It Hardly Ever Rains In Gozo...
It seems to hardly ever rain here in Gozo...
And when it does, it does it very politely at night, the clouds clearing in the morning to reveal a sunny sunny day...
Yesterday evening though, it rained for about five minutes... It rained really hard, and it happened to be when we were walking down the hill to have a drink in Tonys bar!
Torrential rain, there was absolutely no where for us to go... The rain poured down. We laughed a lot as well as exclaimed every so often 'there's no where to go', and occasionally we resisted it...'I don't like it, we have the evening ahead...' Then we would laugh again and say, 'there's nowhere to go, it's happening, here we are...'
We tumbled into the bar, dripping wet, where we were greeted with smiling faces and warmth...
Tony's crinkly eyes were laughing a lot and he said to us, 'it's pissing down '!
'Your English is very good Tony,' Anadi laughed with him, shaking his hair and pulling his wet T shirt away from him...
'I think this calls for one of Mario's' margaritas I said, as Anadi ordered his G and T...
Mario is Sammy's (Tonys brother) son... He is trained in the hospitality business, and is clearly a connoisseur of food and drink...
He makes an excellent margarita; and he is confident, relaxed, young, good looking and speaks perfect English...
A few days ago I had said to Anadi, 'Mario could work anywhere in the world, he could go to London, any big city where English is the language, and succeed there if he wanted...'
Anadi came over to where I was sitting drying out, carrying our drinks... He had been having a chat with Mario....
'He was offered a job at the Hilton in London, but he didn't take it...'
'Oh, what did he say?' I asked..
He said... 'I'm happy here, I have everything I want here, why would I go there...?'
Why indeed...?
As we travel and meet different folk wherever we go, we are constantly shown how much groups of people get stuck in certain paradigms of 'how things should be...'
Progression and stretching for achievement being a very 'western way'; being happy and living each day fully, loving the life we are living, isn't readily given as a destination to go towards...
What makes you happy isn't the most important question that is asked when young people are choosing their careers...
It is often what are you good at? What will be the best thing you can do, to achieve and succeed...?
Often of course the two go hand in hand; what makes us happy and what we are good at...
But it is important that we seek to know ourselves and teach our children to know themselves... Then, if we naturally do the things that make our heart sing, that are our expression, we can lead by example and celebrate our children's passions and joys, and encourage this in them...
Stretching for the stars is fun, striving for excellence and to be the best we can be with our own talents gives us many gifts in the form of experiences along the way, but not being attached to an outcome sets us free...
If success and acumen do come from this, there will be no attachment to them; the real exercise is to stay connected to the flow of self in motion and not the results of it...
Mario is excellent at what he does, he takes great pride in mixing his Cocktails and making people happy...
I could taste his happiness in my magical margarita...