In part, Nick, you are right. But there is another side of that coin. It is called "appreciation". In any relationship, appreciation for others is very important. Being "taken for granted" shows lack of respect, and respect for others is really part of showing courtesy or even of showing love. Peter is very good at showing appreciation. He does it sincerely and frequently. The daily tasks I do as a housewife could become "drudgery" very easily. They are never really finished - such as washing dishes, which must be done over and over because we must do them after every meal. It's not a difficult task, but it takes time and effort - and it requires care so they are really clean and no one will get sick from eating off contaminated utensils or plates. Being given recognition or appreciation (even if this is not the motive for doing the job) does make us feel appreciated, makes our hearts lighter and makes the task less onerous. This does not mean we do it for appreciation or recognition. It just means that having the recognition - the acknowledgment that others appreciate us - is a gift to our souls, and WE, in turn, really appreciate that. So I don't think you necessarily have to question YOUR motivation! Love, Jolie Hi, Nick, Showing genuine appreciation -- not just "lip service" -- is very important in any relationship. Some people seem to have the ability to give unstintingly without regard for the appreciation of others, yet I believe it takes a huge amount of maturity to reach that condition. In the meantime, it's important for you to think about these things and decide how to deal with them. Baha'u'llah says we must know ourselves, and getting to know ourselves is a lifetime process. As I get older I find that many of the things that really annoyed me when I was younger don't seem to bother me any more. I think the reason is that as I continue to study the Writings and re-examine my behavior, my motives, my very life in the context of those Writings, then things that were once important to me no longer seem so important. But this process is developmental and gradual. I like to think I'm progressing toward maturity. Don't dwell on the unpleasant things of life. Accept where you are at the moment and continue to work on letting each evening be better than the morning. Love, Peter

People sometimes would be tempted to think that it takes our energy to love and it is painful to love. When we hear that we should love everyone, we say to ourselves “I can’t do that. I’m not a saint.” Why do you think it is so hard to love, or to do something good for others? Shouldn’t we get more energy from loving others and helping others? I remember the days when I was in Linfen living with the other boys. We often cooked dinner at home. Therefore we made the rules as whoever cooks doesn’t have to wash the dishes. I gladly took the responsibility to cook for everyone from time to time. For a while it is quite difficult for some other boys to remember washing the dishes after I cooked. And if they forgot, I would get to wash the dishes the next day when I wanted to cook again. This was quite annoying and it happened to me many times. So finally, I decided to wash the dishes right after dinner whenever I cooked. I enjoyed cooking for them and if it took washing dishes to cook, I would do it! Although the decision was made, it bothered me sometimes. “Why don’t those boys have some good habits? Oh, they just know watching movies and can’t do any work.” I was thinking to myself one day while washing the dishes when Kyle, one of the boys, came into the kitchen and noticed me and said: “you have cooked, so you shouldn’t be washing the dishes!” “Well, it’s ok. I can do it.” Then he left and I continued washing the dishes, but the fact that I was noticed made my work a lot easier. The pain and struggle were gone! “Isn’t this weird?” I asked myself. I was doing the same thing with totally different feelings. Before I was noticed, I felt pain to serve them. But the moment I was noticed, I found balance and felt ok to serve others. “Am I doing this for praise and recognition or am I doing it because I want to serve?” The fact that my mood was so completely affected by whether someone noticed me while I was serving them explains a lot-I was doing it for praise and recognition! Sad! That’s why I felt so much pain when I was not noticed or loved back. I think this is probably why it is painful to love or to do something good for others. Because we sometimes think we are being kind and doing things for others, but we are actually hoping to get reward as to be loved back. And when we don’t get what we want, which often happens if our motive is not pure, we get hurt and we feel much pain! If we love and serve out of pure motives, I’m sure we will get rather than loose?

Tolstoy's way of life: "A Christian enters into no dispute with his neighbour, he neither attacks nor uses violence; on the contrary, he suffers himself, without resistance, and by his very attitude towards evil not only sets himself free, but helps to free the world at large from evil outward authority." Is this possible or is this a must for true freedom of humanity?:)

Haha, don't know who I write this to. Not sure if anyone still read my blog since I haven’t been updating for such a long time.

It’s not that I don’t have things to share. I mean, I don’t know. Since I came back from Linfen to Kunming, I got a primary focus---the youth program. I knew it would be challenging. Such a work depends a lot on self-discipline and self-motivation. Before I came back, my friend who had been working on the program said that she felt she was working all the time. So I have been taking the program really serious!

Well, if I have learned anything important about this job, it would be the following:  

• One way for happiness and security to come in our life is for us to find our talents and use them!
• If we want to thank our parents, we should take responsibilities to make the important decisions in our life that will make us feel happy. We can love our parents better when we are happy, not when we are regretting for ourselves.

Starting from this week, life is getting busier with two primary classes going on as well as a youth group.

I don't know what to write, things are going on fast. Take your time to live:)

My dear fellows, I own you a BIG "Sorry" for having been away for such a long time!!! Life in Linfen(山西省) has been quite busy for me! I am so focused on training. There is a lot to learn about teaching and running a small orgnization. We are now part of a Junior Youth Education Program. It's a non-profit orgnization dedicated to help junior youth(young people aged between 11 to 16). We focus on the power of express and moral awareness. Basically, we use the cooperative learning (group learning) method to teach English. We divid any big class into small groups of 4. In a small group, there are 4 roles--one role for each student. For example, one of the roles is encouraging others which means that one of the 4 student is responsible to encourage other 3 students to participate in group discussion. Also the books we use have many meaningful stories and moral concepts. For example, the first book we use is about a 13-year-old girl who lives in a village. She thinks about some important quetions such as what her talent is and what she wants to do with her life and how she can make an effort. She also has many friends and they discuss these questions together. Their lives are starting to change... Students, as long as their English level allow them to understand the meaning of the book, just love these books and they love group learning! Our training are mainly divided into 3 parts: 1. Teaching (the use of the book, how to make lesson plan, classroom management ); 2. How to start a orgnization; 3. How to run orgnization; It's interesting that the theme of our first book is that "We should find out what our talents are, and make an effort to use them. This way, we will be confirmed and feel happy about our life. " My experience here helps me to understand the meaning our first book. In any job, there are difficulties to over come. There are skills and abilities that are required. In order to do the job well, we have to develop ourselves. We have to grow. In my previous job, I don't feel I have talents in computers. Therefore growing seems hopeless to me. I can do my job ok, but I never feel that I am good at it. But things are different here, there is a lot to learn to teach a class well. I never really sing songs publicly, but I have to sing in front of a class of more than 40 students and it's ok for me because that's the change I want to see in me. There are many more aspects that I want to develope as a teacher. The feeling is great! People working on this program are so dedicated. My bosses, Jeff and Tania are couples. Jeff is from American, Tania is from Austrilia. Because of what they believe is important for the youth, they come all the way from oversea to live in Linfen, the most polluted city in the world and worked very hard for 4 years. Sometimes it's hard for other people to understand. Even their parents had a difficult time to understand them. But because of their pure motivation as to help the youth, help the future of the world, and because of their constant effort, their parents finally come to live in Linfen with them as well! All other teachers are all very hard working. We met some other teachers who claim that they don't want to be teachers. That can make me feel as if teaching is not a good job. But being with teachers in this program, Chinese or foreigners, is a totally different experience. Everyone seems focused on and dedicated to improving our teaching skills systematically and constantly. They are trying to, as Jeff said, setting a model of excellence! Observing their classes, the only feeling in my mind is that teaching is noble job! Our training in Linfen will end in the middle of January. Then we will go to Shanhai for a one-week training with all the previous interns who have gone through the same training and who have started their own program back home. After that, I will go back home--Kunming to start my program. It's not going to be easy but it's exciting! Some photos: http://cn.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/chinese_nick/album?.dir=bc40&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//cn.photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos http://cn.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/chinese_nick/album?.dir=eb17&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//cn.photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

I got to Linfen this after noon. Arthur picked me up. It's hot here!

I really had a hard time convincing my families to support me to take the training these days. However, I still have 3 more days to make them feel comfortable about it. That's a big challenge! But I am glad I am not mad yet. I am happy that I still want to be kind to them and make them feel better. This makes me feel right.

Hey Everyone,

I've got home yesterday. Jackey and my parents picked me up at the airport. Kunming sunddenly becomes so small!!! And I feel a little bit strange with everyone speaking Kunming hua around me...

But it would only be a short stay, then I will go to Shanxi in two weeks.

Regards,

Nick

I saw on TV about an association in Shanhai called 星星港之家. Its members are parents who have suffered great pain from losing their child. All the parents there shared the same feeling:

No matter how succesfful they are in other areas, after the loss, they feel their life is such a failure. In organizing this association, they are trying to comfort each other, heal each other and get strength to live on and return to normal life.

Also they all realize that helping others is a very effective way to get strength and regain happiness. Therefore they organized varies activities to help other people including parents who have the same experience, orphans and other families.

Here's some of my thoughts:

Each of us is given a life to deal with. To some extent, we all need a drive to get busy with our life because life is too short. Need seems to be our drive. Life is a process of fulfilling needs. Some of us even create needs for ourselves because that’s the way we live----fulfilling needs. Among all the needs we are to fulfill during our life time, we are naturally sensitive to our own needs for many reasons. Sometimes, we get stuck there. Unless when we suffer great loss of life, like those parents, and realize that, in truth, the really important thing is not whose needs we are fulfilling, but rather the fact that we can use our life to fulfill some needs.Then and only then, we stop to look around and see the needs that we can fulfil. Many of these needs are the needs of our neighbours.

Maybe that’s one secret of lifeJ

July is the month of graduation, a lot of saying goodbyes! This July is especially sad and exciting with a lot of goodbyes to some of the best friends. I hope this is like what Peter one day described, we are like the sparks of one fire that scatter far way and around the world and will one day be unified with the spreading of the fire of love. Best luck to all you dear ones!

 

投身慈善未必好玩

作者：英国《金融时报》专栏作家桑盛姆•桑赫拉(Sathnam Sanghera

2006年5月31日星期三

非常不幸，我发现所有那些空洞的、描写“青年危机”（quarter-life crisis ）的杂志文章其实并不怎么空洞。这里说的青年危机，是指人们在接近30岁时可能出现的极度迷惑不安的情况。在我认识的人当中，几乎所有快30岁的人，都突然变得行为古怪：结束一段长期的恋爱关系；宣布与明明是个疯子的人订婚；不切实际地放出狠话，要辞掉他们在伦敦金融城污秽的高薪工作，转而去做一些压力较小但更有意义的事情。 这些幻想破灭了的律师和金融家们薪水是我10倍，一般而言我也并不介意倾听他们抱怨办公室权术和“你死我活的竞争”。但事情总要有个限度，当他们开始吹嘘要辞职去“为慈善事业效力”时，我就到达了丧失耐心的那临界点。这种事经常让我感到愤怒，因为我兄弟在一家房屋慈善机构任经理，多年来我知道了这样一些情况： ■与经商相比，为慈善机构工作的压力更大。在金融城当中似乎有这样一种观点，转向志愿服务行业是一种减压行为。但事实并非如此，最重要的原因在于：与慈善事业相比，商业的目标更简单。比如，确保税前利润增长7%要比消灭贫穷要容易得多。还因为，尽管疲倦不堪的年轻高管人士可能不太喜欢典型的公司权力结构，但它却十分简单：首席执行官向董事会汇报，员工向首席执行官汇报。而一家慈善机构的首席执行官要应付多个利益相关人：从援助受赠人到捐赠人、志愿者以及权力颇大的受托人委员会，这些人往往不按照别人告诉的行事。那可是个费劲的工作。 ■慈善机构未必不会出现办公室政治。另一个普遍假设是，由于慈善机构工作人员的精力，都集中在拯救世界上，他们没有时间互相在人背后捅人一刀。但事实上，正因为他们都对自己做的事情非常热心，他们就更可能这么做。在接受英国《金融时报》采访时，英国电信集团(BT Group)董事长克里斯托弗•布兰德爵士根据其经历很好地解释了这一点：“一个团体存在的诽谤、暗斗和欺诈的数量，与其目的的高尚程度成正比关系。”他补充称：“作为管理咨询顾问的7年中，我所发现的最为恶劣的行为发生在伦敦北部的一个残疾儿童收容所，因为一家大型医学院对其进行密切的医学追踪。与这相比，英美烟草(British American Tobacco)的行为相对好得多。 ■慈善机构未必没有企业文化。《高处不胜寒》(It’s Tough at the Top)一书极好地阐释了这一点，该书是慈善机构Directory of Social Change的首席执行官黛布拉•阿尔科克•泰勒(Debra Allcock Tyler)新写的一本管理指南，这家慈善机构为其它慈善机构提供培训。这本书针对志愿服务行业，但从其维恩图解(Venn diagrams)和对“以行动为中心的领导”的讨论而言，它很像大多数针对私人行业的管理书籍。有充分的理由解释这一点：仅就英国的慈善机构而言，其年收入为263亿英镑(合492亿美元)，随着实现捐款价值的压力日益增大，它们的运作也越来越商业化。 ■为慈善机构工作未必意味着每天给麻疯病患者洗澡。那些放出狠话要辞职从事慈善工作的人通常都以为：他们的新生活将需要亲自参与救援工作。他们忘记了慈善组织也像公司一样需要运营，如果他们在一家慈善机构担任律师或信息技术管理者，那么从事的很可能是法律或IT方面的日常事务，而不会成为救助全球不幸人群的特蕾莎修女(Mother Teresa)式人物。 ■你为慈善机构工作，但这并不意味着雇用你的慈善机构会对你慷慨仁慈。尽管英国有超过290家慈善机构的年收入逾1000万英镑，但56%的慈善机构年收入不足1万英镑，为维持生计，很多机构不得不牺牲对员工的投资，而且常常还会而裁员。“担任慈善机构首席执行官的难处是，员工期望你对他们慷慨大方。”泰勒女士表示，“但筹集资金的残酷现实意味着你无力这样做。” 当然，我并不是在暗示人们不应考虑为慈善机构工作。这是一件很棒的事：我的兄弟热爱它。在最近的一次调查中，95%的英国慈善工作者表示，他们认为自己的工作很有价值。但该行业要应对的事情已经够多了，它并非职业理想破灭者的疗养院。 此外，我不禁怀疑，很多摇摆不定的年轻职业人士实际上将激情减弱和缺乏方向混为一谈了。当你到了30岁时——令人沮丧的是我已年近30——工作不再像过去那样令人振奋。但这也是自然规律。你不可能在你的整个职业生涯都像顽童般快乐呐喊，期盼着电话会议(wahey!)、培训日(wow!)和餐饮部的免费咖啡(woo!)。 此外，除了辞去工作、为挽救熊猫免于灭绝而奔走之外，还有相当多的方式可以为你的生命增添意义。你可以为慈善事业担任志愿者。你可以购买一辆阿斯顿•马丁(Aston Martin)赛车。你可以开着阿斯顿•马丁，带一只熊猫出去参加慈善巡游。或许，用老套的话来说，你可以提醒自己，企业同样也为社会做出了贡献，也创造了财富和机会。 译者/ 梁鸥 牛薇

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How longing I am for a loving heart!

How many times I have found contentment and peace after I have practiced my loving kindness!

However, it could be so hard. You know what, because people get hurt! Once we get hurt, it's just so hard to be loving!!!

Today I suffered bitterness in my heart because of Dingding's impatient appearance. Unfortunately, vulnerable me got hurt. And it was followed by my well developed passive resistance. Dingding and I, without the declaration of our emotional war, stopped talking to each other. We were silent on the bus, we were silent walking in DUFE campus, we suddenly started talking normally to Peter when we arrived at Jolie's, we went back to silent walking when we came out...I don't know how she felt, hurt probably. Under my silent appearance, many things are going on at one moment!!! Anger, fear, confusion, lack of strenghth, all together. Finally, she could not bear it any longer. No one can...if she didn't, I probably would@

Later today, I sent a short message to her saying how immutural we both were. She wrote me back saying how powerless she felt to behave the right way. ...  In the evening, about 22:20, she told me she was on her bed already and felt so tired...

Suddenly, I remembered something she mentioned to me this morning about feeling tired because she was about to get her period. Then I realized what has happened. I should have known. The health condition is always related to our emotion to the extent that we hardly realize. That's why she had appeared impatient with me. I could have realized the connection and been much better at forbearing and understanding and loving. I could have taken care of her rather then feeling hurt and confused and then turned into something destroying, something dangerous and something only leads to more hurt.

Loving kindness always has the truth, even if we couldn't understand its wisdom at the time! My personal experience of showing loving kindness has never failed me so far. Not even once did I remember feeling regret after making conscious effort of being kind.

It takes me just too long to write even an email. Some times I just can’t let it go easily. I want it to be perfectly written or expressed.  

 

On one hand, it’s good to strive for excellence. But on the other hand, I neglect another part of being excellent----that is efficiency.

 

It’s like studying and teaching. We can’t wait to teach until we know everything. Teaching and studying are reciprocal process. The one acts upon the other and every abiding change is the result of these mutual reactions.

 

In most cases, our communication takes the following patterns:

Expresser:                                    Receiver:

• Expressing                           Listening (or reading, watching)                                   
•  Repeating                            Questioning                    
• Explaining                             Repeating
• Adjusting                               Understanding

Rather than this:

                                       Expresser:                                     Receiver:          

• Clearly                                  Fully understanding   

 

That’s why participatory activity plays such an important role in teaching and studying process.

Therefore, I am going to speed up and hopefully write more. Meanwhile please tell me if I am wrong at any timeJ

 

Participatory comment is VERY welcomeJ

These days there were less and less things going on in my job. It's like the dying of the old skin. A new life is being trapped inside the old skin hardly able to breath. For some nights I just slept all night through~ Last night was one of those nights.

These had given me a chance to have some day activities, such as paying a visit to our new Canadian friend John! John has a rock star appearence and 7 years experience of teaching English in China. Obviously he loves it! Just a few days ago we met him at Peter &Jolie's. He was excitted about what he is doing. We, especially I, became interested.

So we called him today and went to downtown to check how he works. He took us for lunch during which he shared his passion for unity of mankind and so on...A teacher needs to TALK:) We of course were inspired and influenced...no chioce!

He works on the 23rd floor in a super modern building. The company is named Web International. It is perhaps the most modern Language school I have ever seen. The smallest class room only gets a samll table and three chairs. The biggest one has two tables and around 8 chairs. 

Then we met the CC (curriculam consultant) who is a very modern looking young lady. After taking to her for a while, both Dingding and I took the computer based level test. There were 8 levels. I ranked at level 7 while Dingding 6.

Then we talked to John again. This time, he talked about his pirticular approaching to teach. He said two things are very important. No one, understanding! No two, meaningful. Anything can be meaningful to you if it is either important, or interesting or useful to you. So he tried to make language study meaningful to the student by keeping these two things in mind. He then showed us a very interesting book named How does the brain learns. One very interesting message in the book is that our brain functions in several different levels. The lowest is the knowledge. Then, comprehension ->Application->Analyse->..->Evaluate. He was upset most Chinese schools keep students on the very first level!

Then Dingding stayed for English corner and I left early because of my work at night. That was a hard chioce but it was wise. I was glad I slowly learned to make wiser decisions rather than passionate decisions. I was good:)

Keep writing Nick...Topic for tomorrow: harmful perfectionism!