We have to talk about it

Have you encountered any interesting subway story lately? I found this one interesting, and would like to share. About a month ago, I was as usual taking the TTC Subway in Downtown Toronto after work on a cold winter day. The train was packed with people rushing back home, and there’s a gentleman looked so serious in reading his newspaper while sitting near the exit. There was a middle-aged lady (close to 50) ready to get off and walked pass the gentleman, and she handed him a 5 dollars note, and said “go buy a cup of coffee, you looked so sad”. The gentleman was a bit shocked, then smiled with  embarrassment. He said “I’m fine, thank you”, and returned the money back to that nice lady. The gentleman just happened to have a sad face while not smiling, but I found that lady’s warm gesture is quite touching. Nowadays, we seldom have time to care about people around us, not to say the one we don’t know. That nice lady does not look like she is rich, and has lots of money to give away. Five dollars not a lot of money, but it means a lot when you show your care and thoughtfulness. After being the witness of this event, I feel especially warm during this windy weather.

Survive: It is important that we still survive, and we can continue to explore interesting things in this world. I do not yet have any near-death experience, but if you do, you should treasure every day thereafter. ‘Life No Take 2’, not everyone can get a second chance. There are people suddenly realize what is important in their lives. Some people choose to leave their high paying job and start a new life that is more meaningful to them. My husband always asks me “what is worse than death?” You still have hope if you survive.

Release: Writing is a good way to release your stress. A good example is “to do list”. I feel relaxed after wrote down things that I have to do on a daily basis, and start to prioritize. I need only about 5 minutes in the morning to finish my “to do list”. Writing is also a good exercise for your mind. When you write, you begin to rethink, and reorganize your way of doing things. These days, I also learned to release my grief by crying out loud. When you are getting older and older, you have to accept the fact that attending funerals more often than weddings.

Toronto passed a new by-law for plastic bags, and that will enforce consumers to pay for plastic shopping bags starting June 1, 2009. What message this new by-law tells us.  You can still use plastic bags if you do not care about spending 5 cents. Money is not an issue for some peopel especially the rich one. Similar result that we charge on using Highway 407. I just doubt the concept on using ‘money’ as the condition – that is not a fair deal. If we are determined that using plastic bags is not good for our environment, then we should not provide any option for using plastic bags but the recycle one.

Quality:  How do you define quality? Some people (i.e. home stereo listeners) will spend thousands of dollars for hi-fi equipment in order to get the perfect sound system, and that is how they define “quality”. However, I do not know if the music itself is of good quality though. I am concerned about the quality time that I can have – time that I can really enjoy and be myself.