Christmas is just around the corner.
For some of you, reading this Christmas has already started. Many children and grown-ups in the Western world have plenty of things, perhaps too many, to be really grateful for this fact. This situation is not so in Syria, Iraq, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Even in many parts of the US, were poverty is dominant. Here many children and their parents have no opportunity to celebrate their Holy Season with presents and goods like most of us.
Like many others I think it’s important for our Christmas celebration to be much more than a shopping orgy and an excessive exhange of expensive presents.
Nevertheless, Christmas is a time to celebrate altruism vs egoism, hospitality vs. exclusion, and friendliness vs. hostility. But there are many ways of practicing these deeds. Instead of waiting for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day to be nice, there is a fine opportunity to start this very moment.
As human beings we know that the longing for accept, respect and friendliness from others is strong. There’s nothing better than to be met with a positive attitude. To be seen, acknowledged and listened to with interest and the feeling of belonging is a present better than any otherwinner.
You can test this assertion the next time you go to town, or meet someone at the station, airport, bus stop, or in a ticket queue. For many lonely people, their only experience of togetherness and contact with humanity, is this short moment of friendly talk with you, – a supposedly stranger, seeming to be not so unfamiliar and strange after your nice encounter.
People are like horses, – herd animals. It’s not natural for us to be all alone. Sometimes this staying alone, is just a refuge from a hostile family situation or cold neighborhood, where we always feel a bit awkward at the best, and totally lost at its worst.
Try to think how you would like to be met yourself, the next time you meet someone. Some people in big cities have made it their lifestyle to be cold, effective, distant and goal oriented, avoiding friendliness and small talk. If they seem friendly sometimes, it’s usually just a strategy to achieve something valuable for them.
This is of course an external armor these few persons have taken on. Usually this special stance is caused by disappointments on being met by interest, respect, dignity and love. So, whoever you meet on your way these days, there is ample opportunity to change their conception of man. Remember you are a neutral person in the first place. A person that is separate from the persons who have let this person down in some way. That’s the crucial point in this approach.
So please smile at, nod friendly, and talk to others whenever you have the chance. Try not to be shy, and if you’re met by avoidance or ungratefulness, it’s not your fault. You have tried to be nice, and you have tried to cheer someone up, and that’s just wonderful!
Today I met one Japanese, and four Chinese young people on my walk around a famous lake in my city. The temperature was 10 C, below zero, very cold but sunny Wonder Winterland, and we stood around a bonfire trying to “defrost”. Ten minutes of friendly talk here and exchange of experiences with Christmas, the winter, and the city, warmed us even more than the bonfire.
You can make a change! Your friendly acts towards your brothers and sisters in the vast family of human beings on the earth, can be your most important Christmas present this year!
YOU! Light up your surroundings with a friendly and active approach!