This week, @steemiteducation has asked us to write an essay about the meaning of Christmas and the following questions:
How do you spread the love during this time of hope, love and giving?
Here's my take on the question.
Like I mentioned, in fact, elaborately described in one of my previous posts, Christmas has always been a very special occasion for me. I have never celebrated Christmas properly, but have always enjoyed the idea of it and the concept behind it which is why each year when Christmas approaches, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
New Year's Eve has also been an important part of my life. Both my parents enjoyed and in fact loved celebrating the New Year's Eve, so each year on the 31st, we would have a little party at our home. We are 4 siblings so us with 2 parents would make a little group in itself. We would watch New Year's shows on television, eat and drink delicious foods and beverages and play lots of games.
Since, I have always loved making cards and handmade presents, I would make it a point to make New Year's cards for all my family members and relatives. I remember once my father got me a ceramic badge and magnet making kit and I absolutely loved working with it. So when I was 9, I decided to make ceramic badges for my siblings and parents, a fridge magnet for my mother because she adored those as New Year's presents. I had a ball that day and all my tiny creations turned out to be pretty well. Sadly, I don't have a picture of that kit or the magnets and badges I made.
So when I was younger, I would spread the love at this time of the year making little presents and handmade cards for everyone I truly loved and cared for. Now that I am an adult and like to think of myself as a mature, not-too-stupid woman, I do something else too to spread love in this time of love, hope and giving.
How I Try to Spread Love
I believe one of the most powerful weapons and tools in the world that all of us actually possess is our tongue and mouth. Our tongue and mouth, and the words we utter from it have unimaginable power and if we use them the right way, we can bring a huge difference in the world we live in. I have often hurt a lot of people around me by using the wrong words or by uttering the right words in the wrong tone. Either way, it was my speech that negatively affected people and hurt them in some way. I have seen many others do the same as well.
While many of us engage in charities and do lots of noble acts of giving for others to spread love and compassion around, a lot of us forget the importance of speaking nicely to people. I have seen people give thousands of rupees in charity here in Lahore, and even in my family, but a lot of those people wouldn't talk nicely to those people. The givers as they call them would be associated with many charitable organizations and would pose to be an epitome of kindness and benevolence in front of those organizations. However, the same people would be less supportive and kind to the underprivileged people if they would find them on the street. They would shoo them away, hurl insults at them and make them fee inferior. I find this hypocrisy quite annoying and perturbing. For me, a better way to spread love is by speaking kindly to people and by not being mean to them instead of just donating money and stuff to them. The latter is quite important too, but if you just keep giving gifts to people and never utter a word of kindness to them, I don't think you would be able to make a permanent spot in their heart.
For me, being nice and kind to people by speaking nicely to them is extremely important. I was quite an ignorant person before too and was quite rude at times too, especially with people I actually loved a lot. However, luckily for me, I realized soon enough how my rudeness was affecting them and then slowly I made improvements to the way I talked to others and that change produced great results soon enough.
So now, whether it is Christmas or any other time of the year, I try to spread love by being kind to people and talking nicely to them. I am teaching the same to my son as well. If a beggar approaches me and I cannot help him out, instead of rudely shooing him away, I politely tell him I cannot help him right away and even apologize for it. If someone wishes to share their troubles with me, instead of telling them I am busy, I try to lend them a keen ear to listen to their problems so they feel better. Often, the distressed ones are more in search of a supportive shoulder to lean on than to find someone with a heavy wallet to lend them money.
I would love to hear your views on my answer and on the Steemiteducation homework too. Thank you for taking out the time to read this.
Love and light,
Sharoon.
If you enjoyed this, you may also like other posts I wrote:
@sharoonyasir/how-i-let-go-of-judgments-a-dialogue-between-my-judgmental-and-more-accepting-minds
@sharoonyasir/the-beauty-of-letting-go-being-forgiving-and-accepting-others
I am a part of some amazing communities that I encourage you to join too: @ecotrain, #steemitbloggers, @steemiteducation and #thealliance. My laptop just crashed so all the images I had of those communities in it aren't available at the moment since I'm using a spare laptop.
