gandhi said, Be the change you wish to see.
As an English teacher, I might query his grammar. However, language is changing all the time and the leaders such as royalty and presidents and prime ministers set the trend, so I'll let that pass. The important thing is that you understand the message, that you could and should make the changes you would like to see made. Many of them are within your power. I recently asked a friend at Toastmasters, "Could you be the Toastmasters of the Day for a contest? Have you done it before?"
She replied, "I haven't done it before - but I can find out how to do it.
Garden Opportunities
In the UK as young married we had a home with a back garden (which Americans call a yard) containing apple trees.
We also shared houses with gardens in the USA. We could have grown something and left it behind for the others.So what if we were only there temporarily, for a few weeks.
Students And Teachers
I remember when I was a student in London, England, during the holidays another girl asked to move out of her larger room into a smaller one just for the summer holiday of six weeks.
Painting A Room White
She had asked for white paint and painted the first room white. She asked again and was given white paint to fix up the second room. In the end she had painted three rooms in the building.
Students And Teachers
I remember when I was a student in London, England, during the holidays another girl asked to move out of her larger room into a smaller one just for the summer holiday of six weeks.
Painting A Room White
She had asked for white paint and painted the first room white. She asked again and was given white paint to fix up the second room. In the end she had painted three rooms in the building.
Her skill, her interest in life, was decorating, painting, improving the place, for herself, then for others. She was intent on doing it the day she moved in.
For some of us it takes longer. We don't do it until we see someone else do it.
Cleaning A Communal Kitchen
Cooking In the same student building when I moved in the kitchen was filthy. I took one look and decided never to touch it.
Cleaning Later another girl moved in. She instantly cleaned the entire kitchen and started cooking. She made food for everybody in the building as a housewarming.
Housewarming And Making Friends
In the Netherlands, you are expected to invite the neighbours in and offer food on arrival in a new neighbourhood. If you do, you instandly have friends. If you don't, nobody will speak to you. Simple. One of my friends in Singapore whose husband worked for an oil company was given instructions by the company on the etiquette of the country they were moving to.
You could do the same in every country. Make friends of your neighbours.
The women in my shared student house invited boys to have supper. A different boy every night for a week. By the end of the week she was settled with one. She was in her thirties, plump and plain and spoke broken English. Yet, she soon had a shy, good-looking boyfriend, a PHD student, ten years younger than herself.
I was struggling to find a steady boyfriend. Lots of dates and would be one night stands. I remember asking her, "How did you get a steady boyfriend? What's the secret?"
She told me her secret, "You don't know? You know already. Everybody know. Easy to get steady boyfriend."
"How?"
"You have English saying. Way to man's heart is stomach."
"You mean - 'the way to a man's heart is through his stomach?' "
"Yes! See. You know already."
One day she and her boyfriend split up. No problem. By next weekend she had another. The first one wanted to come back. Where boyfriends were concerned, she had quality, not quantity.
GandhiSometimes we can copy other. Sometimes we finally are overcome by the urge to do it ourselves. As Gandhi said, 'Be the change you wish to see.'
About the AuthorAngela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See my other posts on making marmalade. See later post on Gandhi.
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