Whole Earth Festival 2

I attended the closing ceremony this year, and I listened to the speech of the founder, an amazing elder woman, to the very end. I was so impressed by her profound knowledge in Buddism and native American culture. She asked us not to live our life based on the fear of lacking, but on the gratefulness of the abundance we have, because the more you give, the more you possess. It sounds contradictary but it all makes sense to me!

My story is exactly the example of her words. I was very shy in my high school years, always feeling nervous in the social events. I tried to dress and act like those cool guys, but it did not help at all. However, when I started to join the volunteer activities in my college years, I found I've overcome my shyness in a very short time just like a miracle! because when I focussed my mind on helping the others instead of how people thought about me, I just felt more comfortable with people and more confident of myself!

The most impressive volunteer work for me is helping the native Taiwanese children who lived in the mountain area. I remember how the kids laughed about my dancing and how I led them to say the prayers even I have never been a Catholic. I just realized there is no better way to make life complete than dedicating it to help the others!

It was marvelous that I dreamed about taking photos for my previous classmate who I have lost contact for a long time just before the 2nd day of the festival, and I suddenly found out that the idea of the event is really similar to her platform when she was the president of the student assoication in our university. You know, her story is even more miraculous than mine!

When I knew her in my freshman year, she was kind of the girl next door, but 3 years later, she had suddenly become the leader of the feminist groups in our school! and when she was the president, her administration did a lot of work to help the minority groups on campus, such as promoting the human rights for gays and lesbians. You can imagine how difficult it was at that time when people in Taiwan were still very conservative, and how many obstacles she had to face. Yes at beginning people were all very skeptical about her actions, but when they saw how persistent she was to defend her ideals, they had gradually believed in her. It was just like a magic! with a voice telling everyone that yes you can make the world a better place!

It was a pity that I was not able to work in her administration as we planned, but that is ok because there will always be more chances for me to do something great, as long as my courage is as strong as hers, and maybe this dream indicates that we will soon collaborate in the future to do some amazing things!

It will be a renassiance of my life! I've lost my direction for some time but the festival and the dream have put me back to the right track again! I am going to learn to be a better person by making the world better, just like what I did in my good old days in college, and then I will be awesomely changed again and feel even more confident of myself. This is the promise that I keep for both myself and the entire world!