Last week, I had the pleasure of participaing in Bob Clubb’s Desiderata project where he had bloggers comment on passages of the famous poem by Max Ehrman. Here is my contribution to that project:
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
It’s a typical Friday evening at 7:15 p.m. in Tokyo, Japan. A mob of people are waiting at the subway station where a new train comes every 3 minutes. Suddenly a drunken man topples onto the tracks. Two men, Lee Soo-hyun, a 26 year old student from South Korea and Shiro Sekine, a 47 year-old Japanese photographer jump onto the tracks to help.
But there’s no time. All 3 men are killed by the oncoming train.
None of the men had met each other before that day.
Years later, the same subway line in Tokyo. It’s early morning. A woman falls onto those very same tracks right in front of 20 on-lookers. But a South Korean student, Sin Hyon-gwi, remembering the incident years earlier jumps onto the tracks and brings the woman to safety in time.
When asked about what he had done, Sin said, “I think Lee Soo-hyun’s spirit told me to rescue her and protected me.”
The woman had only minor cuts and bruises.
Neither Sin nor the woman knew each other before that day.
Heroes exist everywhere. And they’re not the ones you see on popular TV shows. They’re regular, ordinary people. People like you and me. No super powers. No one quality that predicts heroic behavior. Heroes are born from their actions.
But how often do we look on these kinds of stories as abnormal? How often do we discount stories of heroism as “unusual”?
To quote one of my favorite movies Jerry McGuire, “we live in a cynical world”. And who can blame any of us for being cynical. Turn on the TV. Read a newspaper. You have every reason to be cynical. You have every reason not to trust others.
Or do you?
I believe that the key to personal growth is to have a realistic view of the world. And the truth is that the world is not out to get you as much as some would have you believe. Yes, most people will not go out of their way to do something for you. But sometimes they do. As the story I related to you shows, two people gave their lives to save a drunken man they had never met. Those people are out there.
Many people do strive for high ideals. They strive to be good. And that requires giving people a chance to be good.
Our inner cynic tells us not to trust others. What exactly do you gain in life by not trusting others? How many times can you honestly say you were taken advantage of completely and totally, getting nothing in return?
It happens to all of us. We get ripped off. We get swindled. We get our hearts broken.
But what about the times we put our faith in people and they came through? How about all the times we looked to another person for support and they were there? How often do we forget that? How often have we let cynicism blind us to that truth?
As I have written before, I have gotten most out of my life by simply asking other people for help. And 9 times out of 10, they come through.
I have found this phenomenon exists in both my personal and professional life.
Do not let cynicism blind you to the virtue that is out there. I started this post with stories of heroism for one reason. It was to illustrate that heroism truly does exist all over world. Most of the stories you’ve never head. But they are there. Heroes are within us all waiting for the chance to come out.
Today, go out there and look at the people next to you. Look left and then look right. Any one of those people is capable of heroism.
Then look into a mirror. You are too. You are just by striving to be one. Sometimes that’s all it takes.
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Posted: October 15th, 2007
Categories:
Inspiration
Tags:
desiderata,
heroes,
heroism,
overcoming_cynicism
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Today, I am taking a “break” from this blog to celebrate my daughter’s fourth birthday.
Yep, the big F-O-U-R.
So, I am not going to be able to give you one of my usual posts. Instead, I want to ask each and every one of you to celebrate yourselves today. Do something, anything, that will put a smile on your face. Listen to your favorite song. Play a game. Whatever.
What did I do? I went out today and sang loudly (pretty loud, actually) on the street. That’s not the proper thing to do in South Korea (or anywhere that I can think of really), but I just couldn’t help myself. I was filled with life, and I just had to express it in song. I chose to sing Rob Thomas’ “Little Wonders”. The words just seem to hit home to me today.
As for birthdays, a birthday is a day when we should be celebrating our existence. My daughter certainly is. Kids are happy to be alive. They are carefree. But as adults, we tend to not care so much about our birthdays. We think we are just “getting old”. We can’t do much about getting older, but we can control how we get older. Shall we fight against the inevitable or celebrate the passage of time?
But birthday or no birthday, our existence is worth a celebration. Do something today to make you happy. And after you do it, please let me know (hey, I told you what I did). I’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment below.
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OK. I’ve gotten two kinds of reactions from the words “Possess Less”. Some people think I’m trying to get them to join some kind of cult (not true…by the way), while others see it as simply a way of frugal living. The truth is it’s more than that. In this podcast, I tell you exactly what “possessing less” means to me, and how my concept of possessing less just might be the way to happiness you are looking for.
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How Possessing Less Leads to Happiness [5:16m]:
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Picture this:
A coffee shop playing soft cool jazz. A whiff if cigarette fills the air. Men in black turtlenecks. Bohemian artists holding their spiral notebooks. They’re all waiting. Waiting to take their turn at the mike.
One by one they go up, effusing snappy poetic rhymes…some about love…some raging against the current political and social reality…and some just chilling out.
Amidst this scene, a man walks wearing a 3-piece suit, and looks like he is riding high on the corporate ladder. People don’t know him there. But in the corporate world, he is a high-riding VP of an insurance corporation. And before that, he was a big shot lawyer. And that’s EXACTLY what he looks like: a corporate executive.
The people are snickering, especially when he tells them his poem is entitled, “the Snow Man”. Now they’re humming Frosty the Snow Man with an undercurrent of hostility.
He steps up to the mike, and says…
(more…)
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In our quest for a more fulfilling existence, we sometimes start to lose hope. At times, we feel down, hopeless, and discontented. And in times like these, we should look for hope and inspiration wherever we can find it.
So, for the first time on this blog, I am featuring someone else’s writing. It is my honor this week to bring you two inspirational poems from poet and musician Prince Rahman’s latest collection of poetry, Paths of Pondering (re-printed with his permission). I hope they give you a lift where you had none before.
The Gift
By Prince Rahman
Learn
Grow
Breathe deep the gathering fire
You are transformed
More your own true voice
Than you have ever known
Doubts
Like sacrificial lambs
Burst into light
Contradicting their inherent cry to hide
Learn
Grow
You are a gift
Unto the world
A gift much needed
Have you…?
By Prince Rahman
Have you smiled today?
Have you tickled yourself
And grinned a moment away?
Have you gazed at the sky
And sighed
Because its grandeur
Takes your breath away?
Have you thanked yourself
For choosing to live with intention?
Have you thanked yourself
For all the wonderfulness in you?
More in you than there are enough days to mention
Let us thank you
For being who you are
For being how you be
We thank you
So…
Have you smiled today?
Have you?
About the Author
Prince Rahman is a poet, musician, and leadership coach whose mission is to facilitate your ability to become the change you wish to see in your life, and therefore in the world. For more information on how to purchase Paths of Pondering, and its accompanying CD, you can go his site here.
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Posted: July 20th, 2007
Categories:
Inspiration
Tags:
Inspiration,
poetry,
prince_rahman
Comments:
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