Measure yourself in smiles

Smiles given + smiles received. Isn't an awesome idea?

Patricia

A request that takes courage

Life is about choices we make. “Yes, we can” and “Just do it!”, such iconic slogans. Are they there to inspire us or are they thrown at us?

It takes courage to choose. It takes courage to choose not to play it safe and risk assuming to have failed. It takes courage to face the feeling of vulnerability, loss, unworthiness. It takes courage to open our souls.

Consequently we hide, promoting only our successes, showing only our strengths, and laying out only our accepted and conventional being. And by doing so we get tedious, we bore others to tears because it is in the admission of our vulnerabilities, in the disclosure of our fragilities, in the display of our authentic incoherence that we grow interesting and likeable. It is impossible to get bored when a person tells you, sincerely, what they have suffered, failed at or what were they exposed to.

We live with the sense of greatness. That one needs to be magnificent. And to one extent we are indeed magnificent. However we are not by conforming but to embracing each individual uniqueness and thus we should cultivate a sense of humility as well.

It takes courage, to assume one did not really changed but simply allowed the mask to fall off. And I would like to invite you to step forward and take the mask off too, while communicating to me.

Patricia

Tradition, art and elegance combined

“The beauties of the horse reside in the nobleness, the grace, the boldness of his movements, their splendid achievement, their energy. The beautiful horsemanship, in its delicacy and its good taste, seeks the development of these gifts belonging to the horse, and not in perverting them. It is nature which we take as a guide, and not the extraordinary, the eccentric which we seek.”General Alexis L’Hotte.

The Portuguese School of Equestrian Art (Escola Portuguesa de Arte Equestre), preserves and teaches Portugal's long tradition and renowed heritage of classical horsemanship and equestrian art. One of the four traditional big riding academies. A lifestyle. Simply beautiful.

Patricia

A better person. Everyday.

Let's try to keep these virtues in mind:
- Resilience;
- Empathy;
- Patience;
- Sacrifice;
- Politeness;
- Humor;
- Self-awareness;
- Forgiveness;
- Hope;
- Confidence.

And practice a little every day.

From The School of Life.

More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.

"I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone - if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost....

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men - cries out for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. .....

Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! 

Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then - in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!"

Charles Chaplin

Powerful

We all are. Each in his/her way.

Patricia

This morning gift

Love.

Patricia

We are all children of chance

Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun. Care for those around you. Look past your differences. Their dreams are no less than yours, their choices no more easily made. And give, give in any way you can, of whatever you posses. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.

Kent Nerburn

What did you choose today?

Choices, the act or effect of choosing.

Option. Preference. Selection.

To live is to choose.

 What did you choose today?

Did you choose to be happy?

Did you choose to wear blue?

Did you choose your companion?

What choices drove you where you are today?

Are there right choices?

Are there wrong choices?

In a perfect world everyone is free to make choices.

In a perfect world there are choices that should’ve never been made.

A perfect world, to exist, depends only on our choices.

What did you choose today?

Choose more, choose everything.

Make sure you choose.

Happiness is a combination of luck with good choices.

Prefer, put aside, make an option.

Choose the wind in the face.

Choose the feet in the sand.

What did you choose today?

Choose a perfect brewed coffee

And a good chat.

Choose the ideal moment and keep it forever.

What did you choose today?

Between the points A and B, avoid straight lines.

Curves are straight lines that choose to be interesting.

Choose dreams, who said that real life needs reality?

Inaccurate was the poet

Life is not made of change only, life is fundamentally, absolutely, hopelessly, made of choices.

In 2015, Monocle Magazine chose Portugal to host its Quality of Life Conference.

Great choice.

From Visit Portugal Website 

Patricia

Everything I ever wanted

is right in front of me

and gives me butterflies.

Patricia

Patience, above all else, is what is needed right now

As I suppose any child, while growing up, I was constantly told that patience is a virtue. However, it was a virtue that I lacked. My experience was that patience was a synonym of missing out on something I desired and thus I wondered how significant the quality was. Hence I was always fast tracking myself throughout different aspects of my personal and professional life – in fear I would miss out.

Again, I knew patience was a virtue – so I had been told. I accepted that it was not my strong point and did nothing about it just keeping fast forwarding. Like the rabbit from the child tale the rabbit and the turtle. Only that, in the story, the rabbit decides to stop and take a short nap whereas I really didn't. And so I got to the point of exhaustion.

I was about to learn why patience is a virtue and that patience may have different faces: overcoming the impulse of reacting to someone upsetting you; facing boredom; or - the one I was struggling at this moment - to face a health condition. In my case being the patience required of me to face the long process of recovering from exhaustion. Ans doing nothing is very hard to do, because you never know when you are finished! I also learned patience does not come naturally - not to me, at least - so I need to train it. Train to be the turtle, always moving yet at a natural pace.

It is said that nothing teaches like experience. We gain moral maturity each moment precisely because each moment brings some difficulty that we must overcome. And among the virtues gained through difficulty is patience. I now know I lack patience, but I learned why it is important and, mostly, that I should seek to exercise it – yes, we spend so long ensuring we keep in physical/healthy shape and so little ensuring we keep our ethical shape…

And so, as Neal Donald Walsh, refers to it: “Patience, above all else, is what is needed right now. Do not let anxiousness or frustration take over. Conditions on the exterior of your experience will change, but your highest benefit will be achieved when conditions on your interior remain the same. Hold on to your inner peace. Reclaim your identity. Trust your higher wisdom. Look to the grander vision.”

Patrícia

Pround of who I am

From time to time and in the heart of all the pressure, I seem to forget all the wonderful, unique things about myself. I stick to my perfectionism pursuit and inner critic and simply tear apart my self-confidence.

Yes, there are wrong things in me, starting with this perfectionism pursuit (that should be rather a progress pursuit, I know). Yet, trying to be anyone else is a waste of the person I am. And, thinking about it, there are more right things than wrong in me.

In my head (I believe induced by society) if I make a mistake, I fail at life. Yet, the only way to truly fail is to never have tried.

The caterpillar story comes to mind again: a very hungry caterpillar, stuffing itself with leaves, growing longer and bigger. One day, the caterpillar stops eating, hangs upside down and spins itself a silky cocoon. Within this protective casing, the caterpillar radically transforms its body, eventually emerging as a butterfly. I feel (or hope) to be in that process and yet, no one seems to be able to explain me what does that radical transformation entails. I suppose because I need to be alone in the cocoon, follow my own path and think that the fact of simply being alive is the greatest achievement of all and I cannot trap myself in the prison of fear.

I wish to be myself. Embrace the individual inside me that has ideas, strengths and beauty like no one else. Be the person I know to be – the best version of me – on my terms. Above all, I wish to be true to myself, and if I cannot put my heart into something I need to do, then I should take myself out of it.

When I start doubting of myself, I need to remember how far I have come. Remember everything that I already have tackled, all the battles I have won, and all the fears I have overcome. And I'll do it again.

Patricia

Kindness

Be nice to somebody every day, you might be the only one who does. 

Here is what random acts of kindness looks like.

Patricia

Today

"Aujourd'hui est notre bien le plus précieux." 

In L’art de la simplicité from Dominique Loreau

Inner voice

A vast majority of us - from past and gone generations and also nowadays - live their lives responding to expectations from family, friends and society. I included. I have been living my life listening to outside voices – respectful, loving, firm and loud voices – yet outside voices.

Yes, listening and after thinking, taking decisions. Sometimes. Often, however, in auto-pilot mode, just following those external voices. They seemed precise. I knew some of the people voicing it and they could only mean well in their advice. They came from experts so I could only assume it was right. And, every so often, I did well in following them. It was easy, the pressure to correspond to the expectation was not over the top and was, usually, reachable. And it came with an extra: it made me feel a piece of the world out there. Of belonging to a tribe.

Before the storm, I had this feeling of something being wrong. My quiet inner voice was whispering it to me (and to be fair there was also one external voice saying it). But I couldn't hear it, with so much noise from external voices, expectations, idea of status – all holding me back.

Then came the storm. Big one. From the inside and the outside. Very confusing. The experts told me what to do. And I followed. I could see the storm right from its center. Although following their instructions on how to deal with the storm, it just didn't feel right. I started questioning their expertise: how can they be experts in how to deal with my storm? How can I allow it? So I’m trying to hear my (so far spineless) inner voice, my intuition, my gut feeling, what tells me what truly am I.

I started asking if I have to fear external and unwanted expectations? If they have to change who I am to “fit in”? What is this voice that I hear: is it mine or someone’s else? What I am doing is, it out of pressure or made out of love? Am I doing something because I tell myself to do it or is this what someone else thinks I “should” do?

We all have an inner voice we need to listen to because it tells us what feels right. For each one of us. And what feels right is, most probably, right.

Patrícia 

Planting a seed

When you come out of a storm you are not the same person that walked in.

Life is hard – very, very hard. There is no need to make it harder by making harmful choices, surrounding yourself with people who feel no love and are not kind. And it is more than just towards you, it’s to everyone.

This is about general kindness and concern for all people, the people that matter to us and those we don’t even know. It is about authenticity. It is about doing what is right.  

Life is about growth, discovery and personal evolution. Love yourself where ever you are. Find meaning in your choices. And when you ache for change because what you are doing no longer represents who you are, don't wait, take advantage of your new found intrinsic motivation.

Here is the soil where seeds will be planted. And, hopefully, where over time, it can be seen growing.

Because when you plant a seed of love, of kindness, of compassion, it is you who blossoms. And maybe that’s what the storm is all about…

Patrícia