I met this beautiful lady several months ago, she is a nurse who became very sick, lost her job, lost her health insurance, could not afford her medical bills, lost her home and now she lives on the streets of DC waiting for her terminal cancer to take her to heaven.
I often stop by to talk to her, and every time she sees me she has a grin on her face and a little tear of joy. This morning, I stopped by for a minute to say hello, and saw that she had put some red lipstick and pink blush. I said to her, “you look pretty today” “Sometimes I just want to feel good” she replied with a smile… and my heart smiled as well. So, I ask myself: What is wrong with the system? How did we become so immune to people’s misery? I am not a policy maker, so I don’t have an answer but I do know that health and education should be a right for every citizen. We should all be persistent on putting pressure on our elected leaders to learn to work together and find a solution. I know that it is going to take a while to improve the system, yet we must stay optimistic and vigilant. Although I may not have the answers, I know that small gestures can make a big difference in peoples lives. As a young entrepreneur, my first business venture folded as my life did as well. I did not have any money to pay for school, rent or food. I was evicted, left alone in the street, hungry, without a single penny in my pocket. What kept me going? My pride. My Pride, would not allow me to accept defeat or a call for help, even though many times I was ready to give up. I was completely broke but I never lost hope. I kept my posture and my smile. I would speak in a loud confident voice and always dressed in clean and ironed clothing. I would talk about my ideas and did not show defeat. Slowly I got back on my feet and began building my business. Most of the people who were never in that situation, see themselves as better people; they look down at homeless not understanding that it is so easy to follow that path and that the majority of the street-people are just looking for a crack in the door, an opportunity to begin again! They are looking for a smile, a straight-look in the eye that conveys support, “you can do it!” They are human beings fighting to keep their own dignity. We all should make a conscious effort to acknowledge them, to talk to them, to ask them questions and to learn their story. It is lonesome to be homeless, and just taking a few seconds to smile or to ask how someone's day is going, can make a big difference in his/her day. Rememeber: sometimes we all just want to feel good!
0 Comments
After reading the book Love by Leo Buscaglia, Daniela, our daughter wrote an essay about her summer experience at a Syrian refugee camp, her view about love and the conection with the book. Great essay! LOVE by Daniela Fraga-Abaza Leo Buscaglia taught a class called the “Love Class”. His novel, Love is a compilation of lectures and themes he taught and learned from his students in that class. Buscaglia says love has no definition, but all throughout Love he basically defines what love is really about. He talks about how to live in love and what real love is. While reading this book, I was constantly thinking about my life and questioning my habits of love. I thought about how I am living in love the right way, and what areas of living in love I need to work on. Throughout Love I kept on thinking about my own experiences of love. Many of the major themes in the book made me constantly look back on and think about my experience of volunteering at a Syrian refugee camp in Greece. During my three weeks volunteering at the camp, I learned more about love than I could have in a lifetime of staying at home. All the relationships I built, and everything I learned and saw taught me valuable things that Buscaglia emphasizes in his book. Buscaglia wants the readers to apply his book to their own lives, and this is how his book applied to mine. Responsible love is to share. I always thought of myself as a loving person, but after volunteering at the refugee camp and reading Love I realize I wasn't nearly sharing enough love. I heard about the Syrian refugee crisis in the news, but I never felt close to the problem. It felt so far away and had no direct effect on me. I obviously felt awful about the situation, but I never did anything to help. That is the selfish truth. It wasn't until I went and volunteered at the camp, and built friendships with the refugees and volunteers, did I feel the need to take responsibility for the refugee crisis around the world. Buscaglia shares an example, in which a professor of a sociology class at an eastern American college asked his students to donate ten cents to either save peoples lives who were suffering from a severe drought in Southern India, an excellent black student’s college fund who was being forced to leave school because of a huge family misfortune, or a new Xerox machine for the students to use which would make their lives at school easier. To my surprise, over 85 percent of the students donated their money towards the new Xerox machine, 12 percent was given to the black student, and 3 percent was given to save lives in Southern India. This proves that, “The further away the problem the less was the responsibility to share felt”. I was guilty of this mentality until I realized that there is always something we can do. Buscaglia taught me that all people are my responsibility and I need to share my love with the whole world. Love was always shared amongst the refugees and volunteers, and was key to helping change lives. My experience at the refugee camp made it clear that no matter how far away I am, to take even a little responsibility for other people and share my love, can only create something positive. Love isn't an object, and by sharing it you won’t lose any love, you can only gain and grow. Love is only real and meaningful when it is shared. By not sharing love, it becomes pointless. True love means personal growth in all parties involved. Every single Syrian refugee in the camp had a tragic story of how they ended up in Greece. They all lived in a war zone and are lucky to have survived. They all lost friends or family to the war and are some of the very few lucky ones that got out of there. The goal at the refugee camp is to help the refugees find a new home in Europe and become citizens of that country. The refugees who were open to love reciprocated my love, which caused a mutual and equal self-growth. I taught children and women English while they were teaching me Arabic. Mothers taught me how to properly change a diaper, while I taught them the importance of dental hygiene. All the refugees taught me to stay positive no matter what, while I helped them try to find a safe, new home. With these rough and traumatic pasts, not all the refugees were open to love and learning. I volunteered there for three weeks, and the whole time there was a young man, Zaid, who barely ever left his room. I saw him only when he came out to get food during lunch and breakfast hours. Overtime I tried to talk to him, but he would immediately become defensive and rude. I tried to breakthrough his defensive shell, but sadly I never could. Every single day I tried to share love with him, but he was never open to it. He had seen so much evil and darkness that it seemed like he gave up on the force of love. It was heartbreaking to see how negatively the war affected him. Compared to some of the other refugees, who were eager to turn their lives around, Zaid and so many others had given up. The people who were open to love didn't waste their human potential, while the people who were closed to love sadly wasted theirs. It was ultimately up to the refugees if they wanted to try and start a new life, or continue living in a refugee camp. People need to be open to love to accept it. “Real love is dedicated to continual becoming,” and by closing themselves off to love, some of the refugees sadly were never able to experience any sort of personal growth. Some refugees just took longer than others to accept the help and love they deserved. It is crucial to be “aware that each changes at his own rate,” and that all some people need is a push in the right direction. As a volunteer I couldn't give up on any of the refugees, and I realized that all some of them needed was time, but some never accepted the love volunteers and I tried to share. Love decays if there is no growth. I clearly saw this between the refugees that had a more positive look on their situation, than the refugees who only saw the negatives and refused help. The love was gone between these two different types of people. The love also decayed between the volunteers who were trying to share their love, and the refugees who refused to accept their love. Real love can last forever if it leads to self-growth, but once you stop growing in any relationship, the love will destroy itself. A key to real love is to say “Yes.” Opportunities, people, love, joy, and knowledge are all things that come around, but sometimes they only come around once in a lifetime. By saying, “Yes,” it allows these things to come into your life. By saying “No” to something you immediately exclude it; “to exclude it is to close it out, perhaps forever”. Throughout my 18 years on this Earth, I have learned to say “Yes” more often, and when I don't I tend to regret it. As soon as I heard my mom tell my brother, sister, and I that she was going to fly to Greece as a volunteer at a Syrian refugee camp, I knew I had to join her. My brother, sister, and I immediately planned a fundraiser and threw it two days later to raise money to cover our travel costs to Greece. It was all very last minute. We held the fundraiser one week before we were supposed to be volunteering at the camp. By saying, “Yes” to this opportunity, I said, “Yes” to love, knowledge, and life. I knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to help an issue I saw on the news daily, and knew the experience of going to a refugee camp was priceless. “For you are your words,” and by saying, “Yes,” I took a huge step on the path of discovering love. To learn to love, you must experience it. Love is a confusing thing for me. I can’t say that I have ever been in love, but I do know that I love my family and friends. Going to the refugee camp, I experienced a tremendous amount of love. I never met these refugees before, but as soon as I got there, children ran up to me and hugged me, mothers gave me kisses on my cheeks, and fathers shook my hand and thanked me for being there. I was overwhelmed with the amount of love being shared around me. I had to walk out and take a minute to collect myself. I’ve never experienced that amount of love in such a short time with so many people. None of the refugees knew anything about me, yet they trusted me and shared their love with me. I saw a type of love I had never seen before. I saw that all humans are capable of loving each other, and love is something that needs to be shared worldwide, and not just with our special someone, or families and friends. Without this experience I would remain with my small idea of love, which was limited to what I had scene in chick flicks. The existentialist says, “To be is to do”. Taking action and creating experiences are very powerful. You must experience something in order to learn about it. If you want to love, you need to be an active participant of love. If you aren't an active participant of whatever you want to learn about and you don't gain experiences, there is no way you will gain the proper knowledge. Buscaglia asks us to live a reflective and conscious life. He tells us what love and life are really about, and ways to apply it to our lives. We apply his book to our own lives, consciously and subconsciously throughout the whole book. Our brain automatically makes connections with ideas from the present to past experiences. The major themes in Love constantly made me think about my experience working with the Syrian refugees. Reading this book allowed me, for the first time, to really look back and reflect on my experience at the refugee camp. It all happened so fast that I never had the time to think about what I took away from the experience and how it made me grow as a person. Buscaglia made me realize that my experience was crucial to my idea of love. I never thought about the connection between love and my experience in Greece, but now I see that my experience had a direct effect on my path of learning to live in love. Buscaglia successfully gets the reader to reflect on their past, present, and future; and successfully shows the importance love has on every single thing humans do. He puts love in every equation, and shows the endless definitions and ways of living in love. He gives “Love” the importance it deserves. _Today I got a great message from an old friend: “Its been a long time - sorry to hit you up out of the blue. I've been working on a project that is going to be opening next week, and I wanted to invite you to the opening party. You were a huge influence for me way back then when I was working for you, and I don't think I would be where I am today if is was not for you. I really appreciate you taking me under your wing when I was so young.” What a great compliment, Thank you, thank you! _Many years ago, when we were young, my girlfriend at that time made a comment, “you are always exciting people, you are always trying to change the way they think… keep in mind, not everyone is like you. Some are happy with their lives, others are not willing to risk it…” Well, at that time I disagreed with her and with time she understood what I was trying to do. _All of us have a dream yet the majority of us do not know where to begin. On the other hand, some of us, “the old school” have managed to build something, have managed to follow our passions. We have learned from our failures and successes and have plenty of experiences and knowledge: knowledge that should be shared! We, “the experienced ones” have the obligation help people to find their purpose. We have the obligation to spark that light, to get people excited about their passions. We have the obligation to motivate young people to be in control of their lives, of their future. Our job is to cultivate a new generation with principles and strengths that will promote a positive impact in this world. We might not be able to get everybody moving, yet if we manage to change one person’s life, we have done it right! “If you want people to listen to you, share your knowledge!” MFR While riding a cab to the airport, the driver and I established a great rapport. We talked about our kids, our business and life in general; we laughed, agreed and disagreed but at the end we had a great interaction. Before reaching the terminal he turned around and said to me: “ This is the best conversation that I ever had with a passenger. The way you express yourself, there is no chance of misinterpretation.” A few minutes later, while dropping me at the gate, he gave me a strong handshake and repeated: “I meant it, this is the best conversation that I ever had with a passenger, have a safe trip.” Great complement, even though I know that I’m not the most approachable person in the room. Thank you, thank you! So here is my thought: Approachable people listen and pay attention. They interact, ask questions and do their best to understand by showing genuine concern and kindness. They smile and talk about positive things; they make people feel good. They are real. People are drawn to approachable people because they feel that they matter to that person; with that person they have their spirits lifted not looked down on. Always keep in mind: It takes no effort to be nice, to give a sincere compliment, to be kind to a person. Most of the time we are so wrapped up in ourselves that we miss out on the beauty of meeting and interacting with a stranger. A kind word can make a big difference on a person’s moment, day or life! - MFR What am I thankful for?
Too often, I get caught up with all the little things that are going wrong in my life and begin to lose optimism. Although, I have plenty to be grateful for, my mind forgets about all the good and just focuses on the bad. So today, I am getting rid of all the mind-clutter and resetting my mind by showing some gratitude… I am thankful for my family, for friends, for my health, for what I have and for what life has to offer me. I am thankful for the people that made an impact and made a difference in my life. I am thankful for all my blessings and foremost, I am thankful for my being! …Gratitude is an attitude for life! Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld Last night, our daughter Isabela approached me:
“Did you see what so and so posted?” “Yes” I replied “Can I post a comment about it?” she asked “No” I said, “We do not want to engage in anymore battles… “ Anyway, a friend of ours posted something similar to this: “I voted for Trump but I am tolerant, I am not a racist, a sexist or a homophobe.” Umm… I can understand why people are on the defense after voting for Trump; knowing that he and his crusaders managed to intimidate and threaten every minority group, denigrate all women, among other things… Although the vast majority of these voters never publicly agreed with his bigotry, they never denounced him; and that is the key “they never denounced and still voted for him!” So here is a suggestion to all these people that are on the defense and want to make amends: First, look around at your circle of friends and truly ask yourself: Are any of them different than you? How diverse are they, are they gay or straight, do they practice another religion or come from a different ethnicity group… If you feel that the majority of your friends look and think like you do, you are part of a “clique”, a small group of people who spend time together with shared interests in common, and readily allow others to join them; you are blocked from outside influence and have similar beliefs about people and the world. That being the case, I do not have any problem, we all belong to our own “clique”, however, lack of exposure is not an excuse for intolerance toward those who hold different opinions or look different than us. So my friend, I hope that from now on your actions will speak much louder than your vote; the next president has been chosen and there is nothing we can do about the choice, yet we can not become deaf or blind to his ruling; from now on we will loudly condemn xenophobia, bigotry and sexism. I am optimistic that you will stay vigilant and always stand up to intolerance! Early in the morning I came downstairs to work on my computer where I found one of our dogs sleeping alone on the couch; it was chilly so I grabbed a blanket and covered her before sitting next to her. Puchi, the dog, immediately moved closer to me, made some contentment sounds and went back to sleep.
_Gabriel, our son, while playing with a big dog accidently stepped on his paw, the dog got scared and protected himself by grabbing my son’s face with his mouth. His face got a couple of scratches, nothing serious; the animal did not try to hurt him, it was just caught off guard. At the time our son was 3 years old and smaller than the beast. After the incident, I watched how he behaved around dogs and saw that he was not the same again, always keeping his distance; Gabriel began to build a fear of dogs. Watching this behavior for a couple of weeks, I took charge and made an 'executive decision': without saying anything to my 'boss', my wife, I left home and drove for hours around the county in search for a dog, the right one for our family. Thinking: “If we do not take care of this fear now, it will grow and forever become a part of Gabriel.” When I arrived home, with the beautiful pup, Nesrin, my wife almost had a heart attack. “What are you thinking? I don’t like dogs, who is going to take care of it?” "Too late," I thought to myself. Meanwhile, our 3 toddlers were running away from the dog, the tiny dog was excited, “woof, woof, woof” trying to play with them, yet all 3 were on top of the couch not knowing how to react to her. That was 14 years ago, today at home we have 5 dogs. Nesrin, the one who was opposed the most to having a dog in our house now has a favorite, Pesto, the one who is allowed to sleep in our bed. Daniela has Lola and Isabela always gets Puchi, Chupa and Lupe before Gabriel snatches one before going to bed. _At home our dogs have been crucial in teaching all of us, especially to our children about understanding, awareness and compassion; about empathy! While caring for our pets all three kids have developed the ability to read nonverbal cues: body language, signals and sounds. They know when a dog runs to the door they better hurry up; it needs to use the bathroom. When a dog cries they know that it is because she is hungry or lonely; it is a cry for attention. A dog wags a tail to show content and lies down next to you to show loyalty, unconditional love. While caring for our pets they became less self-absorbed about themselves; understanding others feelings and having an increased sense of responsibility for providing for the needs of others. _As our kids grow up caring for our dogs they have learned empathy and compassion, loyalty and responsibility; values that they will hold onto forever. They have become upright individuals that know their deeds are a representation of them and a portrayal of their soul. Since when did we become more important than the reason why we came to this country?
This morning I asked someone who was he going to vote for and I was shocked by his response: “I am a Republican, I don’t like Trump, so there is no reason to vote,” he said. “Are you out of your mind” I replied “Can’t you see how important this election is?” “Well, I have been here for 40 years and I always voted Republican, and I don’t feel right voting for Hillary… neither deserve my vote!” He said. “Do you understand, not voting is giving the vote to Trump, it is accepting his bigotry, you as an immigrant should know better! I want to see your ‘I Voted’ sticker on the 8th,” I responded. _Anyway, I do have a thought: When people believe that no one is good enough for them, believing that their vote is far too precious to give to any candidate is when we have a problem. A vote is an instrument not a formality; it is a tool used to ensure that we get the government we prefer or the one we dislike the least. A vote is the only opportunity to have a voice. A vote is not about you, but about the good of the country and the people. It is our obligation to the freedoms bestowed upon us by living in a democratic country that gives us this fundamental right to vote. Always remember before wasting your vote: A vote is a right and today there are millions of people around the world who would be willing to risk their lives to have the right to vote so don’t diminish this right! A thought for me and the leadership of our company: Multi-task less and focus on just getting one task done at a time. We wrongly believe that multi-tasking is the way to move quickly, to accomplish things swifter; undertaking two, three, four tasks at once, we feel that we are accomplishing a lot, when in reality we are not doing much at all. Multitasking makes it more difficult to organize our thoughts; it harms our concentration and reduces the efficiency and quality of our work. So to the leadership, focus on getting just one thing done at a time; do it right and as promptly as possible. Keep in mind: Multitasking is not a skill, but rather a bad habit that we must put a stop to; multitasking is an excuse to procrastinate! |
Who I am today as a person is largely due to my failures! Archives
January 2024
|