I’ve recently read an article in Arab News and I feel the need to write an article myself about it. The topic concerns the winners of an award that is Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel prize. Such an award does not concern people who are brilliant in science, economics or literature. The individuals mentioned here are simply “good”! Surprised? You should, and not because goodness has been appreciated, but because a newspaper decided to publish such news. Ninety something percent of daily papers are usually dedicated to a totally different kind of stuff. And such stuff is — to a very high degree — negative. Wars, corruption, accidents, killings, frauds, rising prices, plummeting economy… Isn’t this what you read about, day after day? Okay, there is also some sport. Agreed. But you cannot deny that the majority of the news are not happy ones. They are not uplifting ones. They don’t make you feel better, do they? Briefly examine yourself and acknowledge your actual feelings after reading the paper or listening to the TV news broadcast. You “know” what you sense, but you don’t like to acknowledge the feeling, you prefer to ignore it. “This is the world we live in,” you say and with these words you close the subject.
Yes, this is the world we live in, and it’s not a “good” world.
But… wait a minute. It is a “good” world as well because, next to the ugly news about ugly happenings (and individuals, right? When anything takes place, there is “someone” who makes it come into being, isn’t there?), you may also find out about others – wonderful people who do wonderful things.
One of the Asian winners, a Taiwanese lady who sells vegetables and who has given away over $ 200,000 to help charities for children — among other good deeds — says, “I feel happy when I can help other people.” Another pearl of wisdom of hers is, “Money serves its purpose only when it is used to help those who need it.” This lady hardly finished sixth grade and hasn’t probably read any deeply philosophical or spiritual book, yet she shows the spiritual maturity of the greatest thinker or teacher.
You might say that what she said is neither a new idea nor a discovery. I know! But tell me, honestly, how many people do you see who apply such “old” (and certainly recognized as true) principle in their lives? Should we talk about the big companies, the banks, the multinationals whose only purpose is to “hoard” money? No, I don’t think we need to spend another word on them. We all know what is going on there! But, on a smaller scale, we can all wonder about each of us and try to detect what our usual attitude is on the matter. The president of the foundation that awards the Asian prizes said that the winners are “remarkable individuals, all deeply involved in creating sustainable solutions to poverty and its accompanying disempowerment.”
They are not particularly rich people, but they give and keep on giving what they have: some grant money but most of them offer their skills in different fields such as farming and education. The vegetable seller was mainly appreciated for her “personal giving, which reflects a deep, consistent, quiet compassion and has transformed the lives of the numerous Taiwanese she has helped.” What more could any human being wish to hear to be said about him/herself?
Some people have exceptional qualities of compassion and strong will, who are capable of enduring very stressful situations, whose selflessness reaches the extremes, whose resilience allows them to never give up even in front of the greatest obstacles. They are the volunteers who renounce a comfortable life to help the needy in the most difficult situations and circumstances such as extreme poverty, wars, catastrophic disasters, famine etc… You are not one of them, and… neither are we! But there is always something that you, and all of us, can do to simply “be of service” to another.
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