A poem

I wrote a poem today, but realized that it is too dark to post. Here is a poem I found, that struck a chord for me.

Patience

Patience is the best
Shock - absorber.
Patience is the highest
Peace - discover.
Patience is the greatest
Perfection - believer.

Patience is the soul - power
Concealed.
Patience is the heart - tower
Revealed.

In between your failure - tree
And your triumph - tree,
The tree that is growing
Is known as your patience tree.

Yesterday
Patience was the beginning
Of my perfection.
Today
Patience is the flowering
Of my satisfaction.

Sri Chinmoy

Appreciation

I realized last night how much I actually take for granted. And it isn't until something is removed or taken away, that we realize what we actually had or have.

I have taken my parents for granted, or at least the help they give me in child care. Today is Family Day, a day that I don't have off. I work for the Federal Government and since this is a Provincial holiday, I am not entitled to having it off unless I take a vacation day.

My kids have had the flu for the last week and a bit. They are both feeling better, which is really great. Now, with today being Family Day, the schools and Daycares are closed, and they should be. But both my parents are sick now and I had nowhere to send my kids while I went to work. It isn't a big deal, as I just have to take it off now. But it made me realize just how much I depend on my parents. And I have also realized how much I take a lot of things for granted.

Our lives are short, and we never know when they are going to end. It isn't something we can predict or prevent, so we need to live each day to it's fullest because it might be the last. A girl in her late twenties died last week. She hit a gravel truck head on on a slippery highway. She was about 4 months pregnant. I am sure that someone took her life for granted and assumed that they would all get to enjoy the new baby and live to a ripe old age. Not so.

I take many things for granted, and not just the care and help my parents provide. I take my job for granted. I take being able to buy groceries and make my payments for granted. I take my Kung Fu for granted.

That last one, my Kung Fu is a tough one for me to admit. But it's true, I take it for granted. I am very lucky to have the opportunity to train at an amazing school filled with amazing people. I take for granted how much I learn and how lucky I am to be able to pass on my knowledge. I take for granted, and sometimes forget the journey that I took to get where I am today.

It's time that we all look at our lives, and take stock the things that we take for granted. We take for granted our sense of smell, sight, mobility, touch and taste and hearing. We take for granted the people in our lives and the things we have. We need to stop and appreciate how lucky we are to live where we do and the freedom we have. We need to look in the mirror and appreciate the very fact that we are alive. We need to look beyond the little things. If your significant other is constantly leaving the cap off the toothpaste and it irritates you, is it really worth fighting over? What if that person didn't come home today? They were in an accident or something else. How many regrets would you have? Look at the person you love today, and appreciate them for what and who they are. They might not be around tomorrow.

Politics, yada, yada, yada

So, I am not one for politics. I can handle personal politics without any problems, but then I have my hand in the can. I deal with it all the time at work, and I feel that I do quite well with it.

Now the Provincial Election is coming up. I personally am not one to follow what goes on with government as it just doesn’t interest me. However, if I choose not to vote, I am not exercising my right, and with one vote, I can make a difference. So I am going to try to stay informed, so that I can make a choice based on what I know, and not someone else’s bias.

It is time for me to decide what is most important to me, and to see which candidate measures up the best. My biggest problem though, seems to be that I will ultimately have to chose the lesser of the evils. I feel the candidates, and all of them, still have only their best interests in mind. Do they really care or understand how much it takes to raise a child today? How that they have a provincial subsidy for children in daycares, but it stops the day they start grade 1? That doesn’t make any sense to me at all. Just because my child is now in school every day, does not mean that my working hours can be adjusted to accommodate this. How about the seniors on a fixed income? Their pensions do not adjust as the cost of living increases. What about them? And then what about our environment? I believe we need some serious plans to preserve what we have and to encourage a future for the generations to come. These are just a few of my questions, and I wonder if any of them will be addressed. I might be faced with a choice of 3 guys, who might each address one thing of importance to me.

At any rate, I will have a choice to make. I have to celebrate that, since I am privileged to live in a country where I have a choice. I have a voice, and I will use it. I dislike election time, as I have to take interest in something that I don’t have much interest in. However, it is something I will do, and I have no idea which direction I will cast my vote. I am guessing it will be the lesser of the evils.

Children of the World

What is happening to our children? Or rather, what is happening with parenting in this day and age?

All over the news right now, are a couple of incidents that occurred recently. One, a father who, in a drunken state supposedly, dragged his 1 1/2 and 3 year old girls, in only t-shirts and panties/diapers into the -50 weather to freeze to their deaths. It might not have been intentional, but tell me why it had to happen? What did those two little girls do to deserve that?

Another, was a 23 year old girl with autism, who was left to starve to death by her sister. This sister, her guardian is being charged with manslaughter. She made this girl sleep on particle board, with a deflated air mattress covered in her feces. This girl went from 200 lbs to 85 lbs when she was found. How could anyone do this? What did this girl, who had the mind of a 3 year old, do to deserve to die with such indignity? It breaks my heart.

Yet another, an 8 month old baby girl, left on the cold cement in a parkade. Thankfully, she didn't have to die, but why was she left there in the first place?

These are only a couple of the millions of monstrosities being stowed on our world's children. And maybe these hit me so hard because they are here, in Canada where we are supposedly the more advanced culture. How can I believe that?

Another thing to think about is what we bestow on our children as far as beauty goes. What is wrong with us, when a 7 year old refuses to wear a winter coat because it makes her look fat? What??? This girl I heard about was 7. She should have been worried about the size of the snowman she was going to make, or the next time she could go out on her sled. Not what she was wearing or how she looked.

We have this huge responsibility to raise our children. They are our future, and we are in a position of extreme power. But why do some people end up destroying the gifts of our future? I look into the eyes of my children, and I am so thankful for them. I want to protect them from all of this, and to shelter them. But I am being naive. I need to educate them, that is their best defense.

Kung Fu can help me with that, I am sure. It can help me to teach them that every person deserves to be treated with respect, the values of being a good person with peaceful intentions. It can help me teach them to accept people and their cultures, and to ultimately respect themselves. It can help me teach them that beauty comes from within, not from what you see on the outside. Our art flows from the inside to the outside, and from the outside to the world around us.

I can make a difference through my kids. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But one day I will have left my mark, and so will they.