Tag: vancouver sun

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Be The Best.

Easter Sunday, and so it begins…v2

I wrote a post with that same title, ‘Easter Sunday, and so it begins’ on Easter Sunday 2010.

Although over a year has passed and we’ve marked a year from Chris passing date and service date, today marks a very important milestone as well.

Since beginning this blog last Easter Sunday, individual blog posts have been read over 127,000 times.

I get that most people still to this day don’t really know what to say or how to say it.  But as therapeutic as writing these posts day after day and week after week has been, it’s been amazing to know that a silent army stands alongside.

I love that.

I read with interest an essay in the Vancouver Sun over morning coffee yesterday.

It was titled, ‘The Biology of hope bolsters Easter’s central message’.  I’ve linked here if you have time to peruse.

I love this little excerpt:

These definitions make clear hope should not be confused with blind optimism.

When we are suffering or fearful, our hopes may often be dim, but they must include reasonable expectation.

Hope is distinguished from mere wishing. We can wish for financial wealth, or a cure for our loved one’s cancer, a dictator to be vanquished or a sudden end to global warming. But sometimes wishes are not realistic.

“Wishing are words and left brain,” Vaillant writes.

“In contrast, hope is made up of images and is rooted in the right brain. Wishing on a star takes no effort. Hope often requires enormous effort and shapes real lives.”

The transcendent quality of hope points to why researchers are coming to realize it is not only an emotion. It is a virtue.

As such, it must be cultivated, especially when times are toughest.

When I wrote the post, ‘Hope is an action word’, Chris’ amazing friend (who’s name is Hope) wrote a fantastic comment.  It simply said, ‘I am Hope’.

Yes you are.  Hope…you are Hope!

If you don’t mind, we are trying to be a little Hope-like ourselves!

The thing that really struck me about this article in the Sun was that in order for Hope to be Hope and not just a wish or dream, is that it required ACTION.

HOPE, DECISIONS, ACTION.

As I said on Friday, it’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.

Of course Sunday is here for Easter 2011, but we wait and live with HOPE for our next ‘Sunday’ with Chris whenever that will be.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Biology+hope+bolsters+Easter+central+message/4663871/story.html#ixzz1KRrA9apN

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Be The Best.

Wee Trolls and We Day

I was struck by two very different articles in this morning’s newspapers.

The Province carried a story called, ‘Take back Facebook’ which highlighted an ugly reality of cyberspace.  That reality is that there are people out there (called trolls), who search for memorial sites and place inappropriate (at best) and confrontational messages.  Sad to say, we’ve seen those trolls on Chris’ site too including this past week.  We remove them and ban them and then move on.  You know why?  They are wee trolls (as in small and insignificant).  In other words, those actions only speak to the people conducting those actions and they are not indicative of the majority.

I wrote early on in this blog experience about how Facebook Saved our Lives.  We remember those days so clearly.  Ingrid would spend hours each day reading the messages of support and in those darkest of nights, they kept us going.  We still encourage anyone who wants to know about Chris and our family to read this blog and read the messages on his memorial site.  The whole story is there including the 2 part eulogy.

So from wee trolls we move to article number two featuring We Day.  This is very cool. This is an event happening in Vancouver today that is tied to Free the Children.  What I love about this is that it is youth inspiring youth.  It is everything that is positive about young people.  Vision, desire, passion, action.  Love it.

You can check out We Day and all it means via this link.

Technology provides opportunity.  As humans we can make that positive or negative.

We will continue to monitor the bad and deal with wee trolls, because we know that the power of good as exhibited through the We Day events is the REAL power of young people today.