Freeconomy Blog
Tue
27 May
Yes we can...
| 3 comments |
There’s always a thin line between reporting on issues you know that you should relay to the rest of the world, and making everything seem all doom and gloom. On one hand, you have a responsibility to raise awareness. The problem exists when the issue is perceived as being pretty depressing. I say ‘perceived’ as in most cases it’s meant to be the opposite! On the other hand, if you don’t tell people about it, they have less time to act.
Well this week the problems of the world can go take a backseat. Yes there are many, but there are as many amazing people out there giving their life to turning it all around. Having had a bit of a tough couple of weeks myself, I was looking for that oxygen for the soul we call inspiration. What I found either put a huge smile on my face, made me cry tears of joy, or propelled me into revitalised action.
So today I want to relay to you my ‘Top 10 Inspiration stories’ – not world leaders, not billionaire philanthropists, just ordinary people who have said ‘enough is enough’ or ‘yes I can’, all in their own very different ways -
Here we go, starting backwards:
10. We tell our kids how to behave, then we do the exact opposite ourselves. Well Severn Suzuki, of the Environmental Children's Organization (ECO) went to the UN and silenced our adult world leaders…
9. In most respects, this isn’t a true story; in others it is. While the individuals are actors, it symbolises what we all know happens when one brave soul takes on a struggle that at first seems impossible. So are you going to stand there, or are you going to do something about it?
8. This kid, J-Mac, didn’t change the world. But the spirit both he and his coach showed in what was effectively just a basketball game is enough to make the least of us realise that we can do whatever we put our minds to. Hopefully that will be on a positive thing!
7. I had to add this in, as this is one (extra)ordinary individual who had been a huge inspiration for me early in my life. Her name is Julia Butterfly Hill, and if you want to find out more, check out her project, Circle of Life. What is your tree?
6. OK, before you check this out, forget the silly retail element about it, forget the corporate edge to it, and just think of Johnny the bagger. I love it because it fits in with Kahlil Gibran’s quote that “work is love made visible”, and because it shows us that you can bring love to whatever job you do, no matter how mundane it seems. It all shows why kindness is important even on a business level. So all you executives out there…!
5. The ‘Man who planted trees’ was originally meant to be a fictional tale about a man called Elzeard Bouffier, until one reporter, like most others, took it to be a true story. You know what, it is, because it happens every day, it’s just a different seed being planted.
4. I love this one because the ethos behind it is pure freeconomy - an organisation called Seva Cafe that gives out dinners on a ‘pay-it-forward’, gift economy basis. Very inspiring.
3. You just got to love Maisie. Whilst I accept that driving around collecting cans is slightly flawed logic, I would like to focus on the intention, belief and kindness of this amazing woman.
2. This Mann is an example of how the answers to the world’s problems are very simple, though we often try to convince ourselves otherwise. Armed with just a piece of cardboard saying ’Free Hugs’, he entered a society full of fear and, literally, embraced it. Juan realises that peace will not descend upon humanity in one fell swoop, but will only be realised when we start to love and respect each other at every given moment and interaction. Now his revolution is spreading across the world…
1. This is in at No. 1 mainly because it was the ultimate in self-sacrifice. May Marian Fisher be an example to us all, as well as the Amish community, who, hours after a man shot 10 of the kids in their little community and himself, offered food and supplies for the killer’s wife and children. If they can forgive that, how can we hold grudges over our petty perceived insults?
CAN YOU DO ME ONE FAVOUR? Tell everyone else here, by leaving a comment, about one person who you love and who has inspired you – it may be your wife, your son, Aung San Sun Kyi, Martin Luther King Jr – whoever! And then go and dedicate one ‘Random Act of Kindness’ in their honour. Oh, and don’t forget to tell that person to if you can, we all forget to sometimes.
Comment on this Post:
Nicolodean comments ...
Greta stories,love Maisie.
When we moved here to Spain (we are near Gerona ,Northern Spain ,for all those who have asked) I noticed that every day about ten in the morning I heard the trundling sound of an iron wheeled barrow passing on the road outside. This was, let us call her, Rosina. Rosina was, it turned out, 92 years old and the trundling was the noise of her wheelbarrow, full of stones, as she made her way to the forest beside the village. What she was doing was walking the tracks and roadways filling up the ruts and potholes in the unsurfaced roads. As my Catalan was poor, I used my boys as interpreters and heard her story. She was born in the forest, in an old stone farmhouse and loved to remember her childhood when everything was wild and the pig farms didn't exist. She eventually married and moved into the village proper, her husband died very young and they had no children. Often when we met her she was tending her garden, carefully sifting out piles of stones and filling plastic carrier bags that she collected from the hedgerows. Full carrier bags were transfered to the barrow for the mornings labour. She told us that she objected to the machines that the local council brought in to mend the roads as they crushed the plants and filled the air with fumes.
Beside her house is a field, which two years ago she bought, "only because it has a lot of stones" she said.
Last year about this time she arrived at our door one day with Bledders which she had grown and had too many of. The boys asked if we could make her a cake as it was her birthday and she gathered in the afternoon with her 89 year old "boyfriend" and her pals to read the newspaper.
Three weeks later she was taken into hospital and operated on for cancer, she died and has left our village and the forest a poorer ,dimmer place.
The roads are mended by machines and the plants are crushed, and the blue fumes are hanging over their noise. I still like to listen for the trundle of the iron wheels though.
Don comments ...
Hi Saoirse
Whew! What a list of sites! I've forwarded two video clips to several people already -- the ones about Severn Suzuki and Johnny the Bagger -- and told others about the Amish response to the tragedy at the school.
If humanity gets to its next level of evolution, it'll be because of people like them.
If you know of any more similar sites, would you post them for us on your blog?
Many thanks for an informative, thought-provoking and well-produced blog!
funlovingnomad comments ...
Thanks for a brilliant blog - totally inspiring :-)
Perhaps the most amazingly inspiring person I know is my best friend's little sister, the youngest of four children. As a teenager she was always in trouble at home, struggling at school and doing all the usual rebellious things - truancy, drink, drugs... She was rude and sulky and, if she bothered to answer when someone spoke to her, she could usual find something obnoxious to say...
Six years after leaving school, with few qualifications (a challenge to her parents, both teachers) she found herself in Uganda and, in the slums of Kampala, she met a small gang of street kids. She found herself wondering what she could do for them, and began cooking a meal for them each day and getting friends to donate clothes. She soon began raising money to pay a teacher to help them with basic reading, writing and maths. Within months, some of the boys were ready to start school and she managed to get enough regular donations to pay their school fees.
Five years on, my friend's naughty little sister is "mother" to around 16 happy teenagers, who all go to school, eat, study and hang out together. She has helped most of them rebuild relationships with surviving family members, so that they have somewhere to sleep at night and her door is always open to the few boys who really have no one. She lives a simple Ugandan life, cooking on a charcoal stove and living without Western luxuries, helping some of the boys' families to start small businesses, so that they are not constantly struggling for daily survival.
I went to stay with her when she was just 24 and I saw how unglamorous her daily existence was - getting up early to prepare breakfast, cleaning, cooking, persuading the boys to wash and brush their teeth, to do their homework and look after each other, laughing with them, listening to them, disciplining them... all the mundane everyday stuff and she does it without ever complaining - she's tough; she needs to be. Over the years she's had a lot of challenges but she's stuck at it, without any fanfare or recognition, she keeps loving and working for this small group of boys, whose lives will never be the same (and she does it all justforthelovofit of course).
I want to dedicate a dozen "random acts of kindness" to Naomi, an extraordinary woman.
