LET´S MAKE A CHANGE

I can´t be certain about this, but when I was a kid I always heard my parents or grandparents talking about how back in their times the  seasons where so precise and  timely. summer it was very hot, winter  was cold or very rainy. They  are always complaining how  at present you can´t be certain what to wear when you leave the house because you don’t know how the day might end, it seems to me to be true.

Sometimes you wake up to a beautiful sunny day and half the way through it, it will start raining or it can become very chilly outside and it can catch you unprepared for that kind of weather. Conversely, it can happen the  other way around, you can go out with a huge jacket and then it becomes so hot you feel suffocated. The weather is getting crazy and there seems to be  lots of reasons why it is happening. Some might say is global warming others might say is ozone pollution.  I think is a combination of that and some other factors, like water and air pollution, deforestation, animal extinction and smoke and petroleum contamination among others.

Our planet is having a harsh time. Earth is going through a lot right now. It’s being polluted, contaminated and abused. She is trying to make understand how much she is suffering with all these big warnings like earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados, etc. And we are not conscious enough. We act like nothing is happening and pretend everything is going to be ok, but at some point we will have to take responsibility and start doing something about it, and hopefully it will not be too late.

There have been so many natural disasters lately that are signals that something is wrong. The earthquake in Japan at the beginning of the year is an example. First an earthquake hit them and almost immediately after it was over a tsunami fell on top of them. More than 140,000 persons lost their lives and some of the damages where irreparable. The nuclear Fukushima plant was activated and released a lot of nuclear energy and radioactive material. This contaminated the air, the land near by, a lot of persons who needed to be treated with iodine after the plant had the meltdown, water and the atmosphere in general.

Then another example is the earthquake in Chile last year. There where over 75 deaths. It destroyed a big part of the city and left homeless a lot of persons.

Also last year here in Guatemala we experienced two natural disasters at the same time. Agatha, a tropical storm, reached Guatemala and El Salvador on March 31, 2010, leaving more than 90 death persons. The damages where already big enough when the Pacaya volcano was activated, sending a massive ash storm into the city. The people living near the Pacaya had to evacuate immediately. Most of them where poor families with not a lot of resources who lost absolutely everything to the lava and ashes.

Maybe sometimes we feel like we can´t do anything to help our planet because we are not old enough or because we don’t have enough money to give to special organizations etc. But we are completely wrong. We can do a lot just by planting a tree in our backward, not wasting water by taking quick showers and closing the faucet while we are washing out teeth, not wasting food or using biodegradable material and recycling. We are capable of doing so much for Mother Earth with small actions and little effort. It is time to become conscious about this situation we are living in and do something about it to start collaborating for a better world.

We have only one planet, one home, and we need to take care of it starting now. I am going to make a change even though it might be small, and for some insignificant. Are you ready to start making a difference too?

DREAMER

I have always wanted to travel around the world and visit the most amazing, wonderful and strange places on Earth, but I'm still not old enough and I have no money to afford the tickets, hotels or food. But I have a great imagination to go wherever I want to.

You can create your own amazing and wonderful places with just a little bit of creativity and imagination.

I have my own happy place since I was a kid. I used to think it was the perfect place for me, to rest, to play or just to sit there and watch everything that was going around at the moment. It was just beautiful.

The grass was all kinds of green and very tall. There was a long river with water falls, turquois clear and fresh waters, with different kinds of fish from small orange ones to huge purple fish. Pretty flowers with sweet scents and delicate, soft petals all around the place. The sky was baby blue with almost no clouds. There where butterflies and cute birds flying everywhere. The sun was always shining, but it never burned. The weather was perfectly warm, never cold or rainy. I was never hungry or thirsty. There was no pain, physical, mental or emotional. There was no sickness. Everything was joy, love, hope and peace.  And in the middle, there was this huge, beautiful tree. I never get to see the top of it, and his roots where deep in the earth and very strong and firm. I could get inside the tree and go wherever I wanted to go. From Tokyo in Asia, to Disney in Miami, South Africa, or simply come back home. But the best thing about it was that it takes me to other parts of the universe, away from Earth.

I used to imagine I could go to far, far away galaxies. Some of them where very dark and gloomy, cold and empty. Others where habited by strange creatures, very weird but all of them kind and welcoming. My favorite where the ones which where only stars. I had one in particular, I used to think that was the place I came from and the place I was going to go after I left this world. It was soft purple and had some touch of orange, more like peach. There where thousands of billions of stars everywhere that lighten the hole place. There was no sound only quiet, and there was this feeling of peace that invade you and made you feel so comfortable, cozy and protected. Although I knew I was alone I never felt lonely, there was something or someone else with me always. I felt loved and I never wanted to come back.

In my hole life I have been to amazing places. Places that I am the only one capable to go to, and that will always be there when I want to visit them.

There are beautiful and unique places here in our home planet, I have had the opportunity to visit some myself. I have traveled before but want to do it thousands of time from now on. Maybe, I won´t be able to do it as much as I would like, or go to the places I want to go, but I can travel anywhere I want with some imagination and enthusiasm.

Being a billionaire and having a lot of money can pay for any trip to any part of this world, but being a dreamer can take me to any part of the universe or even to create new and original places where no one else will ever go, and the best part is I can go as many times as I want without any expenses to worry about.

Money sometimes might be a solution for some problems, but it is not happiness. Dreams, on the other side, you can´t live without. Dreams are hope, and they make you want to achieve new and different challenges every single time, they are worth fighting for because in the end, you can lose everything but not your dreams. 

EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON

You know how sometimes, when you are little, you can’t understand some things and you wonder every day why me? Well, now that I am older and I can finally see things clearly, I know that everything happens for a good reason.

When I was 6 years old, my parents divorced. I was an only child then. My mom used to study or work all day, so I hardly spent time with her. My dad, on the other hand, had his own company at the time so he had more free time.  He came home around 6 in the afternoon, so every day when he came back from work we played hide and seek or tag, also when you are a kid you haven’t learn to appreciate the gift of sleep so you wake up very early in the morning on weekends, and I wanted to play or watch a movie, so I came into my parents room and wake them up so they would come with me to see a movie or something. My mom was dead tired after a long week of work, so my dad and I would watch a Disney movie every morning.

I never noticed that there was any kind of trouble between my parents, they always seemed happy to me. Suddenly, soon after New Year, they came to me and we all sat in the living room. They began with the “I love you” and “this has nothing to do with you” and all the other things parents say to try and reassure you that it is not your fault that they are divorcing.  finally they told me they were splitting up. I cried for weeks, months probably. It was really hard for me. My dad was my company and my best friend. We spent so much time together, and my mom was always so busy.

I blamed my mom for their divorce for about 8 years. I thought she was not good enough for him, that she could have been better. I always loved her, don’t get me wrong, but for me in my mind she was wrong and my dad was right, for me she took my best friend away.

I never had the best relationship with my mom because of that. Later I started to go to a psychologist, why? No idea my parents just thought it was best for me to talk to someone. As we were coming to the end of the therapy, my psychology started to talk about my parents divorce, which I never discuss with anyone. She asked me what did I think where the reasons why my parents split up. For some weird reason, I said the first thing, the first thing that came into my mind, and unfortunately it was truth. I was so disappointed of everything because in my head I had created a whole different reality from what it really was.  

At the moment I could not stop thinking why me? How could I be so dumb not to see things how they really were? Why did my parents hide the truth from me all of these years? I had so many questions and so little answers. Of course answers came to me later on by themselves.

Now that I’m older I can finally understand how everything happens for a reason. A reason that is always for the greater good for everyone involved.

I learned a lot of things from this experience. Good things that will help me solve problems better and save me some pain, and not so good things that I learned not to do in the future.

I'm sure both my parents learned a lot from this too.  For me they have become better persons and grow as human beings since they are apart. They have reached their goals and become great professionals. I admire them and respect them, but mostly I love them above everything. They have been amazing teachers throughout my life and made me the person that I am today.  

I would not change a thing about what happen in the past, because in the end, it turned out to be the best for my parents and for me.