A beautiful minute and a half…

“There are problems and there is deep suffering in all of our lives, and there is abject suffering for some people in the world, so let’s get busy and work with that, but lets not forget that this is an astonishing gift to be alive on this planet at this time, astonishing, and it is irresponsible not to be grateful.”

~Jeff Salzman

Bob Blackley’s birthday is a good day for his neighbors in Winston-Salem, NC. Every year on his birthday, for the last 3 years, Bob has stood on a street corner handing out money to strangers. The first year, it was $700, then $750, and now $800. That’s a $5 bill for 160 people. Bob doesn’t care who the people are, or what they plan to do with the money. He says, “Anything they want, if it puts a smile on their face, it’s theirs.”

Bob

“There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.”
~ Khalil Gibran

Love this idea of expanding our concept of family. “You see so many people left alone. Why? Because of our concept of family.” ~ Guruji Sri Vast

“The family structure of Native American people is very different from our own. For Native Americans, family went beyond their parents and siblings. Their families were very open and formed what is called an extended family. In these extended families, were many other households that came together to form a small community within their tribe. In some tribes, a second set of parents were chosen for an infant at birth. These unrelated people worked together to raise that child. If one person was unable to take care of that child, there were others there to help and make sure that the family succeeded.”

Phyllis Sues started her own own fashion label at 50, became a musician and learned Italian and French in her 70s, took tango and trapeze at 80 and walked into her first yoga class at 85. “If you don’t train the body every day it withers. If you don’t train the mind everyday, you lose it. Yoga is a wakeup call to every cell in your body. I live to do yoga and I do it to live.” At 91, Phyllis has a CD on itunes, writes for the Huffington Post, dances and performs regularly and jumps rope and practices Yoga daily. What a serious badass!

Phyllis

It’s never too late!!

Thanks to Growing Bolder for this post.