Snapshot of the Day

Yesterday was the closing ceremony of the winter Olympic games in Vancouver. During 17 days athletes from all over the world competed in different events after 4 years of preparation. One thing I like about the Olympic games is precisely that, the efforts, discipline and devotion this athletes have done in order to participate in this event. This year was a particular one that I follow because  this one was host by Canada and because overall Canada had one of the best performance in the historic of Winter Olympic games achieving a new record for a hosting country obtaining gold medalls. But also in this games there were several individual stories behind the athletes which made them really special. For instance Alexandre Bilodeau, obtain the first gold medall for Canada not only in this Olympic games, but as the organize country in its history. During these emotional momments the camera shown his brother who suffer from a disease. Alexandre tell us his old brother had been his inspiration during this years of preparation and dedicated his first place to him and his family. Or take the figure skating Joannie Rochette bronce medallist who decided to continue participating after the suddenly death of her mother a couple of days before her first performance. A difficult decision to make but also a brave and courageous one. Olympias are great athletes and some time the story behind can inspire us even more.

Had you ever come across to one of those aggressive drivers that cut you off, or those who annoyingly is back tailing  you?  Of course you had,  and chances are that you met one of these individuals at least one this week .

However what I am going to talk about in this opportunity is the other type of drivers, the ones that I called “humanly conscious drivers”. They are not easy to spot, but you will meet them once in a while.  Actually I did meet one this morning on the highway, in my way to work.  It was rush hour and I was about to enter the highway where the traffic was completely solid with a long line of car moving slowly and obviously impeding me to merge.

There is nothing much you can do unless you want to play “macho” which I do not recommend.  But, it is really interesting to see how aggressive we become when we drive to the point that we actually do not let another car merge. That’s the norm.

Anyways, the unusual happens. A shinny blue BMW stop and the driver with a kindly gesture was letting me in. I obviously react quickly by merging into the highway right away while returning a gratitude gesture for his action.

The whole situation shifted, I became less stressful, my whole mood change. He made me remind that behind every single wheel there is a human being. His act of kindness certainly was a great gift this morning, which make me ponder for a while and it becomes my snapshot of the day.

Avoid confrontation, be kind and most of all drive carefully.

Today in the gentlemen restroom I couldn’t help to overheard a conversation between the janitor of the building and another person. “Look all this paper on the floor! Some people are just like pigs”, the janitor complained. And that’s just another thing. Do you know that yesterday someone broke the hand soap dispenser?.  Unbelievable, some people just don’t have anything else to do than vandalize; he continued.

The janitor was really pissed off and with a very  good reason, but I could also noticed certain feeling of frustration I guess on dealing with these kind of actions constantly.

Anyway, I thought to my self why not giving him some kindly word of recognition to  cheers up his day.  So in my way out, I told him:
“You know Sr? you are right.  There are some unconsidered people that simply do not care, but there also a lot of people that are grateful of your job.  I am one of them, thank you very much for keeping this place, cleaned and always supplied”. He smiled and thank me back .

[click] Jan. 18, 2010(Mon) 12:33 pm

Today during my early morning jogging I crossed path with another person who was also running in the opposite direction. With a quick good morning we continue our own routine  activity again. Usually when I meet other runners, I greet  them with a hand sign or a quick “hi” or “good morning“; however, it was not always like that.

At the beginning,  I found it a little bit awkward to greet someone you have not seen before. I am not 100% sure but this might be a normal code of conduct that has been socially pre-established because it happened very often to me, so I  started to follow the same code of conduct with others.

In this world were we find ourself busier than ever and where the majority of us are concentrating only on our own world, this simple act of connection can help us to regain conscience  about our human nature and the social aspect of it. A simple act of kindness and consideration might be all we need to re-connect ourself with the world. Have a nice day everyone.

[click] Oct. 10, 2009 (Sabado) 06:37 am