Helping Hands

Helping Hands

A mother, wishing to encourage her son’s progress at the piano, bought tickets to a performance by the great Polish pianist Ignace Paderewski. When the evening arrived, they found their seats near the front of the concert hall and eyed the majestic Steinway waiting on the stage. Soon the mother found a friend to talk to, and the boy slipped away.

At eight o’clock, the lights in the auditorium began to dim, the spotlights came on, and only then did they notice the boy — up on the piano bench, innocently picking out “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” His mother gasped in shock and embarrassment but, before she could retrieve her son, the master himself appeared on the stage and quickly moved to the keyboard.

He whispered gently to the boy, “Don’t quit. Keep playing.” Leaning over, Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began filling in the bass part. Soon his right arm reached around the other side and improvised a delightful obbligato. Together, the old master and the young novice held the crowd mesmerised with their blended and beautiful music.

In all our lives, we receive helping hands — some we notice, some we don’t. Equally we ourselves have countless opportunities to provide helping hands — sometimes we would like our assistance to be noticed, sometimes we don’t. Little of what we all achieve is without learning from others and without support from others and what we receive we should hand out.

This is such well told story because just as important it is to help others it is vitally important to accept the help of others. This is something we usually tend to forget. We are all placed in this magnificent world to make a powerful and positive difference, there is no way to measure how big or small our helping actions are; all are equal as they serve the glory of being a unique person of 'giving'. If we block others off from helping we are limiting our fellow neighbours from being caring and thoughtful. Cutting help off from people too many times cannot be a good thing as they will forget what their role of being human is. Give people the honour to help and you too will be helping!

May you have a fantastic week! A week full of only awesome and exciting things!

Darren Zwiers

The Quote:

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. ~Anne Frank

 

Never Be too 'Tyred' to Give

Hi all you awesome readers.

I just want to take this moment to thank you all for giving me the opportunity to enter your inbox every Monday morning and allowing me the time to share a small piece of inspiration.

Instead of my usual Monday email which starts with a story and then a message I want to do something a little different today by sharing something that I experienced last Friday afternoon.

Walking back from the gym all exhausted and listening to chilled music on my iPod as i always do, I noticed two religious guys standing by a car looking a little worried, so I went across the road to see what was going on and noticed they had a flat tyre, so being all friendly I offered them a hand in changing the wheel, which was a good thing as they were struggling. In an instant I was no longer exhausted from gym and when I had finished changing the tyre, they thanked me so much, its amazing how small things make a big impact in peoples lives. It was at that point after they thanked me where a thought struck me like a lightening bolt... Why should they be the thankful ones.... I should be the one to thank THEM for giving me the opportunity to help.

There are two lessons in this small exercise which I am grateful to have experienced; the first being; When we do something of generosity we always leave feeling so much better so much more alive and so much happier than the person who we helped. So don’t you think it makes sense to always thank the people that we help. This is such an interesting point of view, because with this in mind giving becomes easier and so many more opportunities will arise where you can always be ready to help and give fully of yourself. The second valuable lesson is that by being awake and aware of our surroundings, we can contribute so much to society in ways you would never imagine. Look up, look around and notice there are always ways to do great things and together we can make the world an easier, friendlier place to live.

May you have an incredible week, where you get the opportunity to be awesome at every corner.

Darren Zwiers

The Quote:

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

 

Triple Filter Test

The Story

Aurthur - Unknown
One day an acquaintance met a great and wise philosopher and said, "do you know what I just heard about your friend?"
"Pause a moment," The wise man replied. "Before telling me anything I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."
"Triple filter?"
"That's right," the wise man continued. "Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you're going to say.

The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"
"No," the man said, "actually just heard about it and..."
"All right," said the wise man. "So you don't really know if it's true or not.
Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?"
"No, on the contrary..."
"So," the wise man continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him, but  you're not certain it's true. You may still pass the test though, because
there's one filter left: the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?"
"No, not really."
"Well," concluded the wise philosopher, "if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?"

My Message:

This is such a great story to remember when we have that desire to spread useless (sometimes harmful) information about others. It's always so hard to stop ourselves from spreading gossip, we all humans at the end of the day, but maybe the above 'Triple Filter Test' can prove to be a simple tool to quickly evaluate that your word has meaning and importance.

I wish you an awesome week of only goodness and success!
Darren Zwiers

The Quote:
“It takes two to speak truth, one to speak and another to hear.” - Henry David Thoreau