Happy by Choice

Today I crossed roads with a tall, thin, smiley man on the street, on my way back home.

The man smiled at me as I looked at him, and said;

- “Hi, how are you?”

- “I am OK..I guess..”, I replied while a flash of my day up until then came to mind; I had totally hated the day, it started bad with some domestic problems, which then increased and irritated me beyond words. Nevertheless, that didn’t take away my manners so I asked;

- “..and yourself?”

- “Good, good, I have had nothing but green lights on my way, and it was a long hot hot day, but it was good, so I am happy” he replied, as we shared the walkway. I said;

- “well that’s good, and all those green traffic lights must be a good sign”, he smiled and mentioned again how hot and long the day seemed and thinking about me in my office, I didn’t really take a break so didn’t notice if it was sunny or not, if it was hot or not, so I asked;

- “what do you do?” and he raised an arm and showed me a shoeshine box he was carrying, it was painted in white and with black letters it said “Happy By Choice”

- “Oh, that’s a nice name”, I said

- “I choose to be Happy” he added as he smiled.

Our little casual conversation continued as we crossed the street and then in the corner we parted ways, not before he said;

- “you should come around and bring me some shoes when you can”, to which I replied:

- “sure, where are you located at?”

- “555 Ocean, at the Big US Bank and Fedex” he said, it was actually right behind us, I said:

- “I know where it is, I’ll see you around then, have a good night”, he said:

- “you have a good night too lady, God bless you”

It does suck when things don’t work exactly as one would want them to, when one would want them to, yet I realized is not enough reason to let that ruin a perfectly good brand new day.
I didn’t even notice the green traffic lights, I forgot to notice the nice fresh breeze that blows here beside the ocean.
I didn’t really pay attention when before leaving the office my colleague said to me; “Well done, you did a good job”.
SO today some things did not work exactly how I wanted them, exactly when I wanted them, SO I became upset and didn’t even take a break, as if I was punishing myself for something that is totally out of my control.

How stupid is that? Why should I feel anything but happy?

This man has reminded me of all those things I know but I sometimes tend to forget.

The day is not over yet, so before it goes I just want to say: I CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY!!!

And, should you happen to pass by 555 Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach, you might want to get your shoes shinning.

Let’s turn the “Automatic Mode” off

My dear friends welcome! It’s a pleasure to find you here again, in this planet of Light.

I hope you are all well, even though I imagine that you are all going through crazy times, just as I am.

The World keeps on turning and it seems to go faster and faster every day. And it does not stop, even when we might be feeling like we want to push “pause” and get out of the work for a while.
The relativity of time is something that becomes clearer for me day by day, there are days which seem eternal, while some others seem so so short. I know you know what I mean, we’ve all been there.

The daily tasks, home, work, family, friends, various commitments and the essential needs of life sometimes make us fall into a routine which puts us under “automatic mode”, and things seem to get much worse when something within the routine goes wrong, or something changes. Then; we feel lost, disoriented, time seems way too short and we just do not know what to do.

Nevertheless, these “changes” of routine may be just what we need. Perhaps a way of getting out of “automatic mode”, open our eyes, feel again and look around to see where our life is heading to. It isn’t a good sign for us to feel “lost” when out of automatic mode. We are adventurers, we’re pioneers, we are traveler souls, change and breaking the routine is part of who we are, so why don’t we just look inside ourselves and keep silent for a moment, to release the voice of that adventurous soul and give it back the helm of our lives?, thus turning off the automatic mode. Don’t you see that this is the reason why sometimes we feel like we want to “get off” this world? Because under automatic mode everything turns monotone, it tires us, it blinds us, we no longer see, nothing is new, nothing is interesting, so we feel drained and we want to disconnect from everything and everyone.

But the adventurous soul within us does not get tired, it feeds from everything around, breathes energy out of the air and enriches him/herself. There is much richness around us, many colors, many new places, many people, many blessings, and most of all; so much love. When we feel this, all of the changes, “problems” and challenges become more manageable, simpler and exciting, and so we enjoy once more the path we chose, because when we take the blinders off, we are able to recognize our own creation.

Come one, let’s feel again, let’s turn the “automatic mode” off!

The earthquake that shook our hearts

My dear friends, welcome again to this Light Planet. I am bringing an interesting subject to our conversation, I cant help but sharing with you my take on the Earthquake that hit my country this past February.

The recent great earthquake that struck Chile this past 27th of February did not only turn towns, walls and houses down, it also shook our hearts. The images of destruction, fear, deep desolation and helplessness were all around, even in those places where no physical or structural damage was visible.

The earthquake shook our hearts and souls. All of a sudden people felt helpless, small, full of fear; fear for their lives, the lives of their loved ones, fear of losing the fruit of their work, their homes and everything they held most dear. Some remembered friends and relationships that have been neglected for a long time, some others had regrets and realised they were not ready to go just yet. But also, it made neighbours that had never exchanged a word; finally speak, help and support each other, it reminded us that we are all human beings, that we are not that different from each other, that we all share the same land and the same planet, what happened in Haiti no longer seemed so distant.

Soon enough, the only important thing was to be alive and well, love and be loved, material things lost their value, it was all about being grateful for being alive.

I was lucky enough to participate in an amazing event, the Telethon in aid of those who suffered the most and I can clearly say I saw many “angels” in action that day. The whole country got together for over 24 hours, putting all their efforts give as much as they could give, money, food, clothes but many others just got themselves to the most affected areas and started chatting to the people, offering a hand and a shoulder. Surely we all agree that it would be nice not to have to go through all of this for people to be nicer to each other, but I guess most people are still hanging from Drama, which sometimes proves to be necessary for a major change.

It has been one month since the earthquake, and even though in the streets of big cities like Santiago it looks as if nothing had ever happened, there are still many people in need out there, the country still gets back into awareness with the -still- constant after shakes, we simply can’t forget this.

After this earthquake, personally; I have started to check what was left broken inside of me, or which are the walls that broke down giving me the oportunity to build something new. To all of you, residents of Planet Earth, I invite you to do this exercise, you may not live in Chile but hey, Earth is still Shaking!

Until the next time!