Be the good you want to see in others

So first of all: “Be the good you want to see in others”?! This is really one of the cheesiest things that’s ever existed. But I really believe it’s true. It’s really hard to remember sometimes, when you have had a tiring day, or when someone has been irritating you, or someone comes across ignorant or even worse: Rude!

But it’s the mark of a better person to put those things aside and remember to be the good. We all forget it- often myself. I’m a massively cynical cow. But I try to do good- to influence people positively. It’s a perpetual struggle.

But we all know people who do this, who are constantly positive and kind, and they bring sunshine into the room with them. And I always think: “Wouldn’t it be great if there were more people like ____?” Well. Yes.

Yes it would.

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Today someone has been horribly hacked to pieces in Woolwich.

When things like this happen it is easy for us to think of the victim as one of us, loving son, good friend etc, and the murderers and inhuman monsters.

But unfortunately they are human monsters, and we made those monsters. Society created them. Their conflicts, which lead to this event, have been influenced by the people they have met, their schooling, their families, television, social media, and the whole web of images and thoughts that bombard us every day.

I believe that since people’s views and feelings are created by nurture and the people they meet in their lives. This means we can fix it.

You can fix it.

You are an immensely powerful individual. You can change another person’s whole day, with a smile, a friendly comment, a helpful gesture like picking up a dropped item or helping someone off a bus. You have the power to make a stranger feel positive, or negative.

You have the power to influence those around you, by doing mundane things: posting on facebook, tweeting, steering conversation, showing love and concern to your friends or even just asking how they are. It’s not just teachers who can teach.

You have the power to help people overcome their prejudices and expectations, by forgetting your own.

Use your power with good intent, and talk, smile, tweet for the good of mankind.

Maybe if those murderers seen more cat beards, or been taken to the zoo as kiddies, or had more kind accepting words from strangers in their lives, they would have taken very different paths.

You don’t have to be a teacher, or a public speaker, or a politician to change the world, to influence people for the good.

Be the change you want to see in the world. 

(It’s ok you can all go and vomit now. But do it with a smile!)

 

Isn’t it nice to be nice?

I just had a really lovely weekend in Durham, dancing. But the thing that I always come away with from these weekends is almost firstly, most importantly, how great the people are.

Yes I had some fabulous dances, but I am always bowled over by the fun and generous spirit of the swing community and the dancers I know. And how fortunate I am to know them.

One of my favourite things they did at DJam was to give prizes to people, not for their dancing (although they did this, and Leeds dancers did us proud completely cleaned up), but for their general personal contributions to the weekend. I don’t know Malcolm personally who won one of those prizes for his amazingly enthusiastic and entertaining jazz which was great to watch, but I do know the wonderful Ben. And therefore how deserving he was of the other prize.

Ben is always enthusiastic and brings joy and vitality to everything he does. He is inclusive, honest and friendly to everyone, which is what the swing should be. Also, the first time I met him he was dressed as a French maid and wearing tights. I knew from then that we would get on well.
His dancing is creative, fun and adaptable. (I even forgive him one of the most extreme accidental lindy gropes I have ever experienced on Saturday- it was in pursuit of swingovation).

In short, we love you Ben and if they had made that award “people’s choice” I bet you still would have got it.

My other special mention goes to Les and Alison. They accommodated up to 12 people in their home this weekend. They refused kitty money to go towards our food and provisions etc, and were (as always) kind, welcoming, complimentary and generous hosts.
Les and two of the other hostees even came to rescue me when my car got stuck in the ice and snow on the way to his home, shovels in hands and yaktrax on boots ready to push the car out of the ice. Thank you!

But not just dancers- as a society we are always thinking about the problems. Behavioural issues, crime, the loss of community spirit etc. But we forget how kind most people can be in everyday life, and how much community there is in other forms.

On my way back home today I stopped in a petrol station in Leeds. The weather was horrendous, and my petrol cap was blown from the top of my car to really far under my car.
A motorcyclist at another pump could see I was having trouble trying to reach something, came over and offered to help. He lay down on the dirty wet petrol station forecourt to crawl under my car for me.

It was a lovely random act of kindness: he could so easily just have biked away without a second thought.


In short. Kindness makes the world go round. It’s all very well at being good a things: be it dancing, or music, or knowing about something :)  ; but they are nothing without a smile and a helping hand when needed.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

I google imaged "kindness" because I like a good illustrative picture in a blog. And I found a kitten probably entirely traumatising a duckling in the pursuit of Cuteness. Hurray! (I hope the duckling was ok after this encounter).

Roadside Sculpture

Life needs to be a bit more exciting. And we can all do something, small things or big things, to make everyone happier and enjoy every day life a bit more. For this reason, I love roadside scultpure, interesting street art and things like that. I love THESE particularly.

  

Don't they just make everything so much more interesting? I'm not sure this is actually up anywhere.  I think it's just an illustration in the book mentionned in the link above. But it's awesome anyway.

As is this.

This is a real sign! In Leeds by the canal. And it makes people look twice, laugh, question it, want to know why? Hopefully it's never made anyone actually jump into the sea?

But there is good interesting and bad interesting. This falls somewhere in between.

It is beach-side sculpture from a beach near Kippforth in Dumfireshire. It involves REAL DENCHERS. It is also a kinda monster lobster thing with an extra head budding from it's back. WITH REAL DENCHERS. Aaaaarrrghhhh...
Pretty horrid. But it added interest to our day at least!


Roadside Sculpture is also available in "life + people" form. Doing interesting unexpected madness or random acts of kindness. A beautiful example of this was exemplified by Alan after swing the other week. He did a mid-pick-up-plank in order to earn a pint. He ran up to this girl at random, told her she looked pretty, stopped to tie his laces, and then went down in a face down plank on the pavement, whilst she and her friends walked around him laughing and shocked. It was abolutely hilarious and I now want Alan to accompany me everywhere just to fill life with hilarity. And those girls had a fabulous story to tell their friends,and spread the comedy around.

In terms of feel good Life-Roadside-Sculture, this is fabulous http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3d3KigPQM . Imagine being in the station when this was going on? Imagine being one of the people who *created* this! Who is bringing joy to everyone else's day.

So I'm trying to think of things I can do to be productive and creative and bring joy and interest to other people. At work we've been doing a cool trading thing recently- a girl makes awesome things out of burning wood into different patterns, and I am trading her some pretty wooden things, for some wood and a glass candle holder from when i used to paint glass. So trading pretty things is fun. Also, by organisng swing events I feel I can make people happy. What else? I'd love to organise a flash mob. And I thought I might hang some pretty things from the tree outside my house to interest passers by.

What could you do?

Lots of love xx