The most beautiful place in the world

 When I was a student, I had a spot, I called the most beautiful place in the world.
I went jogging there and invariably stopped at that particular spot to take a breath
and to reflect for a while.

Almost invariably, while I was just sitting there, admiring the big statuesque red beech trees (the name of the street was "Rode Beuken Dreef", or red beech lane), my mind wandered and beautiful thoughts, sometimes insights, sometimes just lovely feelings appeared. These moments I  spent in the Rode Beuken Dreef, the most beautiful spot on earth, were always refreshing beyond expectation and when I got back, I felt completely renewed.

Now I live in Malaysia. There are no beech trees in the place where I live. But I have another most beautiful place in the world, near the beach of the South China Sea. I love the place and I have very similar experiences as I got at the time I was a student in the Rode Beuken Dreef. Whenever I feel stressed or need a boost, I go to that one spot, just sit there and let the magic of nature enter my being.

I think there are many wonderful spots in the world, and I sincerely think that all of us should find a spot that we just label as the most beautiful spot in the world. The place should be not too far from where you live, but it should have the potential to refresh your being and render us quiet in the beauty of nature.

 

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You may enjoy also:
beautiful skies: https://hansvro.wixsite.com/mysite-1/skies-seen-by-hans
beautiful flowers: https://hansvro.wixsite.com/flowersbyhans
beautiful poems: https://aufiezophypoems.blogspot.com/
essays about good things: https://abcofvirtues.blogspot.com/

Words

Words are so powerful
They can affect others in ways we can often not imagine
Once spoken they are out there in the wind

I wrote a small poem about it:

A word of anger,

Burning like fire

Making a hole in my fragile heart

Bleeding.

A word of love

Sweet and fragrant

Healing whatever ache there was

Smiling.

😃Let us make at least 5 people smile today😃

It is not difficult

I think more than 90% of the people have experienced the extreme joy that lies in performing simple random kind acts and I think that almost all of these 90% of the people in the world have thoroughly enjoyed that joy.
The most logical thing to do, would be to get more and more of that joy, through more and more kindness and love
But we are so inundated, flooded, overwhelmed by the media with strong messages that happiness lies in being rich and famous and in purchasing all things shown in the endless ads. We are shown the comfort of private jets, of super expensive cars  of a life in luxury. And surely these things bring comfort.
But the biggest joy, the truest happiness still lies in kindness, service, helpfulness.
 
I think 90% of the people who know the joy of service and kindness, still are deceived by the media. While the comfort we find in material wealth is pleasant and worthy of obtaining, it tends to become problematic if that is our priority. Because upon achieving one level of wealth we do enjoy the comfort but do not experience true joy, true happiness and then are led to believe that our wealth is not enough.
Let us all shift our perception a bit, our paradigm. Let the media go on with their deception, but we do not want to allow ourselves to be the victims of such deception. Let us all get clear what comfort means and how it is different from true joy and true happiness. Let us experience every day at least a few moments of the true joy and happiness that lie in kindness and service. Let us put our priorities right.
Some simple ideas that could add a bit of meaning to our day:
Give a call to you mom
Help you neighbor with something or just smile at him
Give way to that driver who is in a big hurry
Read an inspirational quote
Take a picture of the sky
Find a nice tree
....
Please add some more in the comments.
I look forward to many simple ideas adding meaning to our day

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If you like to read short stories with some sparks of inspiration,

you will not want to miss "A Fish with a Wish"

A link to this fantastic short story:

https://afishwithawish.blogspot.com/

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You may enjoy also:

Beautiful inspirational quotes: https://quotesfromhans.blogspot.com/

Peace

 

A huge field of lavender. We replace one flower by a bubble filled with peace. And then one more flower replaced with peace. And then another and we go on replacing flower per flower with peace. We end up in a field of peace. 

We wake up from that beautiful dream and find ourselves in an amazing field of peace. We don't have to search for peace, we do not have to pray for it, we are right in the middle of it. We become grateful and the colors of that field of peace change to soft pastel of extreme beauty.

A train of thoughts flashes by. The negativity within the thoughts is like tornado, breaking all the colorful bubbles of peace. We end up in a barren field of broken lavender flowers of poked peace bubbles and go on and live a hectic day. 

But each of us can stop the crazy tornadoes of negativity. We do not have to listen to all negativity in the news. We do not have to allow us to be swept away by negative emotions. We are in control. We can block the tornadoes, we can chose simple positive thoughts, live a life filled with love and enjoy the huge field of peace throughout the day.

In our heart

Taking 10 minutes to have a short reflection while in a very quiet place

Let us do this together:

Imagine in our heart there is a river:

instead of with water, it is filled with love

the love flowing out of our hearts.

As water from a river, it never stops flowing.

It just keeps flowing with a strong, strong current

engulfing every person we meet. 

Kindness, love, allowing it just to flow out.

Enjoying the peace of mind it brings...

 

Good and allmighty?

I keep reading that there are so many bad things happening in the world that a good and almighty God cannot exist. If there would be a good AND almighty God, all these bad things would not happen.

Do you agree with that? I don't. It is not my purpose here to convince anyone of my opinion, but this post is more of an invitation to think a bit deeper about it.

What is "good"?
A healthy life, a long life, a harmonious marriage, safety, and so on and on.

We all have our own definitions of what is good and what is bad and there are many common things that almost all people consider as good and others that almost all people consider as bad.

Death is one of the famous bad ones.
Can you imagine what it would be to live forever?
Would the world run out of place?
Would there be still children?
If we go beyond the superficial, is it really a bad thing that we do NOT live forever?

Let us take a look at the famous good ones:
Endless health and vigour for everyone. Endless wealth and vacations
Are the kings and sultans in this world really the happiest people?
Do we really want to live in a perfect world?
I want yo to read one of my first reflections, I posted in this blog, about perfection.
You can reach it by going through the archives (April 2014) or by clicking
on: https://reflectionsbyhans.blogspot.com/2014/04/reflection-3.html

I do think there is an intelligent creative force in the universe,
Try tomorrow when you wake up, to take a few moments to experience the peace, given to you by that creative force, the universe, maybe while taking a look at the colours of the sunrise.
Try tomorrow before going to work, to go outside and thoroughly observe the beauty of one tree, a big tree, and then the miraculous potential lying in a small tree.
Try tomorrow to feel the love that sits forever in your heart and give it away to the first few strangers you meet. The more you give, the more your heart gets refilled with love.
Try tomorrow to make it silent within for a while and let the creativity flow: write a few melodious words, draw a small figure, or sing a song.

If we do think a bit deeper, if we do try to get in tune with that Intelligent Creative Power, if we do accept that it is impossible to understand everything that happens (a simple explanation for this can be found in some melodious verses by clicking here); embracing the idea of an all-powerful and good God, becomes one of the very logical things to do.

A straight road.

True happiness is hidden in a thick curtain of smoke.
The media and all the adds we see want to make us believe
that happiness lies in things; in getting drunk; in smoking;
that happiness lies in controlling others; in getting power,
and as such, they create a lot of smoke on the highway to happiness,
causing many of us getting stuck on the sideways, on the premature exits.

The highway to happiness is kindness.
Simple kind acts, simple loving deeds alight the happiness from within.
Living a life of love and beauty of kindness and creativity lights up flames inside.
It lightens our mood; gives us peace of mind, peace of heart, peace of soul

The highway to happiness: Let us stay on the highway,
no matter how much smoke unscrupulous industries blow over the road
with deceiving advertisements

The highway to happiness:
A straight road filled with kindness

 

 

Overtaking a rival

I want to be the best father in the world
I want to be the best husband in the world
I want to be the best doctor in the world
I want to be the happiest human in the world.

These are or were some of my real desires.
Have you ever had any similar feelings?

In one way, they are good motivators for us to move to higher levels,
to keep growing in personality, in character, in heart and mind.
Just making time for reflection and asking ourselves:
would the best father in the world do similar things as I do now?
would the best husband behave in a way I behave now?
would the best professional perform in a way I perform now?
can be really stimulating, motivational and inspirational.

In another way, if we take these desires to the letter and set it as our goal
to become number one in the world, in the nation or even in our smaller region,
we tend to end up in a race. If you are a sportsman or a car racer, that is all right.
It may be less right if we want to be elected best father, for example. We may start to focus on all criteria put forward by the institution or body that is busy with the awarding of such an honour but we put ourselves at risk of ignoring our baseline duties that the individuality of our own children demand.

The more complex our activity tends to be, the riskier it gets for a person, team or institution to get solely or predominantly focused on a race to become number one in the field. The more complex the activity, the more difficult it is for bodies, ranking individuals or institutions, to be assessing really the quality and to be fair to all players.

Secondary schools tend to be ranked on how many full-A-students they produce. Universities are ranked on a variety of international ranking scales that serve mainly the designers of the ranking system. Ranking hospitals on hard outcomes, like mortality may contribute to severe restriction and limitations of the care that the sickest, at highest risk of mortality can receive.

While overtaking a rival may give us a good feeling, it is not always the best aim to put forward. With one eye on the competition or on the race, we are left only with one eye on the daily tasks at hand. It may be much more suitable for individuals, teams or institutions to focus on their special strengths and get to a certain level of motivation and inspiration based on job satisfaction and personal growth, rather than based on the prospect of overtaking a rival in rankings that may not match the values, principles and strengths of the person, team or the institution.