A small trick

 What was your best experience in the last 24 hours?

 

Trying to find the answer to this, you will have to think and at least partially relive in your mind, all your good experiences of the last 24 hours and then choose which one was really the best one. 

 

Reliving our good experiences, even if it is only in our imagination, is bringing with it the good feelings that were experienced once more. Automatically you will enjoy the good things again. You are enjoying in 24h, all the good things that happened to you not once but twice. 

Automatically it will lead to more gratefulness in your life. 

 

Just do it. Think about what was best. Enjoy all the candidate-events again.

Become grateful 

A small rhyme on this same topic :)    

What was your best experience in the last 24 hours?

A nice word from a friend or just seeing some flowers?

Try to find the answer to a question like this

and you 'll live twice through every moment of bliss

Every moment of beauty, every word so kind

that appeared in your life will reappear in your mind

Each lovely moment, and creative success too.

You will relive each joy that happened to you

You will scan all good things from the day that is gone

and choose carefully which was the very best one.

 

Gratefulness will well up in your heart and soul

and that may be still the best feeling of all.

 

 

Prayers

Many people nowadays doubt the value of prayers.

And they are right in a way. So many prayers go unanswered.

Unheard, unanswered prayers have caused many to stop praying.

 

I feel we cannot blame it all on the prayers;

but rather on the way we pray, on the way we were taught to pray.

As children we were asked to memorize the prayers taught at school.

Then we followed the ways of our adult examples:

just recite what was memorized without any thought

without any reflection, and quite often really fast. 

The more prayers we can say, the better,

sometimes repeating the same prayers up to fifty or more times in one session.

This type of prayer is pushing many rational thinking minds away from religion.

This type of prayer is however not completely useless as some want to believe.

Just making time for God and even reciting learned prayers without thinking about the meaning

is still a valuable experience to many and if it is done in group it has a binding effect among the ones participating in the group prayer.

 

But prayer can be so much more.

 

I invite you, even if you have given up on praying, even if you have given up on faith,

to take ten minutes of your time and say a prayer, not only with your lips, fast within your mind,

but say the prayer you learned as a child, in an extremely slow way, giving a lot of thought about the meaning of each word, each phrase you say. If we would teach our children to pray like that, the chances that they enjoy prayers would be soooo much bigger. 

Taking some time to feel the creative intelligence of the universe,

that intelligent force which is truly what we call God. 

That intelligent force that makes a tree in your garden grow against gravity,

brings all what's in an apple from deep under the ground to some place high in the crown,

lets it ripen before it is finally obeying the law of gravity and falls on the ground. 

Atheists call it the laws of nature, the forces of nature, but where do the forces come from?

So well balanced that a tree full of apples, once a seed, now bears fruit high in the sky, every year. 

 

If all of nature was the result of a limited number of forces, laws of nature, it makes it only more amazing. Laws of nature are not laws; they are mere regularities that are discovered that happen in a certain recognizable pattern. Gravity is one of these, an undeniable force, but so well balanced with other forces that the fruits go up a tree stem, that the evaporated water floats up to form clouds, giving life-essential water to all that lives. 

If we start our prayer praising this life giving intelligence present everywhere in the universe, we stand in awe. Our prayer is no longer mindless recitation, but some beautiful thoughts about the world around us and its Creator boil up from deep within our heart. We can intuit the intelligence. Prayer becomes an excitement, something enthralling, something that makes us feel good from within and something we can feel from without. 

Please go on and say the prayer you learned when you were small,

thinking, reflecting, using the fullest of your imagination 

and you will discover something really valuable...

 

 

 

 

 

The key

"Imagine a man, born with a heart full of kindness 

but it is hidden under a mountain of greed.

 

He has something within 

of more worth 

than all gold on earth, 

but he is not rich" 

 

                               Aufie Zophy

 

Today, I envision a world, where all of us are aware that kindness is the key, the golden key to happiness. I envision a world where each and every person will value his own innate happiness so much and generate more of it through kindness. Whenever we move away from that kind way that flows out of an inexhaustible stream coming out of our heart, there will be one word we tell ourselves, that can jolt us back to that road where the stream of kindness flows. That one word will be used by all of the humans on earth and if we hear it from a friend it will move our heart and we will let kindness flow. If we meet a friend who got a bit lost, a bit away from the stream of kindness, we can just utter the word and move him back to creative kindness, that will bring both you and your friend back to that innate happiness generated by kindness...

                Let us choose a word right now and start to use it within our inner circle of friends first. Let the word be WEMA, Swahili for kindness.

                If tomorrow you feel like anger is rising, or you feel like you are not kind enough, simply say to yourself "Wema", say it aloud and allow it to be a clue to become a bit kinder. If your friend is a bit angry, just say "Wema". The friend may ask what you just said and you can share its meaning and encourage him to tell you just "Wema", if he or she feels you need to be a bit kinder.

                Can this work? Sure it can. Let us start and multiply kindness now. Let us start to use the use code word, and make WEMA or KINDNESS the norm rather than something exceptional in this wonderful world. :) 😀

I love the word WEMA, it has "we" that stands for togetherness and it has "ma" a word for mother used all over the world, our mom, the supreme symbol of loving kindness.

We for togetherness
Ma for motherly love
Wema for ever flowing kindness

If you feel a bit angry
Let WEMA enter your thoughts
and instantly become a bit kinder

If a friend is a bit nasty

tell him just the word WEMA 

and explain what it means

Ask your friends to just say WEMA
if they think a bit of kindness
is what you need

Wema, that little word
full of power
meaning kindness in Swahili.

Let us use it forever
every day, forever.

                                                 Aufie Zophy

Kind

 There are times we want to be only kind

They tend to come at unexpected moments

Small things that suddenly touched our hearts 

and make us the kindest person in the world 

 

Do you remember moments like this? 

They tend to be the best moments of our life, aren't they? 

 

I just now saw a video containing a few wonderful stories of kindness.

I want you to see the video too: 

here is the link: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXkJ9eNpWNw 

I hope you enjoy the video as much as I did.
I hope you come back to this blog after seeing the video

and read some more messages on kindness and some other good things :)

 

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links to my other blogs/sites:

Really good poetry https://aufiezophypoems.blogspot.com/

some beautiful inspirational quotes:  https://quotesfromhans.blogspot.com/ 

a fantastic short story: https://afishwithawish.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-fish-with-wish-whole-story.html

or look at some beautiful skies: https://hansvro.wixsite.com/mysite-1/skies-seen-by-hans 

or beautiful flowers: https://hansvro.wixsite.com/flowersbyhans

or simply some essays about good things: https://abcofvirtues.blogspot.com/

Life is not easy, but beautiful

If we begin 

to discover and appreciate

the hidden bliss 

and good feeling

in personal growth

 

If we start 

to become aware

of the beauty

that is around us all time

 

Our life 

assumes colours

that are unusually awesome 

In each of our lives, there are so many challenges, so many difficult moments. It are these moments that ensure we keep growing, not physically but growth in personality, psychologically, emotionally, in character, spiritually, ....

Once we appreciate that hidden inside this growth, there is a sea of bliss and good feelings, the challenges affect us slightly differently and we may make some time to notice all beauty around us. 

 

 

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links to my other blogs/sites:

Really good poetry https://aufiezophypoems.blogspot.com/

some beautiful inspirational quotes:  https://quotesfromhans.blogspot.com/ 

a fantastic short story: https://afishwithawish.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-fish-with-wish-whole-story.html

or look at some beautiful skies: https://hansvro.wixsite.com/mysite-1/skies-seen-by-hans 

or beautiful flowers: https://hansvro.wixsite.com/flowersbyhans

or simply some essays about good things: https://abcofvirtues.blogspot.com/

Give and take

 All my life 

I have learned 

to give and take

Whenever I took

It made me happy 

for a few moments

Whenever I gave

it brought Happiness 

that seemed to be never ending.

 

 

Benevolence

 

  A homeless man admitted to the hospital asked me where he could get a deck of playing cards. I answered him that he could try the convenience store within the hospital compound. Somehow I knew the likelihood of the convenience store selling playing cards was quite low and even if they would sell them there, there was no way the man had money to buy them. When later, I drove home, I thought about my day in the car and became aware that I had been not nice. I think it was guilt that made me search and find a deck of playing cards and go back to the hospital and give it to the man. 

 

Actually this was such important event in my life. On my way home after giving the cards to him, I felt like being afloat. I felt so good inside. The smile on his face was priceless.This is the reward of benevolence, a happiness of supreme quality, top notch happiness, grade 1 happiness,...

 

I was aware of the feeling that simple act of kindness, of benevolence was really giving to me. I loved it and I could not remember a time when I felt so good about something. I took some time to think deeper about it. Society around me thought happiness is to be found in going out to cafes with friends. Society felt that happiness was generated by getting material things and showing them off. Society felt....

Society has been wrong! Some comfort and good feeling may be found in all the above but supreme, grade1, top notch happiness is found in kind acts. I am now fully aware, the more simple extra things I do just in service of others, the more I get true happiness. And the quality of my life is supreme on days I manage to several random kind acts. On days when my soul seems weaker and I have mainly ego driven achievements, I feel some pride but it is so different from the true happiness that lies in benevolence.

 

 Benevolence is the desire to do good to others. That desire resides in its highest form in the wisest of people.

 

Teaching

I have been a teacher and a doctor for many years in my life. I have been formally teaching medical students, trying to deliver knowledge to them in the most interesting and most logical and understandable way, stressing why certain bits of knowledge are absolutely essential to keep in our brain and not in our smartphones.

I have made PowerPoint presentations. As a teacher you know whether the delivery of your lecture is effective or not because when it is effective, the audience, our students are quiet. They sit and look at you. They sit and look at your slides. And that is quite a rewarding part of teaching. I have had colleagues who were teaching and they became very irritated with the students because there was a constant background noise of students talking with each other in a slow voice. One of these colleagues burst out in a bout of anger demanding absolute silence. It worked for a short while. He got absolute silence for a few minutes but then the noise started again. The cause of the noise was not the students. The cause of the noise was a lack of preparation of the lecture by the teacher. He did not captivate the attention of his students. He was knowledgeable, he was good in his field but he did not apply basic principles to give a lecture that makes your audience silent.

It is not extremely difficult to give a good PowerPoint presentation. Two ingredients only. One, read a good book on how to create and give a good PowerPoint presentation. Two, empathy. Empathy? Yes empathy. Imagine yourself being part of the audience listening to you with the background knowledge of the person in the audience. What would you need to stay focused on what is said? What would jolt your attention back to the speaker and slides when you had been distracted by something else? If we think like this while making our slides, while preparing how we will deliver it, while doing the actual talk, we will be reasonably good orators, keeping the attention, avoiding the background noise of people talking to each other instead of listening to the talk.

But teaching is so much more than sharing knowledge. PowerPoint presentations are NOT the best way of teaching. I have created a few pages on interactive teaching with links below.

interactive teaching - intro 

interactively teaching knowledge

teaching-skills-we-may-get-it-wrong.

peer teaching and ownership

interactive sessions-to-teach-skills

Connection

 I think it is all important to get connected

When we talk about connection, chances are that the first thing we think about is internet connection in order to ensure our online meetings run smoothly or we can browse the internet. However...

Connection to our inner peace,
Connection to the beauty of nature
Connection to our conscience
Connection to the love that sits in our heart
Connection to our creative talents

These above type of connections may be so much more important to our level of happiness, to our level of functioning and satisfaction we get out of life.

Keep connected. Through the internet, yes, but do not forget to connect to peace, beauty, love and our Creator...(or if you do not believe in a Creator, we can get at least connected to the creative forces within the universe)

Small Opportunities

When in the morning, I pray

for seeing the opportunities to do good

and be courageous enough to act on them

I tend to notice during the day so many occasions

on which I can make a tiny positive difference

in the life of another man or woman

 

And each time I manage to act on these moments

I get a feeling of being a little bit afloat. 

My soul lifts my heart and my mind feels like singing.

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small prayers for a big world: https://smallprayersforabigworld.blogspot.com/

Really good poetry https://aufiezophypoems.blogspot.com/

some beautiful inspirational quotes:  https://quotesfromhans.blogspot.com/ 

a fantastic short story: https://afishwithawish.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-fish-with-wish-whole-story.html

or look at some beautiful skies: https://hansvro.wixsite.com/mysite-1/skies-seen-by-hans 

or beautiful flowers: https://hansvro.wixsite.com/flowersbyhans

or simply some essays about good things: https://abcofvirtues.blogspot.com/

New and old

If we want to start anew, we have to be ready to give up the old.

Revenge is truly useless

All the problems and challenges of the past are mere lessons

to be a better person today. No point getting stuck in the past.

People may have wronged you.

Just forgive them, even if they do not ask for it.

 

Why should we?

Because grudges, hatred and anger is like fire sitting inside

It burns our inner peace of mind, our inner soul life

and destroys our own happiness. The subject of our hatred

of our grudges, of our anger may be barely aware of our negative feelings.

Revenge is like giving the behavior of the other one full approval.
He or she does this to me, I will just blindly follow the bad behavior 

and behave in the same way to them. That is being a follower of evil.
Let us all be leaders of the good. No matter how others behave, 

we choose the good. We choose friendliness no matter what. 

The past is gone, we cannot change it.

It has affected who and where we are today.

The future is ours to come.

What we do and think and feel today

will determine who and where we will be tomorrow.

Hope

Our worries, our fears tend to consume all of our awareness

In past millennia that was a good thing. since our fears meant danger

If we focused on these things we would have a better chance of survival.

Our world has changed. We worry and fear for other things.

No longer life determining fears or worries, but simple things

And these simple things are still naturally dominating our consciousness.

Life has evolved. We do no longer need to pay 100% of our attention to fear.

We have a choice now, to become aware of the positives in our lives

We have a chance to become aware of the peace that surrounds us at almost all time.

I have gone through a difficult two weeks.

I fully understand how all consuming our problems can be

But it is always worth to try to make some time for beauty

Some time for love, some time to be fully aware of peace. 

We can make it silent, make a small walk in nature 

we can get ideas, and hope

Hope is a strong positive

We are not sure but we hope

We hope we pray, we get a bit of relief.

We can make time for beauty, love, creativity, peace

Let us hope and pray if we are a bit down. 

Let us be fully aware of peace and beauty when we are bit up

I wish you a day filled with bliss

Filled with beauty, peace and love

filled with creativity.

Like a butterfly

A small poem is to the mind

like a butterfly to the eye

like bird's song to the ear

like a favorite cookie to the tongue

 

A small poem is like a whiff of fresh air

rejuvenating a tired heart

like a long lost friend showing up

or like a dream of amazing beauty

A small poem, 

let us read a few of them right now

Here is a link to some of my favorite poems:

Aufie Zophy 

 

 

 

Can we all get on that path?

That path,

That path of kindness, caring and helping.

That path of beauty, peace and flowing friendliness

That path of doing the extra thing just to make one happy

That path of endless joy and happiness

Can we all get on that path?

Are you seeking?

Seeking joy and happiness

Seeking truth and harmony

Seeking to be free and be loved

Please consider to get on that path.

Let us get all on the path of kindness.

Is it difficult to get on the path?

All we need to do is think some kind thoughts

Look for the good in another

Talk and act friendly

Perform a random kind act

It is easy to get on the path.

Come and get on that path.

The difficult part is to stay on the path.

We have so many distractors

We deal with unfriendly people.

Not easy to remain kind all the time

But it is OK to get off the path on and off.

Just come back as soon as you can

To that path of kindness...

That path of joy and happiness.

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Really good poetry https://aufiezophypoems.blogspot.com/

some beautiful inspirational quotes:  https://quotesfromhans.blogspot.com/ 

a fantastic short story: https://afishwithawish.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-fish-with-wish-whole-story.html

or look at some beautiful skies: https://hansvro.wixsite.com/mysite-1/skies-seen-by-hans 

or beautiful flowers: https://hansvro.wixsite.com/flowersbyhans

or simply some essays about good things: https://abcofvirtues.blogspot.com/

A JOY forever

    This afternoon, I got a call from a friend who was a teacher for the disabled. She had dedicated her life to help classes and classes of disabled children to reach their best potential and to live a life of purpose using whatever talent they got. I admire persons like this for what they do. 

Today she called me about her friend. Her friend had delivered a baby in the hospital where I work and was after three days still in the ward because of a problem with her heart. She got a bit depressed about having to spend so long in the ward and also today the docs in charge of her, thought it was not yet safe to let her go home. 

The teacher with her wonderful heart agreed to pay for her friend, so she could get a comfortable room instead of the open ward. I helped a bit to arrange the private service that is available in a wing in our hospital. The teacher went to settle the payments by 6pm and at 8.45 pm I read her message that her friend was still not transferred to the private wing. She had allowed herself to become very upset with the nurses from the public ward for waiting for the next shift to send her friend to the private wing. 

I read a series of her messages on my phone really expressing her disappointment with the nurses who lacked the empathy to arrange a transfer of a depressed mother to a much more comfortable room that was already paid for. I agreed somehow that the nurses were not displaying a high level of empathy with new mom, who experienced feelings of depression. 

    I think we have to be patient a bit. 

Many of us, including the teacher from the (real) story above, have found the humongous joy that lies in caring for others, in helping people, in going the extra mile and doing something a bit out of the ordinary to uplift some of our friends, family or even strangers. At this moment in time, it looks like many other people have not yet discovered this unlimited source of humongous joy.

Let us not become angry with those who are still searching for that source. Let us try to inspire them. Hiding all the good things we do under the pretext of selflessness, humility or modesty will slow down the process of spreading the knowledge of what is the source of the most humongous joy. Let us not cling to unnecessary shyness about the good we do. The news is already full of bad things. Let us spread the good things in our life. This is not boasting, this is not pride; let us make it a point to inspire at least a few others tomorrow. If it was successful, we can repeat it every month or even every week or every day. Imagine how the knowledge will snowball. and how our world will soon be filled with loving kindness, people helping each other and making the extra effort to relieve suffering and increase joy. A humongous JOY 

 

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I started to build "the kindness revolution" website. I will add in poems, essays and RAK. 

Can visit the site via this link:  https://the-kindness-revolution.webnode.com/

 

A small story of empathy...

The last day of the week, just before ending my work in the hospital I dropped by at the special care nursery, the ward for babies who need hospitalization but not (or no longer) intensive care. There is a facility for mothers to room in with the babies, meaning there is a bed for the mom and a cot for the baby, so they can stay together. 

There was one mother and the medical officer in charge had told her, as had been planned before, that the baby would be discharged after the weekend. The mother asked to be discharged earlier. As the specialist in charge, I was able to convince her to stay until after the weekend. However as we walked away from the place where mothers are rooming in, a thought came to my mind so vividly: the thought about the time when I was warded myself and how much I had wanted to go home. I discussed for awhile with my medical officer and we both agreed that it would be reasonably safe to discharge the baby the next day, even though it was a weekend. We had just stopped one important medication and felt both that one more night of close observation would be enough. We agreed to assess the baby tomorrow and if OK, to let them go home.

We called the mom in our counseling room for the discharge counseling. Upon hearing that we would most likely allow discharge on the next day (pending a favorable assessment of the baby's condition) instead of after the weekend, the the mom was so happy that tears rolled over her cheeks. The whole session, in which we gave our usual advice on how to take care at home of a baby who had been very sick at birth, was so filled with happiness and smiles that it was such a big pleasure. 

 

The mom was super-happy. The medical officer and I were as happy as the mom. We had just considered for a while in an empathetic way, the feelings of the mom and had made a short reassessment of the baby's condition. It had allowed us to change our decision and this had generated so much happiness. What a wonderful way to start our weekend! 

 

I am so grateful that the thought of my own hospitalization came to mind at just the right time. I think that is conscience. My conscience, the conscience of the world, the conscience of the universe sending us thoughts, feelings, nudges. Many times we ignore these thoughts, but if we are brave enough to take them serious and are willing to act on them, it can have such a big positive effect on our life and also on that of others. 

Truly Alive

A quote: 

"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures" by Thornton Wilder

I read the above quote in a chicken soup for the soul book on random acts of kindness. It is filled with heart warming stories of strangers doing just a simple small random kind act and making a huge difference for the person that was on the receiving end. 

I feel there is so much wisdom in the quote. 

Tonight I went outside for awhile to see the moon reflecting in the water of the sea. I was on the beach and a few Casuarina trees were giving extra shadows and frames to the extreme beauty of the moon and its giant reflection in the sea. My heart was conscious of a superb treasure and I felt like becoming truly alive. 

I thought for awhile and became so grateful to the universe for the gift of eyesight. 

I thought for awhile longer and a sense of gratitude for so many other things flooded my heart and mind. It is when we are conscious of so many treasures that our soul comes to the surface and makes us feel like we are truly, truly alive. 

 

Best growth

 My dear readers,

The other day I read somewhere that one of the most important, if not THE most important ingredient of living a life of purpose that is filled with job satisfaction, feeling good and peace of mind is to ensure our continued growth. And it is not physical growth. At my age physical growth can only happen in the width (getting fatter) and that is certainly not what we talk about here :) 😆😅.

Somehow to keep growing, we have to keep an open mind. Today I learned an important lesson, I want to share here with you. One old friend who was many years my junior, an ex student at the university I work for, has really advanced in life to a very important position. His social media messages get lots of attention and while many of them are truly humorous giving us a good laugh, some are didactic and others are opinion based. It was on some of the opinion based messages, that I had exchanged differences in opinion in private with him. He indicated before already, that he did not want to debate about these opinions with me. I should perhaps have respected that. Today however, I gave him a bit of honest feedback on one of his recent messages, particularly harsh on a very junior person that had inadvertently reached the news of Malaysia, after being barred from an exam in her university for a controversial reason. 

The response I received: unfriended from Facebook. Up to now I had rejoiced to see this friend of mine go up to a high position in the capital of our country. I was quite sure that he would keep rising to great heights. Now with quite some sadness in my heart, I became aware that he is facing some major obstacles to continued growth. It are not the "friends" who always agree with what you say that help you grow. It is the ones who express their different opinions, who dare to give some criticism now and then, who ensure our continued growth. I am most grateful for friends who do on and off disagree, who do give critical feed back. In the moment it may hurt, but in the long run, I do know that these are my best and most valuable friends.They help me grow.

The internet is supposed to help the world grow towards unity. But if we use it in an immature way; if we block out all information that is a bit disturbing to us; if we avoid reading different opinions; if we just want to bask in glory and get hundreds of likes, for whatever we say or do, we are on a dangerous path of limited or reverse growth. It may taste nice for awhile but it tends not to last. I pray for that friend in the above true story, that sooner rather than later he comes to his senses and keeps a truly open mind. 

A truly open mind means NOT to absorb all information that comes our way, but to read and be open for all information, using a very good filter. Filtering out the toxic food for our mind (the nonsense), but letting in what is valuable and keeping in a separate room things that we cannot accept right now but might make sense if look from a different point of view. 

I wish you, my dear readers a life filled with continued growth, not in belly fat, but in terms of spiritual, emotional, personality, character growth. It involves a basic humility and courage: we need to dare to doubt and avoid to be to easily certain about things that appear right on first sight. It was Voltaire who said: doubt is not comfortable but certainty is madness. Voltaire said it in a specific context but I think we can apply this to many areas of our life.

 

Nice and warm

My heart felt nice and warm

My soul was lightly afloat

My brain wanted me to feel like stupid,

but i didn't let it.  

A woman sitting on the floor

trying to sell kerupuk

my heart told me she was happy

my soul kept seeing her smile

My brain told me: she cheated you.

I didn't care

The woman had 50 ringgit

I had peace of mind

I had love in my soul

I had 50 ringgit less

She may have cheated me

But I did not care

I talked back to my mind

Please dear mind,

Intelligence is kindness

nothing more, nothing less

It is your task to help me be intelligent

Thanks dear heart, Thanks dear soul

And thanks my mind, for giving in so easily

and accepting that your greatest gift, intelligence

is kindness, the highest form of intelligence.

 

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A small explanation: outside of the bank, there are always some people begging. In the past, i felt that that was a bit opportunistic. Today, it was quite late, not many people around. The lady sitting outside of the bank was selling kerupuk (fish crackers). Somehow my heart took pity on her and i gave her RM 50. Immediately after that, my mind was not happy about it, but in my heart I was convinced that I did the right thing :)