Small Changes…
The following is for you to read if you wish. If not, hooray for delete.
It never fails for me, I start thinking about writing In My Opinion and things happen to inspire me. In this case I spoke with two women on the same day who not only are customers but also friends. They both had a similar theme, how can we change things in the world? One spoke of the abuse and bullying fat kids suffer in school and the other felt there was just too much anger in this world. Wow..
On the same day I received two you tube links. One on “spontaneous culture” from Macy’s in Philidelphia and one on “spontaneous welcome” at Heathrow Airport. I hope you have had a chance to experience one of these. They are easy to find on youtube.com. Coming on the same day as my “how can we change the world” conversation,it had a profound effect on me. These are popping up all over the world. In the case of Macy’s, choirs and groups gathered on a specific day and were dispersed through the store. At a given time an organ starts and in the middle of shoppers someone starts the “Hallaluhjah chorus”. Many more join in to the total surprise of the shoppers. I won’t say more except for me it was an incredible few minutes. To me if felt joyful. It also said to me that there are lots of people who feel like my two friends. They found something to do to change the world for a few minutes. It also felt a lot like hope. The one at Heathrow Airport was really interesting. Same idea except these spontaneous singers greeted folks arriving in London. It was amazing to watch.
I could hardly ignore the fact these things came to me all at once. Can we change things this way? I believe when we are in that sprit of joy great things can happen. In my fairyland of a mind I see total equality, I imagine love of mankind instead of hate. Those videos were a great lesson in the power of collective thought. They really made me realize that people all over the world must be feeling what my friends expressed. I love what they chose to do and it has made me really think of what I could do. I do however promise not to sing……
I asked people at random what they thought they could do in a small way to make this a better world? “Be kind” said one person, “give ice cream to sad people” said a very young girl in our store with her mom. I loved that, works for me.. Love our differences said a man in his senior years. I once read a great quote about accepting human variety but do we need more than acceptance??
I am going with the Italian proverb…After the game, the King and the Pawn go into the same box..