Beautiful people Category | Page 3 of 5

Precious Baby

It is funny to talk about kids and money, but even money can be the difference between having kids and not. Here is a story that illustrates what I mean.

Maxine wanted babies all her life, but never wanted to have one by herself. Single parenting was not very appealing to her. When everyone started nagging her to get married and warned her she was “missing the train”, she kept saying she would not have a child on her own and since the right guy could not be seen on the horizon, her baby dreams seemed farther and farther away.

Then, at the age of 37, Maxine met Don, who was even a bit older. They both knew the clock was ticking for both of them, but Don was afraid of the commitment and did not want to rush their relationship. The wonderful love between Maxine and Don was cluttered by the ticking sounds of their advancing age.

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I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane

Today, I am flying overseas to see my two new 7-month-old nephews for the first time! In the last 7 months, I have seen them in photos and on Skype video calls (thank God for Skype), but when I hold them in my hands, kiss them, hug them and smell them (and their mothers, my two sisters), I will cry for joy.

Both these nephews are the first children of my 36- and 42-year-old sisters and because of the mothers’ age and the pressure of a tough pregnancy of the older sister they are obviously very precious babies. Look at them! I think they know how precious they are. These photos are their real photos with the permission of their mothers.

For one of my sisters, this baby is precious for another reason.

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Success Ripples

Have I ever told you about my ripple effect theory? For me, teaching, coaching and writing are ways to make a positive change in people’s lives. Sometimes, I say to myself, “I need to touch people, just touch them slightly and if I hit the right buttons, the change will happen by itself like a ripple – the small change will cause another change that will trigger another change and it will expand and slowly touch more areas of life”.

Even my success is like that. I succeed at a small thing that expands and my success grows.

A woman who came to one of my workshops was a wonderful example of this success.

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Confident Kids

Most kids develop some kind of a hobby as they grow up – dancing, basketball, music, art and so on. Nowadays, this usually means their parents have to shuttle them to and from practice, games, concerts and other events. Whenever the parents see their kids perform or display their results, they are pleased, but treat the whole affair as something the kids will eventually grow out of.

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Confession of an Author

Although my mom could not read properly, my dad read a lot of books. He was a crossword puzzle and word search person and eagerly solved everything in the daily and weekend papers when I was a kid. Most of the books in our home library he won by sending his answers to the newspapers. Inside each one was a sticker saying he had won this book as a first, second or third prize. So you see, for me, books were rewards since before I was able to read.

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Homeless World Cup

If you watch any news broadcast or read any newspaper, it is very easy to get a doom and gloom feeling on a daily basis. In fact, bad news seems to be propagated a lot faster than good news in the workplace, in social circles and on social media sites (many of the most popular articles seem to be horrible). This is why I was so excited to find the Homeless World Cup.

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Ask and You Shall Receive

Carolyn came to coaching with the big desire to understand herself. She was talented and efficient, yet life was not going in the direction she wanted. Job after job, although she had been very able to “deliver the goods”, she had missed out on promotions when the time had come. Her renovated house was a mess and, although she knew all she needed to know about budgeting, all of her money had vanished towards unexpected renovation expenses, unexpected events (death in the family) and a very long court case against her husband.

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Dark Chocolate Girl

Last week, during one of my workshop for “Together for Humanity”, one of the kids came to us in the break. She stood at the entrance of the community room, hesitating a bit. She was a beautiful looking girl, tall and dark, and looked like she had come from Africa.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked in a shy voice.

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When the Children Cry

I met Amir this year when we both worked for the “together for humanity” organization in Australia. He had black skin and spoke broken English. In the presentation we did together, he told the kids he was from Africa. It is amazing, but most of us in the organization are either educators or social workers. Amir was only in his first year of study for his Social Work degree. As part of the program, he talked to the kids about being “black” and suffering for it. I did not know quite what he meant when he said “suffering”.

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Aren’t We Lucky?

A couple of weeks ago, there was a special event at Southbank, the park along the Brisbane River. Among other things, there was a large enclosure, where an organization called Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) showed a model of a refugee camp and took groups of people on guided tours. The line before the gate of the model refugee camp was very long, but we decided to wait.

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