Monday, January 6, 2014

[GMW #2906] Never Fail To Denounce An Injustice To The Person At The Top



[GMW #2906] Never Fail To Denounce An Injustice To The Person At The Top
Idea Dream - Robert Muller's Ideas 3001 to 3500

~ Idea 3301 - 3400 Section INTRODUCTION ~

Never Fail To Denounce An Injustice

To The Person At The Top

A Boy's Letter to a Prime Minister

Someone wrote to me: "Dear Mr. Muller, I love your book of 2000 Ideas but what can I do?  I am a nobody, having a very low, minor job in a big firm.  You were lucky to have a great life in high positions allowing you to know the whole world.  You are still a big shot even if it is only for one dollar a year.  I cannot do anything and am very frustrated, unhappy with my life.  To read you made me even unhappier and frustrated."

I wrote him back: "Well, I have my frustrations too, e.g. that so few of my books are being read and so few of my ideas implemented.  I am 77 years old and I could easily give up.  But when that thought occurs to me, I remember a story from my youth which lifts me up again and prevents me from giving up.  It is a letter which I wrote when I was a refugee at the age of sixteen, with my father being mobilized in the French Army, my mother without barely any resources and my studies and normal life interrupted.  Here it is:

Read the full story here:

Never Fail To Denounce An Injustice To The Person At The Top

http://goodmorning-world.blogspot.com/2013/12/never-fail-to-denounce-injustice-to.html
I have drawn two important lessons from this anecdote:

First — if you see an injustice, do not wait for a better world; denounce it right away to the person at the top, even if you have little chance of being heard; you will at least feel better and sometimes you might even get results.

Secondly — when I became myself a close collaborator of three Secretaries-General of the UN, I made it a point to ensure that worthy letters written by humble, well-intentioned people were always seen by them, acted upon and answered.  The right to complain and to receive a reply should be made a basic human right, for government is here for the people and not for the tranquillity of the bureaucrats.

Later I learned that President John Kennedy set the rule that every hundredth letter from the vast amount of mail a President receives every day from citizens be handed to him unopened, so that he could read it and keep in touch with his people.  This good practice should be adopted by the heads of state of all countries of the world.  It would break the barriers which their entourage usually builds around them under the pretext of protecting their time.  And in the year 2001, at the UN University for Peace and Earth Council in demilitarized Costa Rica, I was happy to learn that a position of Ombudsman would be created to receive unattended complaints from people all over the world.  May God bless the incumbent of that new position. 

And may my story encourage people to write to their heads of state and parliamentarians.

Robert's The Miracle, Joy and Art of Living,
Volume I Chapter 5 The Miracle of Individual Life
I often feel that my life is a lamp: a temporary container filled with light, a flow of energy, condensed and held together for a while in a mysterious, marvelous living cosmos linked with the rest of the Earth and the heavens through material, touchable, and immaterial, invisible ties.  Someday the lamp will extinguish. 

The material elements will be reabsorbed and reborn by Mother Earth in her flows of life and energy.  The immaterial elements will return to a universal pool to be reborn in other forms on this planet or elsewhere in the universe. 

My light will shine brightest, longest and happily if I take good care both of my material and immaterial forms, i.e. my body, my mind, my heart and my soul.
*


UN News: UN Chronicle, United Nations News Service, UN Wire Archive
References: Earth Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Rights of: Children,Women, IndigenousPeople
To Be Written: Rights of Nature, Birds, Animals, Fish, etc.

Daily Ray of Hope
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Flickr user Ralph Earlandson | Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

The world would never amount to a hill of beans if people didn't use their imaginations to think of the impossible.
~ Pete Seeger

More from Robert Muller: RobertMuller.org
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The first 4000 Ideas & Dreams
For A Better World

The Idea Dreams
   With An Index


Robert's Harmonic & Talk
Ode To Joy
Never Give Up (Audio Talk)

Decide to - poems
DecideTo Index
DecideTo Poems

[GMW #2905] Eating Healthful Food


[GMW #2905] Eating Healthful Food Idea Dream - Robert Muller's Ideas 3001 to 3500
~ Idea 3300 ~   
Another discovery to keep in good health was the following.  I once said to my wife Barbara that my Hindu colleagues at the United Nations fasted one half a day each week on Tuesday afternoon until the following morning.  We did it a few times and after the fourth time I woke up totally rejuvenated, feeling extraordinarily fulfilled and young.  Having gone to sleep at 7:00pm we woke up at 5:00am which meant ten hours of sleep without even having to go to the bathroom once.  I could not believe it.

A few days later we had a rich, heavy dinner with guests and went to bed at ten o'clock.  The following morning, after a restless night, I was a total disaster.  We decided therefore to eat very lightly in the evenings and to become almost vegetarians.

Drinking only pure water and juices squeezed from fresh fruits and no human, manufactured, artificial, carbo-dioxided 'soft drinks', is also a major factor for a long, happy life.


Robert's The Miracle, Joy and Art of Living,
Volume I Chapter 5 The Miracle of Individual Life
I can love my life without understanding why,
like a mother loves heavenly her child
And my life will love me simply for loving it.
*

UN News: UN Chronicle, United Nations News Service, UN Wire Archive
References: Earth Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Rights of: Children,Women, IndigenousPeople
To Be Written: Rights of Nature, Birds, Animals, Fish, etc.

Daily Ray of Hope
Poppy
Flickr user Christiane Helbig | Dresden, Saxony, Germany
If you take a flower in your hand and
really look at it,
it's your world for a moment.
~ Georgia O'Keeffe

More from Robert Muller: RobertMuller.org
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The first 4000 Ideas & Dreams
For A Better World

The Idea Dreams
   With An Index

Robert's Harmonic & Talk
Ode To Joy
Never Give Up (Audio Talk)

Decide to - poems
DecideTo Index
DecideTo Poems

Sunday, January 5, 2014

[GMW #2904] Adios Alcohol


[GMW #2904] Adios Alcohol Idea Dream - Robert Muller's Ideas 3001 to 3500
~ Idea 3299 ~   

Now, at my advanced age do I have any prospects of a still longer life?

Well, the following might help:

In May of 2000 I had a hernia operation which forced me for two weeks to eat little and to drink no alcohol whatsoever.  Well, I was frequently drinking beer which is very popular in Costa Rica and being a Frenchman to have often wine with meals.  After those two weeks I did not feel the slightest need for any alcoholic drink anymore and with my wife we decided to give it up completely.  On the fourth of July, having American guests to celebrate the US national holiday, we made an exception and were sick the following day.  Thus, alcohol (al kohol, Arabic the Devil) was eliminated for good from our lives.


Robert's The Miracle, Joy and Art of Living,
Volume I Chapter 5 The Miracle of Individual Life
Human life is a many-sided marvel.  Our little cosmic unit reaches out into every possible direction:  the past, the present, the future, the small, the infinitely large, the above and the below, the most immediate events, objects, persons, feelings and thoughts, and the entire planet and human family.  We seem to contain the nuclei of the entire universe and time.  And yet our little, intensively packed cosmos has difficulty to understand itself, the mystery of life, Creation and evolution!  Could full self-knowledge be a built-in "limitation" of the infinite, eternal reality?  Might Paradise Earth simply be to feel, to enjoy, to be happy, to let flow and not try to analyze and understand the miracle of life?
*

UN News: UN Chronicle, United Nations News Service, UN Wire Archive
References: Earth Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Rights of: Children,Women, IndigenousPeople
To Be Written: Rights of Nature, Birds, Animals, Fish, etc.

DailyGood
At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from
a single source.

When you are an artist,
you are a healer.
~ Rachel Naomi Remen

An Artist's Healing Project In Rwanda
Lily Yeh is a global artist who is fueled by a belief that art is a human right, and that artists can create a foundation for profound social change. This film documents the design, building and impact of the Rugerero Genocide Memorial, a project that brought hope and healing to the traumatized survivors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The monument now serves as the official memorial site for the Rubavu district in Western Rwanda. "To truly honor the dead, we have to bring beauty and to remember them in that light."
{ read more }

Be The Change
Learn more about the Rwanda Healing Project, which offers education, development, and hope for a future for the survivors of the genocide.

{ more }

Also watch her TED talk at Cornell
http://barefootartists.org/presentations/lily-yeh-at-tedx-cornellu/

More from Robert Muller: RobertMuller.org
Subscribe to/or unsubscribe from Robert Muller's GoodMorningWorld.org


The first 4000 Ideas & Dreams
For A Better World

The Idea Dreams
   With An Index

Robert's Harmonic & Talk
Ode To Joy
Never Give Up (Audio Talk)

Decide to - poems
DecideTo Index
DecideTo Poems

[GMW #2903] Hours Of Sleep Before Midnight Count Twice



[GMW #2903] Hours Of Sleep Before Midnight Count Twice
Idea Dream - Robert Muller's Ideas 3001 to 3500
~ Idea 3298 ~   
Late in my life I learned another great lesson in Costa Rica: at my retirement from the UN I became volunteer Chancellor for one-dollar-a-year of the UN University for Peace in a magnificent, natural, primeval wonderland.  I bought an old farmhouse and farmland adjacent to the university.  There we have cows, a magnificent turkey, a flock of chickens and monkeys in the primeval woods.  In order not to be eaten in the night by coyotes coming from the woods the hens and the cocks fly up on top of trees near the farmhouse.  The roosters begin to sing the resurrection of the day at four o'clock in the morning dialoguing with cocks in the valley.  In order to get enough sleep Barbara and I decided to go to bed early, not later than 7:00 to 8:00pm.  As a result we wake up with the cocks having had eight to nine hours of sleep and you cannot imagine how much work you can do between 4:00am and 8:00am before getting involved in daily affairs.

We also decided to have a siesta each day after luncheon because a total of eight hours from 4:00am to midday is almost equivalent to a whole working day.

What we did confirmed an old popular saying: hours of sleep before midnight count twice.


Robert's The Miracle, Joy and Art of Living,
Volume I Chapter 5 The Miracle of Individual Life
From a reader:
"Your book Most of All, They Taught Me Happiness puzzles me more and more.  Every evening I read or reread a chapter and each time I discover a new truth.  I now find myself being grateful for every day of my life and thanking God for that extraordinarily precious gift.  I had never done this before.  I have learned more from your book than from my Ph.D. in philosophy."
*


UN News: UN Chronicle, United Nations News Service, UN Wire Archive
References: Earth Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Rights of: Children,Women, IndigenousPeople
To Be Written: Rights of Nature, Birds, Animals, Fish, etc.

WORD FOR THE DAY
I find ecstasy in living
-- the mere sense of living
is joy enough.
~ Emily Dickinson

More from Robert Muller: RobertMuller.org
Subscribe to/or unsubscribe from Robert Muller's GoodMorningWorld.org

The first 4000 Ideas & Dreams
For A Better World

The Idea Dreams
   With An Index


Robert's Harmonic & Talk
Ode To Joy
Never Give Up (Audio Talk)

Decide to - poems
DecideTo Index
DecideTo Poems

[GMW #2902] Live Longer & Better With Healthier Life Ways


[GMW #2902] Live Longer & Better With Healthier Life Ways Idea Dream - Robert Muller's Ideas 3001 to 3500
~ Idea 3297 ~
A second reason why I am still alive at seventy-seven is that I was able to lose a lot of weight.  In the US I gained weight up to 227 pounds.  Twenty years later, thanks to a healthier way of life in Costa Rica I weigh only 190 pounds, having lost thirty-seven pounds.

Robert's The Miracle, Joy and Art of Living,
Volume I Chapter 5 The Miracle of Individual Life
My aim is to live a wholesome, happy very long life and to belong, body, heart, mind and soul to the wholeness of Creation.
*

UN News: UN Chronicle, United Nations News Service, UN Wire Archive
References: Earth Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Rights of: Children,Women, IndigenousPeople
To Be Written: Rights of Nature, Birds, Animals, Fish, etc.

HeartMath.com
The great thing in this world
is not so much where we stand
as in what direction we are moving.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

More from Robert Muller: RobertMuller.org
Subscribe to/or unsubscribe from Robert Muller's GoodMorningWorld.org


The first 4000 Ideas & Dreams
For A Better World

The Idea Dreams
   With An Index

Robert's Harmonic & Talk
Ode To Joy
Never Give Up (Audio Talk)

Decide to - poems
DecideTo Index
DecideTo Poems

[GMW #2901] End Harmful Habits Rapidly


[GMW #2901] End Harmful Habits Rapidly Idea Dream - Robert Muller's Ideas 3001 to 3500
~ Idea 3296 ~
I reached the age of seventy-seven thanks to the fact that I stopped smoking more than forty years ago.  I decided that when I accompanied my father who felt sick in his lungs to a doctor who asked him after examining him, "Do you smoke?"  "Yes."  "How much?"  "Two packs a day."  "Well, I'm sorry to tell you, you have an advanced lung cancer."  And my father died a few months later.

I have never forgotten that lesson and never smoked anymore in my whole life.


Robert's The Miracle, Joy and Art of Living,
Volume I Chapter 5 The Miracle of Individual Life
There is not a moment in life when we cannot learn something, see a new wonder of Creation, have an unexpected thought, be thrilled by the profusing beauty of our Mother Earth.  We should be constantly all smiles, open eyes, open minds, open hearts, and drink avidly from the marvelous waters and sights of life.
*

UN News: UN Chronicle, United Nations News Service, UN Wire Archive
References: Earth Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Rights of: Children,Women, IndigenousPeople
To Be Written: Rights of Nature, Birds, Animals, Fish, etc.

WORD FOR THE DAY
How many times have you noticed that
it's the little quiet moments
in the midst of life that seem
to
give the rest extra-special meaning?
~ Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers

More from Robert Muller: RobertMuller.org
Subscribe to/or unsubscribe from Robert Muller's GoodMorningWorld.org


The first 4000 Ideas & Dreams
For A Better World

The Idea Dreams
   With An Index

Robert's Harmonic & Talk
Ode To Joy
Never Give Up (Audio Talk)

Decide to - poems
DecideTo Index
DecideTo Poems