"Una persona tan despreciable"

I am sure that most of you were struck by a harsh feeling while watching this short video… “A despicable person” What a horrible expression, isn’t it? 

According to the WordReference Dictionary, despicable means: “deserving to be despised” and “worthy of being despised”. If you think about these definitions, two questions might cross your mind: Who are the ones in charge of classifying someone as being despicable? and, which are the parameters to tell whether someone is despicable or not?

From my point of view, nobody has that kind of power... We are the ones who directly attribute to ourselves that power and even choose the parameters to work out the “election of our victims”. We can despise a person for several reasons: Religion, culture, social class, music they listen to, or like in the video, their skin, among others.

This behaviour may be just a natural part of our human essence; it may be something we just do without taking into account correctness... Or, it may also be something we have been creating while evolving into a society, a power-hungry society focused on the existence of the superior race. 

We don’t know the answer but the thing is that this behaviour - let’s call it being a racist - has cost us a wide amount of lives, has made us experience misery, grudge, separations and even wars.

We don’t know which the starting point of racism was but we do have to stop with it! Racism is one of the large numbers of characteristics that make us doubt about our evolution... 

There is no worth for racism to exist and keep destroying our community.

The change starts on us, let's not be despisers, let’s be accepters.

Andy

Being a teacher

 If you google the name of the author of this quote, Forest E. Witcraft, you will realize that little is known about his life. But, if you google his quote you will find it in several web pages used by a wide amount of authors in different contexts. This is so because nothing can detract from the fact that these are rousing words.

In Argentina, in September 11th teacher’s day is celebrated. This date has been chosen in memorial of the death of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, our 7th President to whom we thank his strong concern over education.

Still, I am not going to make a historical display here as well as I am not going to make any biographical description. I am going to write about teachers as a group of people in charge of forming other people to do well in life. It doesn’t seem an easy task, does it? Let me clarify something before going on; September 11th is the date in which primary teachers celebrate and September 17th is the date in which secondary teachers celebrate in our country. However, this year, both dates have been joined and it has even been declared a national holiday.

Being a teacher in my country doesn’t entail a huge monetary reward, salaries are low, materials are not enough or are in poor conditions, and sometimes the buildings are deplorable. If you are a primary teacher, you have to work with at least 60 students per day in a full time job in two different schools and, of course, with different groups of students with their particular characteristics. If you are a secondary teacher, you have to work in several institutions with different groups of students in different social contexts, with different needs and realities. You may be asking yourselves why... A decent life, yes, that is the answer.

Argentinean Educational System is full of irregularities and the one I previously mentioned is the one I disregard the most and that isn’t only because of monetary conditions, that isn’t even the most important reason... It is because of despersonification. Individuality is lost and our duty becomes mechanical...

Nevertheless, even if we consider every single negative aspect of our work, nothing can be compared with the most suitable reward for us: Appreciation, growth and happiness. If there is only one student whose development we can witness or whose love we can experience, that will be enough.

We don’t have to give the system the chance of blowing us down. It is our duty to change our students’ view of the world with tiny things such as acting as models for them, making them reflect on different aspects of life or just making comments about different issues. We should listen to them, make them laugh and enjoy being at school. They should feel comfortable inside the classroom and be proud of their learning process. We need to be an important part of their life, as Witcraft says.

We have to learn from our personal experiences as students and as teachers and give our best every day. Our main objectives have to be our students – children, teenagers, adults- and their welfare... Other aspects are secondary in this interaction student-teacher, interaction that needs to be carried out with love and devotion.

Andy    

Aprende a quererte y respetarte, porque tendrás que vivir contigo toda la vida.

I cannot help but smile while observing this simple but meaningful image.

I don’t know either who the author is or the main objective of its creation which makes me feel absolutely attracted to it.

I could do a research about this image on Google and I might find something interesting related to it but that would only limit my imagination. I love being still able to close my eyes, smell sweet perfume or just look at a vivid photo album  to recall almost every hidden detail Immersed in my mind. My mind is generally a welcoming and warm place to stay in so I frequently take imaginary trips to it.

This particular trip begins when I bump into this image and I not only discern the shape of a real woman hugging an imaginary one but the shape of a real woman hugging her real self. You may be asking yourselves what I mean with REAL... And what I mean is imperfect, yes, perfectly imperfect. This image portrays acceptance, respect and love. As I stated in the title (quote whose author I don’t know) of my post, we will be living with us forever and ever and there is no divorce or way of cancelling the contract. This comes with us from the moment we are conceived and we have to assert with this fact, to accept ourselves, respect and love us.

“If you don’t love yourself, you won’t be able to love someone else”, that is one of my basic precepts in life. Every single and tiny aspect of our everyday life starts on us; everything depends on how we face things and how we go through them... We have to work inside ourselves to cope with the outside world; we have to keep the balance between our mind, body and soul... We are the ones that have the obligation of making us happy and choose the people we want to walk the path of life with. We have to learn from our mistakes and try to repeat our successful actions. Forgiveness should be a must and welfare should be our main objective.

I invite you to change the perspective though which you see your life! Try to magnify your cheers not your sorrows! Try to pay more attention to what you have rather than to what you are missing. MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY! Accept yourself, respect yourself and love yourself!

PS: I hope this image makes you think about the role you play in your own life. Which is the position you have in your top ten priorities' list? Value yourself, take care of your mind, soul and body.

Have a lovely half of the week!

Andy