Woolf describes the opportunities of her time, when women got much more possibilities, rights and independence to be creative, to pour their souls on the paper writing fiction or poetry…but, unfortunately just few of them took that chance and when they did that they usually tried to write in a man’s style. Woolf comments this fact by saying:

“I find myself saying briefly and prosaically that it is much more important to be oneself than anything else. Do not dream of influencing other people, I would say, if I knew how to make is sound exalted. Think of things in themselves.”

One more idea that derives from the essay and should be mentioned is that V. Woolf, doesn’t agree with the male’s domination in literature but she also deprecates the women writers whose works lay on blames toward the other sex.

“It is fatal to be a man or a woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or a man-womanly. Some collaboration has to take place in the mind between the woman and man before the act of creation can be accomplished. Some marriage of opposites has to be consummated. The whole of the mind must lie wide open if we are to get the sense that the writer is communicating his experience with perfect fulness. There must be freedom and there must be peace.”

A wonderful essay about women, fiction and men between them. It definitely represents a masterpiece meant to rise awareness about woman’s position in society, namely in literature laying an initial theoretical basement for the future current of feminism.

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dream, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours…In proportion as he simplifies life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them…
Henry David Thoreau

Believe….

It all starts with yourself…you are the master of your own life!

Give a little LOVE

Love keeps the Universe alive…we are creatures made of love, meant to love and become love.

“The monk who sold his Ferrari” Robin S. Sharma

This book is simply a map of a real and fulfilled  life, which would guide everyone willing to follow its signs. Reading this story, for me was totally mind-blowing and inspiring…it opened wider my eyes and filled my soul with so much joy and happiness, it reinforced the knowledge I already knew from other books, one of them would be “The Secret” for instance, but with a much stronger impact and force. Reading Sharma’s book is literally like experiencing a “satori” which is Japanese equivalent of sudden revelation.

Basically it is a story about a very rich and successful lawyer, whose life changed entirely after he has suffered a heart attack. The illness which seemed almost to kill him, actually became the starting point for a totally new life – a real one. He decided to sell everything he had and to go in a spiritual journey in India. Meeting a monk and then spending a period in his community called Sivana, transforms him  from a rich, arrogant, tired, sick, old-looking man into an entirely new person who was full of energy and kindness, with sparkling eyes, with a young face and body and most important with a soul craving to share with everyone the joy, the light, the way to a real life.

On the other hand, this book is also a great lesson about the most important aspects of our journey as “spiritual beings with a human experience”. It teaches us to be the masters of mind, since the quality of our thoughts influences the whole life because “the outside world is just the reflection of inside world; people have the power to choose how to respond at everything comes along this pilgrimage on earth;  there is no such thing as universal reality, everybody perceive his own reality based on experiences; there are no mistakes but just lessons, there are no bad experiences but just chances to grow as a spiritual person on the way to self-control.” Being master of your own mind means to be able to see positive aspects in everything, to detect and block negative thoughts, to create the life you want starting to imagine and believe in  it at first. Nothing is random, but has a meaning.

“The purpose of life is to have a life with purpose” that’s the second lesson that R. Sharma speaks about in his book. He points out the importance to have a goal, as a premise to go forward in life. The most important thing is that this goal should be in accordance with what you really like and passionate about; it also should be in written form with a clear imagine of the final result and a dead-line. The other very important aspect refers to the fact that every goal must somehow make better yourself, those around you, the world…the impact is essential. You don’t come on earth just to live for yourself and to accumulate material riches. Search for your mission, it is definitely much profounder and concerns serving others.

“Get out of your comfort zone and do things that scare you, the Universe support those who are brave”. There is so much truth in this statement, since the human beings must constantly enhance themselves, evolve and overcome the fears that block their energy and potential. People create their own limits, sometimes so narrow that it even becomes hard to breath…and it is pity because the Universe holds an infinite amount of resources.  Dream, read, meditate, excel, become better every single day. Don’t ever stop to learn something new. Prioritize, control your life; train your mind, your soul and body. Failures are just steps to a greater life, they allow you to become better.

“An abundance of willpower and discipline represent the main attributes of those with a strong character and amazing lives.”  Be persistent, believe like a fool in your dreams, give maximum and little more, be consistent in your actions, rise stronger after a fall, gradually take actions. – “Little victories lead to bigger ones.”

“Value your time because once you master the time you master your life.”  Prioritize, simplify, learn to say “No” to unimportant things, realize that time is limited so just live the day like the last day of your life. Don’t hesitate to experience something new, don’t postpone your dreams, enjoy every moment!

“The quality of your life resides in the quality of your contribution in this world.”  Make a change, a good impact; liberate yourself from ego’s constraints – compassion and everyday gestures of kindness are the true reaches of life. Give and you will receive much more than you ever expected.

“Live now!  The happiness is the journey not the destination” – this moment is the most important moment, just enjoy it. Slow down, look around, observe to beauty of nature, of people…discover the mystery, smile, play with your kids, appreciate and be grateful for everything because all you have is only the present.

Wonderful and life-changing book.

Inspiration…