The Daffodil Principle
Submitted by Richelle on Tue, 06/01/2010 - 11:43.
Ms. Jean Enriquez, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women-Asia Pacific emailed to me a powerpoint presentation about the "Daffodil Principle. Some of the lines which really had a great impact on me are these...
"The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time...learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of tiime. When we multiply tiny pieces of time, with small increments of daily effort, we too, will find we can accomplish magnificent things... We can change the world."
Great things start from small things... The good things that we do, no matter how small they seem to be at first, have worth. They are instrumental in making the larger picture appears even greater.
Thank you for sharing this
Thank you for sharing this Agot ... this has encouraged me. The past days I've been wondering do I really matter? Are my efforts everyday in trying to live up to my different roles enough? Do they determine my value as a person? Sometimes it seems to me that I am too focused on serving others, trying to make sure their life is better and easy, that for always I am readily there for them...and then at the end of each day, I ask myself how about me? Do I really matter? My feelings? My pains? My aspirations? Your post has reminded me that every little effort, the little things that I do everyday...they do matter.
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Think of all the things that were thought impossible -- until they happened!
Learning to love the doing...
'Learning to love the doing' is one personal thing but the effect of which can go a long way. Just like how a simple smile to someone can also lead that person to share the same smile to others and the others do the same -- a ripple effect! The movie Pay it Forward can better demonstrate it. This also reminds me of St Therese of Lisieux's 'The Little Way'...
Yes, we can effect change... just will it!
"We can do no great things, only small things with great love." -- Mother Teresa
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'Love is embracing all and loving especially the unlovables.'
Pay it Forward
Our human nature gives us the tendency to ask payment if something is being taken or borrowed. Our norms of reciprocity or utang na loob, for most Filipinos, would lead us to expect favors to be returned if not now then in the future. The Golden Rule tells us to do to others what we want them to do to us.
But those were not running in the mind of the 11-year-old boy in the movie Pay it Forward, not because he is not a Filipino but because he was thinking of something more important. He was thinking of how he could change the world as instructed by their social studies teacher. What he thought of was a kind of chain in which once we receive kindness from others,we should pass kindness to other people...
The movie revolves around the struggle of the school boy on how he will remain good despite being bullied by other kids bigger than him and despite being teased because he was raised by a single mom. This is a story of returning back love not just to those who loved us but even to those who don't.
Change must start from within, but only after allowing others to experience what change has lead us to do can we start changing the world for good. How the child did his assignment is something for us to see and reflect in this film. How we will do our own mission in this world, how we will make it better, is another important story we have to make... We all have assignments to make in this world...
"For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and future."
-Jeremiah 29:11-