Life lesson from a Pirate

One of the best life lessons I have received was from a Pirate.  I would expect to learn one from a great philosopher, book, life coach, etc., but not from an action movie about a Pirate.  I was watching Pirates of the Caribbean (the first movie) and there is a scene where Jack Sparrow and Will Turner are having a sword fight.  Jack Sparrow cheats and it surprises Will Turner.   Will says to Jack “You cheated”, and Jack says “Pirate”.  I couldn’t believe the depth of that line, a giant light bulb went off.  What a lesson on how to view life.  There are times in our lives when we are dealing with difficult people, people who may not be being honest with us or just live to disagree, or may just seem plain crazy.  If we learn to look at the situation and realize that we are dealing with someone who views life differently than we do and that they may not be at the same point on their journey that we may be on ours we will be able to handle any situation by thinking to ourselves “Pirate”.   We cannot expect someone to behave the way we do when they are coming from a different perspective.   We cannot change their perspective, we just have to accept them for who they are and deal with the situation accordingly.  We just have to try to look at  the situation from their perspective.   This has helped me to be calmer and more understanding when dealing with people.   Thanks Jack!

Namaste

One morning I asked God to show me something I needed to know that day.  I went about my day as usual and went out to lunch with a friend from work.  The restaurant we went to was crowded and there were limited seats.  We ordered our food and wend to find two open seats, once we found two seats I went to the condiment table to get some things.  While I was standing there  I realized I was talking out loud to myself and realized there was someone standing next to me  There was a young man standing next to me and his face was severely disfigured.  He did not speak, I felt embarrassed being caught talking to myself and spoke briefly to him making a little joke about it.   I then went back to my seat and had lunch with my friend.  A little while later I looked up to see the young man standing at my table.  He was waving at me.  There was a young woman with him and she said that he wanted to come over and say goodbye to me.  I said goodbye to him and they left.  I knew immediately what God’s lesson was for me that day.  God was telling me that showing someone that you recognize them for who they are inside is important for them and equally as important for us.  We should not be afraid to speak to or acknowledge someone who is different from us and we should not assume that they do not understand us because they are not communicating the way we do.  We all want to be recognized for the Soul inside.  I was thankful for the young man, he made my heart happy, I felt that he saw something in me, the light within, just as I saw his light.  To me that  experience was an example of the term Namaste, I recognize  the God in you is the same as the God in me.