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Blessed with a Star on the Forehead

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Blessed with a Star on the Forehead

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Words from Albert Einstein – From Crisis to Change, Community, Caring and Contribution

17 Friday Apr 2020

Posted by A Star on the Forehead in Daily Life, Finding Me

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

Albert Einstein, Albert Einstein quotes, be kinder, do more, help each other, help if we can

We often like to plan, to dream, but also to complain and do nothing.  Often we know what we want, we know what we need to do to achieve it, but we don’t want to get out of our comfort zone to go get it. 

Our routines both comfort us and imprison us. 

Things only change when we decide to change.  Often just making a decision is not enough. Often we don’t change unless we are forced to change.  Now is the perfect time to take a look around and most important take a look within and make the changes that you have been thinking and talking about it.

Are you still making excuses not to change?

“Let’s not pretend that things will change if we keep doing the same things.  A crisis can be a real blessing to any person, to any nation. For all crises bring progress. Creativity is born from anguish, just like the day is born from the dark night. It’s in crisis that inventiveness is born, as well as discoveries made and big strategies. He who overcomes crisis, overcomes himself, without getting overcome.

He who blames his failure to a crisis neglects his own talent and is more interested in problems than in solutions. Incompetence is the true crisis. The greatest inconvenience of people and nations is the laziness with which they attempt to find the solutions to their problems. There’s no challenge without a crisis. Without challenges, life becomes a routine, a slow agony. There’s no merit without crisis. It’s in the crisis where we can show the very best in us. Without a crisis, any wind becomes a tender touch. To speak about a crisis is to promote it. Not to speak about it is to exalt conformism. Let us work hard instead. Let us stop, once and for all, the menacing crisis that represents the tragedy of not being willing to overcome it.” – Albert Einstein

We are all here on a journey.  Each person having a different cross to bear.  If we can all just be extra kind to our fellow traveler.  If we can help each other along the way.  Our true merit is not on how much money we have in the bank or how in shape we are; our true merit is how we contribute to make this world a better place for us all.  

Changing the world starts with being kind to each other.  Could you be doing more? Can you be kinder?  Can you make somebody else’s life easier?  Sometimes just a smile can change a person’s outlook.  

Change yourself and the world will change.

“Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of other men —above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received and am still receiving.”― Albert Einstein

This is a time that makes me realize how we are all connected and dependent on each other.  I like being alone, but no man is an island.  We all need one another.  I am being helped by so many people that don’t know me and every day makes my life easier. 

There are so many people that are out there working, risking their lives and that of their families to make our lives better.   Some of those people have jobs that have been often looked down upon but that if they were not being performed society would turn to chaos and crumble. From the fruit pickers to truck drivers, from sanitation workers to delivery people, they are humbly contributing to make society function.  And for that I immensely grateful.

The invisible ones have now become visible and needed.

I am not taking anything or anyone for granted anymore.  I will pay more attention.  I will do more.  There is always more to be done.  There is always someone to be grateful to.

I am grateful for you.  For spending time reading my words!  Be safe and be blessed! ♥

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” ― Albert Einstein

 

 

 

 

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Seeing life with new eyes

17 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by A Star on the Forehead in Daily Life, Finding Me

≈ 28 Comments

Tags

Albert Einstein, all things are miracle, Art Garfunkel, being ok with the unplanned, looking for signs and miracles, Paul Simon, slowing down and paying attention, when things don't go as planned

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”  Albert Einstein

It is Saturday and I am on my way to work.  The office is being painted and guess who is in charge of  making sure that everything gets done correctly.  Yes, you guessed, me!

Yesterday one of the painters stopped by and told me they will start working at 10 am.  I thought it was late to start, specially since they wanted to do it all in one day.  I gave him my business card and said to call me if he wanted to come in earlier.

Today at 8:50 am as I am walking to the train station, the painter calls me and says: We cannot paint today.  I said: What? Are you canceling? Part of me was happy with the idea of returning to my cozy apartment instead of braving the cold in NYC.

No, we are here but we cannot paint because the office is closed, he said.  I said: of course it is, you said you would be there at 10, and that is when I was planning to be there.  He said they had to leave the building by 5 pm so they decided to start earlier.

 “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity” – Albert Einstein

He just didn’t bother to tell me that the plans had changed.  I  told him to wait and I would be there in 40 minutes.

As I get to train station the announcement on the loudspeaker is that the train is 10 to 15 minutes late.

Standing in the cold air of an almost empty train station I can feel my normal good mood starting to shift to anger.  I am thinking about the painter’s lack of communication.  I am thinking how the train seems to always be late on the coldest day, and specially on days that I have to be on time. I am thinking it is Saturday and I should be enjoying my weekend.

I get annoyed, angry when things don’t go according to plan.  I remind myself that this is just a minor inconvenience and nothing to get stressed about it.

“I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.”  – Albert Einstein

I decided that there was no point in thinking about things that were in the past (the painter’s lack of communication) and things that I have no control of (late train).

Anger, as well as happiness, is a choice; it is not a given.  I am going to choose not to be angry and not feel powerless.  I am going to choose to welcome these mishaps and use them as a learning tool.

I am so used to routine, I am so used to the fast paced NY lifestyle that I never stop and pay attention to anything.  Even my reactions have become routine.  Routines are comforting and safe but routine also kills miracles and hide blessings.  Routine turns us into robots.

I look around me, at the trees and the train tracks.  I look at everything as if for the first time.  I started looking at them as if I have just gained vision and I marveled at that gift.

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”  – Albert Einstein

I decided to face everything, events, situations and people with new eyes and new actions.  I really need to see things and not just assume all is the same.

How would people, places and situations surprise us if we gave them a chance and looked at them with brand new eyes?  With eyes of understanding and compassion.  Would people pleasantly surprise us if we give them a chance and not just assume we know all about them?

I look at the number 8 marking the platform.  Just between you and I, I think that number has been put there for my benefit.  It feels comforting to have this daily hello from the Universe.  You see the Universe knows I love the number 8 so it placed it there so I can see it every morning and smile.

The number 8 means infinity.  It is never ending, as love, as hope, as faith.  It ends and begins in itself. At school I always insisted on being number 8 when playing volleyball and handball.

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” – Albert Einstein

As my eyes move from that number 8, I see 8s I had never seen before.  I smile, surprised and grateful. It is a sign and a gift.  It shows me that when we decide to look at everything with new eyes we see new things.  We get gifts and discover miracles.

I took pictures of all the number 8s I saw at the train station this morning.  The first picture is the 8 that greets me every morning.  The others I am noticing it for the first time today.

I know it is just a number but to me it is a meaning.  It is also a symptom of how I live a lot of my life on auto-pilot. I am so used to a routine, of getting from point A to point B, of getting things done.  I often miss the details, the beauty around me.  I have been missing 8s, and possibly miracles and blessings because I am not paying attention.

A song came to mind:

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”  – Albert Einstein
.

No past thoughts or thoughts of the past

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