Compassion Charms

This week has been very exciting for me. The project that my daughter has been working on is now completed. Well, it still depends on a lot of people and their outlook about helping people in general. 

For a long time, she had been thinking about helping people understand that mental illness is nothing to be embarrassed about. As a matter of fact, it is good to show solidarity towards people who suffer from Depression and Anxiety.  It will be really nice if school counselors could understand the need of today's children when it comes to behavioral problems. There are some schools that have resources for helping children but children need more than counselors to understand what is going on in their minds. It will be nice if children understand from a younger age that human beings have to be nice to each other. We as society have a responsibility to give a message to the future generation that kindness and caring can help people .
If everyone understands from a young age that not all of us are made the same way and if depressed people are not left to be lonely we can save the future generation from having to suffer the emotional setbacks that hinder them from being productive.

If you are interested in learning more, you can visit her website at compassioncharms.com

You can also visit her on Facebook and Twitter. 

Words and Language

I know a lot of young people and talk to them a lot because I want to understand the culture of young American people as my adult children are of their culture. A lot of my coworkers would discuss their problems with me because they could not talk to their parents openly and are afraid that they will get yelled at.

Just about twenty years ago a teenage coworker of mine was on the verge of crying because he was yelled at and was threatened to be thrown out of his parent 's house by his dad and his mom would not do anything to stop his dad. His dad had a very bad habit of using harsh words and bad language. The kid's offense?

He was not careful not to drop crumbs on the kitchen floor as he ate. I told him that I would get upset too as he is not a toddler. To that he asked me if I make a mess on the kitchen floor. I laughed and I said that I don't. He said that every single meal his dad makes a circle of food on the floor and his mom cleans that up without a fuss as his dad was very tired from work and she did not want to start a fight. I asked him if he had a stepfather he said that his father is his birth father and looks a lot like him. He hated that and wished that he did not look like his father. I was really sorry for that young man and he said that one more year he will be out of the house anyway and his aunt offered to keep him in her house until then.

I am not so sure if he ever went to college or he is still working as a store associate. It does not matter because he had told me that whenever he has a child he will not yell at him or her for the same mistake he would make.

I told him that it would also be a good idea if we do not use bad words with our children to begin with. He agreed.

I am so glad that this young man had decided not to create a cycle of bad treatment because his father treated him horribly.

I am also happy that most of today's parents are smart enough to teach by example rather than by punishments and threats and are careful about how they talk.

Happy Father's day to all fathers (young and old), step fathers, grandfathers, and foster parents.

In the television show "Frasier", Niles Crane dresses like his dad Martin Crane as they were dressing for "my hero" theme for Halloween.

Take One, Add One

Love, Care, Happiness, Health, Laughter Family, Comfort, Independence, Leisure Time, Family Time, Me Time, Good Memories, Friends, and  Hugs.  

 There must be so many more things that we would want in our lives.  I can only think of a few. I wish everyone all of the above and so much more.

In one of the local schools here in Orange County NY, in the teachers lounge, there is a bulletin board with post-it notes. Each note has words of comfort written on them. There is a sign that says, " Take what you need, give what you can. " I thought that was a good idea.

We all have good days and bad days(even Mother's Day can be sad for some of us) so if there is a free word of comfort on a bulletin board that can get our minds off of our troubles even for a few minutes, it is helpful. Also if you can take a post-it note and write a comforting word and leave it on the bulletin board, someone can find it comforting. When I see things like that bulletin board, I think that the world is still a very good place and there are caring people around us. 

Happy Mothers day, everyone.

The Travelling Bird

I am starting a legacy. It is similar to that of my parents. My father used to teach math to college students who were preparing for the exams even though he never worked as a teacher. My mother who was a teacher would buy extra notebooks and pencils when she took us school supply shopping so she can give them to our milkman's children. I am starting a legacy, the legacy of the "Travelling Bird". Why Bird?  This is how I came up with the word.

Buy a book. 

Invest in literacy. 

Read the book. 

Donate the book to a public library or an inner city school library.

Public libraries desperately need help. Most of them can use some good fiction books for children and young adults. So, I will buy books, read them, then when I am done I will donate them. 

Why the word, "travelling"? At the library, or in the school, the book will be borrowed by children. This way the book will travel from hand to hand. I will write the words "the travelling bird" on the books on the first page. This way the child who reads the book will know about it and may be one of them will continue this legacy as well.

      

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year everyone!

2016 is over and when I look at the blogger site I feel ashamed that I have not written much. The fact is that I write when I see an issue. Another fact is that I was so busy that I did not stop to pay attention to an issue when I saw one. My husband tells me that I am only one person and I cannot take care of the problems of the world. One of my work friends told me that a day will come when us older folks will become a problem to our families. Well, I will try not to become a problem and be as productive as possible. That is one reason I keep working and commuting to work. Now that I have given the reasons, I hope that I can be forgiven for not writing. 

I am thankful to people who blog and give us so many good articles to read. 

I wish everyone good health and happiness.

You can save a life

This is National Suicide Prevention Week. When I tell some people this, some of them ask me what they can do. Some are willing to walk to raise funds and a few people wondered about why there would be a need to have a week set aside for suicide prevention. They get surprised when I show them the statistics. They did not even realize that for some people life is very difficult and unhappy. 

I learned about the hard realities of life for a teenager when one of my very close friends took her own life just a year before our college graduation. Everyone thought that she was a very funny girl,  a very good student ,very helpful and outgoing. No one could ever think that she would not care about her own life. No one knew what went on in her mind. If only she knew that there were people who would be willing to help her deal with her problems she could have been alive today.   I always hope and pray that there is help for people who are feeling suicidal and now I know that American Foundation For Suicide Prevention is the answer to my prayers. I am asking my family and my friends to visit their site and see what they can do. 

My daughter is fundraising for this foundation for her birthday. If you are able and interested, you can donate here: http://afsp.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donordrive.personalCampaign&participantID=1049323 But even if you can't donate, just starting a conversation can make a difference for someone.

Never Forget

I learn a lot from my children. A lot of times I wish that I could share the things I learn from them with my friends including my blogger friends. The following post is written by my daughter who is very sensitive about people who have suffered whether in the present or in the past. Needless to say my knowledge and outlook about the Holocaust has changed with time. Today I learned that the words "Never Forget" have a special place and a special meaning.

2016 has been a rough year when it comes to losing well-known (and well-liked) celebrities, and while I was a fan of many people we lost this year, it wasn't until the passing of Elie Wiesel yesterday that I felt compelled to ask my mom, "can I write a guest post on your blog?"

I remember reading Wiesel's Night in high school and looking back, I don't think I fully appreciated the significance of such a work. I would also have to describe my trip to the Holocaust museum in DC in the same manner. I understood what it was all about, and I felt for the victims, but I didn't truly get it. Teenagers aren't known for being the most compassionate beings, so I suppose I shouldn't kick myself for not having some heightened sense of empathy at fifteen.

As an adult I do have a greater sense of understanding of what it was all about, but I don't know if we can ever really get it. Because even for the most empathetic of people, the pain we feel is secondhand. And that's a good thing. No one should ever have to experience that magnitude of suffering again.

But there is a side effect in that we begin to forget. I remember going to see Twelve Years a Slave with my older brother. My immediate reaction upon exiting the theater was "I feel privileged." I wasn't talking about any sort of racial or social privilege, but rather a privilege of growing up in an era where the atrocity of slavery no longer existed, at least not in the US. It was merely the subject of history books now.

But while slavery may just be a subject people read about in their school texts today, it doesn't change the fact that it was a real thing that happened to real people. And those people may not be alive today, but their stories were real and those stories matter.

And the same is true of the Holocaust. When I was in high school, the student chapter of Amnesty International would read the names of Holocaust victims over the loudspeaker on Holocaust Remembrance Day in April. At that age I took it to be a tribute, a remembrance of such an unfathomable atrocity. As I got older I also realized the whole "don't let history repeat itself" aspect of it.

But more importantly, we need to remember the people. The eleven million people who were killed during the Holocaust were not a collective unit. They were eleven million distinct individuals, all with their own loves and dreams and fears and senses of humors and idiosyncrasies. And while we know the stories of some of them, such as Elie Wiesel or Anne Frank, there are so many more stories that go untold.

It still happens in today's day and age. When we hear of attacks happening around the world, or even sometimes in our own neighborhood. We mourn for our countries, our civil and religious liberties.

But please remember to mourn for the individuals, too.