Friday, October 28, 2011

Compassion for Crumpled Paper

I´ve seen this story on various social media sites - and now I´m re-posting in here. Thoughtful.

"Paula - A teacher in New York was teaching her class about bullying and gave them the following exercise to perform. She had the children take a piece of paper and told them to crumple it up, stamp on it and really mess it up but do not rip it. Then she had them unfold the paper, smooth it out and look at how scarred and dirty is was. She then told them to tell it they’re sorry. ...Now even though they said ......they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, she pointed out all the scars they left behind. And that those scars will never go away no matter how hard they tried to fix it. That is what happens when a child bully’s another child, they may say they’re sorry but the scars are there forever. The looks on the faces of the children in the classroom told her the message hit home."

Thursday, October 6, 2011

On passion, Steve Jobs and Tomas Tranströmer

On this strange day Steve Jobs left earth and Tomas Tranströmer became the winner of this years Nobel Prize in literature. They are/were both amazing men and extraordinary raw models when it comes to following your heart and persuading your passion.
Having lived in Silicon Valley and being deeply in love with my Macbook/Iphone/Ipod/Apple-tv it was more than sad to wake up to the news of Jobs death. But during the day, what kept coming back to me was the blogpost My neighbor Steve that I read a few months ago, the one about the next door guy and the father who stood with tears streaming down his face at the graduation of his son. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.
I payed my own tribute to Jobs through a long trip to the playground with Zoë in the unusually warm rain, thinking about the blessings of children and how we actually have more power than we think to form our own lives.
In the evening I showed Sun and Ida my old, worn book with Tranströms poems. Then we watched Steve Jobs Stanford-speech together and I felt embarrassed because I almost cried. Rest in peace, Steve - and Congratulations Tomas.