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funkygandhi
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Name: Tony
Country: Canada
State: British Columbia
Metro: Vancouver
Birthday: 3/10/1986
Gender: Male
Interests: Travelling, hiking, exploring random and unfamiliar places, volunteerism, cooking, good music
Expertise: Being Dr. Tony and a random geyser of knowledge, stuffing large amounts of high sugar foods into my mouth.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message me
Member Since:
8/1/2004
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| I have moved to the ad-less Blogger.com! Come visit my site @ funkalicioust.blogspot.com!
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| What an amazing year. Certainly a year of firsts. Not only did I
get outrageously hammered, learn to drive a car, see some amazing kids
through to Disneyland, get an all expenses paid lap-dance, find my
passion and finally go snowboarding, slowly but surely, I am beginning
to see what it truly means to live.
I believe that success and
happiness do not come with reaching the top of a mountain, but through
how much passion you put into every footstep on the path you choose.
Happiness lies within our capacity for compassion and through the
realisation that nobody is immune to falling through the cracks.
Life
is weaving path of choices, decisions, and relationships. It is choice
we make. Although we all choose separate paths towards meaningful and
fulfilling lives, we all strive for the same destination of validation
and acceptence. I believe that my path is that of compassion, through
which I see people as dynamic, powerful individuals
capable and fully deserving of self-determination and love.
All
lives were meant to meaningfully intersect. The lingering question is,
how willing are we to look beyond our minute differences and realize
that we all strive for the same goal?
Life is a choice we make,
and although it can end any moment in time, it's meaning lies not within ourselves, but through the lives of others and
how much importance we place on them.
Happy New Year!
May 2006 be the year you finally change your underwear.
Tony
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| What an amazing year. Don't know where to start blogging. See? I CAN use popularized sayings in properly structured sentences. I blog.
Here's a gift from me to those of you whom I weren't able to get in touch with through the holidays. Though the context may be a little out of date, the message still stands true. I hope you enjoy it.
To all my friends:
Hohoho... it's that time of year again, when the city is aglow with the
sparkling of early morning frost and black ice, when the trees are bare
and our cold hands yearn for a nice warm Venti cup of Peppermint Mocha
with non-fat milk and 2 shots of Valentia Orange. You walk into a mall
and you are transported into a world of uber-Christmas (and
mind-melting Christmas muzak). Hearts are filled with joy as the
horrible rendition of "Baby, it's cold outside." by Jessica Simpson and
Nick Lachey play in the background; you know the North American
Christmas Spirit is alive and well.
Why is it that we are so inclined to buy and give during the
holiday season? We live in such a fast-paced, crazy, hectic world that
we often have no time to even properly wash our hands after going to
the bathroom (at least that's the excuse I use) let alone make time for
ourselves and others. And wham-o! Its Christmas Time once again, what
better time to show people that you DO care? But rather than giving the
gift that we all so desperately desire, we compensate with a 42' inch
plasma screen HDTV, a pair of socks, and that sweater which I'm hoping
you kept the receipt for. Marketers have smelled our desire to buy
(woo! it smells bad) and have pounced on us like cats to a box of mice.
.
This holiday, stop for a sec, no seriously, stop panic
twitching for just a bit. This year, give the gift that really counts,
give the gift of time: time for yourself, time for family and friends,
and those 5 precious minutes that may be worth more than any future
bottle of perfume produced by Britney Spears. Rather than frantically
clawing your way at "sale" merchandise looking for that "perfect" gift,
give the most precious asset you possess, your wonderful presence.
Remember that no gift in the world, no, not even that
hand-knit sweater with the hamster on it, can compensate for time with
you. So go ahead, you can still buy that bottle of scented water, but
remember that the best gifts often come with the greatest sacrifice,
and what more is there to sacrifice than time?
Santa
Claus's head-shaped sugar cookies and slightly turned milk may soothe
the stomach (and not so much the bowels), but open eyes and
compassionate heart satisfies the soul.
Have a great holiday, your resident elf-man,
Tony Ho
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| "I will not make the same mistakes that you did
I will not let myself cause my heart so much misery
I will not break the way you did
You fell so hard
I've learned the hard way, to never let it get that far
Because of you
I never stray too far from the sidewalk
Because of you
I learned to play on the safe side
So I don't get hurt
Because of you
I find it hard to trust
Not only me, but everyone around me
Because of you
I am afraid"
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|  "Be the change you wish to see in the world." -Mahatma Gandhi
Today I had the opportunity to visit the Ministry of Employment and
Income Assistance in the Downtown Eastside. I came in with
misconceptions of what the workers did, who the clients were and
basically what the goals of the Ministry was in regards to poverty. It
was certainly an eye opener for me and definately forced me to re-check
my values and beliefs because I found that some of them were biased,
but I certainly left with a better perspective and a more passionate
eye.
The way I perceive people to be constitutes the way I treat them, this
requires me to constantly ask myself, "Am I listening and seeing to
what is really there? Or am I listening and seeing what I want or don't
want to hear or see?"
I never fully realised how crucially important it is to empower people
to make their own choices. People make "stupid" choices because it may be
the only choices that they feel are accessible or feel that they are
adequate enough to make.
Poverty is more than simply not having enough to
eat, or having a roof over your head; it takes away the right to
self-determination, it hinders the power of choice, and it breaks the
human spirit which is far worse than any physical pain.
In reality, physical poverty is not far from anyone, I'd like to
think
that I'm immune to it but I'm not. 2, 3 months from now or even 10
years down the road I could be living on the streets or from shelter to
shelter because of a bad choice I made, but unless I become totally
mentally incapacitated, I will never truly experience the blunt end of
poverty simply because the scope of my possible choices is large enough
for me to change my circumstances. Choices are constituted of what I
feel I am entitled to, what I feel I can achieve, what resources I have
and what rights I have.
The only rights you have are the ones that you know about.
To empower is to offer resources, information and opportunites for
people to choose to take; it is to put the responsibility of changing
one's circumstances in the hands of the powerless (or feel they are
powerless).
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