Walking In My Shoes

One of my favorite songs and the one really change my thoughts.
Walking in my shoes. Depeche Mode 1993.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHuf0gmq-A4


In few words this song talks about empathy
Have you ever thought how you can do so many tasks, study many topics, and take a couple of jobs alla at the same time?

Then someone tells you how exhausted he or she is just by doing one of the multiple things you do. Immediately you thing. Why this person is complaint for one thing while I can do 5?

Well….Try to walk in his or her shoes to see if you can understand how that person is felling about. We don’t know what that person has been through. We don’t know the person background and for sure that person can do some things or has some skills that we don’t.

I used to be the kind of person that used to measure people according to my own standards, my own believes and my own experience. How wrong I was.

This song helped me to realize that all human beings are different and all have a different process and times to learn the same things. Some of them learn to read at the edge of 4, others at 5. Since I learned to read at 5 years old it does not mean that all people learned at the same edge. Most important those who could not learn, are not wrong or different. Simply they have their own process and time to learn. This happened with everything in life. Some people could achieve professional success at the edge of 28. For others the same success can arrive at the edge of 38 years. What does it mean? It means that the process of life is different for every single person in the word.


 I invite you next time you are in a situation in which you are measure people under your personal and social standards, to try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes. If you can do it, you will enter in the new word in which tolerance and compassion are welcome.

Colombian Gestures

              Colombian people are very expressive not only with their words but also with their facial and body gestures. The following video can show and explain more about it.

http://www.anacarolinamurillo.com/2012/02/gestos-colombianos-para-el-extranjero.html

                There are some examples of how Colombians communicate with gestures and sometimes words are not needed. Talking about body language, Colombians talk with their bodies. The way we say hello it is not only words and generally words come together with hugs, kisses, hand shake and facial gestures. In the case of a Colombian says just hello to another Colombian without the expected gesture, it can be taken like one is mad with the other one and a complaint of that behavior will be given. In other words if the hello word doesn’t come along with the gesture it is like saying nothing and it is very impolite in Colombia.  When a Colombian ask you how are you, depending on the answer your answer, his or her face will feel your words and they will be translated on facial gestures like surprise, sadness, happiness, kindness or emotion by different movements of their eyebrows, mouth, cheeks and eyes.  If those gestures are not made it means like you are not putting attention of what the other person is telling you.

                Colombians are also very touching people. They like to feel physical contact with their family, friends and people they care for. For me, as a Colombian this cultural factor has been the most difficult to get used to in America. I want to hug everyone I meet or at least the ones I like such as Americans, Chinese, Koreans,  Italians and so on. But when I am going to do it I feel their resistance. I understand that it is cultural but a hug means that I like you and I care for you. Sometimes I don’t care and I do it and if they make me a face I say: “I’m sorry, I am from Colombia and we like to hug people”.

                The body language is part of my culture, in other words it is part of me. Sometimes I think if I need to change my gestures or minimize them in order to fit into American culture. But that is part of me already and part of my uniqueness and originality but for sure I need to learn when and where I can express them with confidence and pride..  

 “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

 Mahatma Gandh

        The first meaning this quotes is asking is to be introspective when I find things in life or in the world that I don’t like. In other words, analyze your thoughts, your behavior, and your feelings. For example, If I don’t like intolerance I should consider myself first in terms of seeing whether I am tolerant or not.  The second meaning is, once you analyzed yourself and you don’t like what you see, then change it for your well and you will see how you world change around you.

      This is one of my favorite quotes and I carry it every day on a pendant that my sister gave me 3 years ago. It remains me that if I want to change something that I don’t like in others I must start with me. To do it I need awareness of my own self, what I am doing, what I am thinking, what I am felling. It is very easy to judge people in relation to their behavior, or criticize them or complain. Have you ever thought about having those personality aspects that you don’t like in some one? For example, intolerance. Many times I have hardly criticized people around the word, especially Israelis and Palestinians relating to their territorial situation. Even thought I understand that both razes have their religious differences and relevant historical discrepancies, I cannot understand why they just accept each other in the way they are, their religion and respect their historical traditions and repair their problems and live happily ever after.

                When I see myself criticizing this kind of circumstances with such an emphasis and confidence as if I were some one that tolerate different behaviors of people, especially in NYC where diversity, in its whole context, is a predominant characteristic. It is difficult to accept people as they are their traditions or religions. It is easier to judge people where we are unable to see inside of ourselves first. If we really want a better world we must start to change the things we don’t like about our personality.

What does indepence mean to you?