We are the world

Just step outside, look at the sky, the trees, take a deep breath.
Where is our thirst for knowledge? If you have an ounce of appreciation for the humanity as a whole, you must appreciate all the nuances from which it comes. We are the world. we are one. Why can't we be friends?

Come closer

If you can handle:
Dark humor
Off topic comments
Staring at animals 
Noticing bugs along the way
Getting wet from the rain
Listening to crazy family tales
Appreciate pebbles as much as diamonds
Coloring kids' menus with broken crayons
Choosing always the bendy straw
Taking pictures of clouds
Reading kids cheesy poetry
Eating dessert first
Receiving random nonsensical texts
Gazing at bonfires
Then come closer, pull out a chair 
Pull it way out of the way
And sit here in the grass next to me
I've got a feeling 
We are gonna be friends!

Full of it!

Thinking about the question of your cup being half full, or being half empty, I remember my younger self sitting in a science class where the professor argued that the cup is always full, either with air or any other content you put in it. 

This came back to me as I watched a video for a class I'm taking where we were discussing Happiness. 

The glass is indeed always full. In a sense of good energy vs. bad energy, the contents of the cup will be exactly what you put in. 

When you saturate your cup with good energy, happiness, anything positive, less space will be left to accommodate the undesirable stuff. 

Your cup will be always full. Now, it is up to you to take control of what goes in it. 

What do you allow in your cup?

Pearls

One of the great perks of being in a relationship is that we can have deep conversations at 8 am, on the way to work. 

Better yet it's when you've been together for 25+ years and still learning together. 

This morning Alex presented me with a great analogy and explanation about pearls. Then I added my 2 cents and this is what we came up with in the end. 

A pearl is the product of love and sacrifice of an oyster. 

Every pearl starts as a grain of sand. By entering the shell, it causes friction and pain to the oyster.  

I don't know about you, but I still have the tendency to push away anything that hurts or rubs me in the wrong way. Now here comes a simple mollusk to show me a different way to deal with adversities. 

For the oyster, it would probably be very easy to just stay there, hold the shells open for a bit and let the water circulates, washing away the grain of sand. Or it could even push the intrusion away.

However, we see acceptance. Despite its own pain, the oyster encapsulates it with its own essence and keep adding layer after layer of love, until the grain of sand becomes something beautiful, a shiny and unique pearl that can be presented as its own labor of love. 

Yup, some mornings are very productive! Another "One in a Roll" for Alex.   

Obituary

Today I watched a fascinating Ted Talk with Lux Narayan describing his findings after studying obituaries for 20 months. He compared the most used words in obituaries of famous and non-famous people. 

I was happily surprised by the fact that one of the most used words is HELP. 

We will be remembered by what we do, more than by who we are, or what we have. 

Amazingly enough, we crawl thru our lives giving such a great importance to what we gather and what we conquer, while knowing that our main goal is the things we do, especially for others, and how we make our surroundings, be our house or our planet, a better place. 

We mostly forget that we are writing our own obituary, one day at a time. Each action deposits your journey in a line. Your obituary is not something done after you pass to the next plan. It's something done now, done by you, each and every day. 

What are you writing in our obituary today?

Pipocando

Uma das tantas e tantas esquisitices que eu tenho e' ver uma mensagem ou licao nas coisas mais triviais, em situacoes mais inesperadas. 

Quando era adolescente usava-se  muito a expressao "viajando na maionese" quando eu dava voz ao turbilhao de idieas que chegavam sem pedir licenca, e devo admitir que ouvia isso com certa frequencia.  As vezes uma simples palavra era o bastante para criar uma avalanche de ideias, ate se atropelando umas as outras. Adolescente nao sou mais, porem as "esquisitices" sao bem mais constantes no meu dia-a-dia. 

Hoje, a  palavra que me puxou pela tangente foi PIPOCANDO, e isso me trouxe a comparar a nossa vida com pipocas. 

Na vida vamos juntando ingredientes e misturando-os. Depois  comeca a ser aplicado as provacoes, os fogos, os burilamentos. E assim comecamos a pipocar ideias e metas. 

Poucas no comeco, e graditivamente vao se intensificando. Os graos que nao receberem um calor suficiente ou que deixamos de lado acabam nao estourando, e nao satisfazem seu potencial maximo. 

Mas a maioria, depois de muito trabalho e muito calor, passam por uma modificacao onde seu interior se expande e seu potencial aflora. 

Assim, teremos um dia uma tijela cheia pra ser apresentada e degustada na hora derradeira que a vida passa pelos nossos olhos, como num filme de producao divina. 

Sejamos Marias Sororocas nessa vida. 

Kiss me, but I'm not Irish!

UPDATE: Turns out I am Irish afterall.  

I'm not celebrating Saint Patrick's Day anymore. 

Not that I ever had the cultural bond to really celebrate this day, to begin with. Not being Irish, my celebrations tended to be centered on the green color, the occasional booze and, of course, pinching anyone not wearing green on March 17th. 

So, few days before the "holiday", I looked into what it really means. To the Irish, to the Celtic culture and the freedom/repression of religion. 

Now, it doesn't sit well with me to celebrate Saint Patrick driving snakes out of Ireland, especially when it really means driving the snakes (pagans - in their eyes) out of Ireland as a Catholic way to keep control over the Irish people, who still, up to this day, fighting Civil battles in name of religion rights. 

I wonder if Saint Patrick regret his actions.