Leon the tourguide

Leon the tourguide
Leon the Tour Guide

Saturday, July 2, 2011

About Me

About Me


My lifestory.
My meditation.
Make the best of life.

My lifestory.


I considered myself lucky from the day I was born, well from as early as I can remember thinking, which must have been about the day I was born in Krugersdorp.

I lay, tightly wrapped in lovely white, starched sheets in a cot facing a wall covered in plaster with a pleasant light green coloured, wavy hair comb design, whose lines my eyes traced eagerly in the hope of finding their beginning or their end. I found neither and came to the conclusion that good things are circular; a good painting never ends, neither a good song or a good feeling. Bad things had beginnings and ends.

Today I can only guess that someone had placed me, lying on my right side, facing the wall, without any possibility of turning around because they thought it healthy, but to this day my right leg is weaker than my left leg because of the numbness it suffered then.

I loved learning so I eagerly awaited my first school day because someone had lied to me that school is a place to learn things. From the moment I found out the truth, that school is just a place to regurgitate what your teachers told you I began to suffer. But I knew that suffering, like all bad things came to an end, so 12 years of suffering past over me.

My suffering was the result of a radical discrepancy between what I was supposed to learn at school and what I learned on my own; one didn't get good grades from learning things not taught in school.

I became a teacher to rectify this situation for the next generation but I gave it up after 10 years and settled in Israel where I became a tour guide.

I have lived in Jerusalem, at exactly the place I'd always dreamed of living, namely, Mt.Scopus, overlooking the mountains of Moab and I've managed to see my 4 sons grow up. This also is a never ending process.

I have a wonderful wife and I'm madly in love with her, a granddaughter by the name of Tamar, who is just like me, a grandson by the name of Ophir, another by the name of Alon and now the latest addition is Eitan.

I love my work and even after 35 years of guiding I still feel as if I'm always going out on my very first tour.

My meditation


I believe that there are many people who follow my philosophy of life, some do it conciously, like myself but some people do it automatically and are happy without ever knowing why, they just accept it as the natural way of life.

People like myself who have to conciously learn this philosophy have to work at it all their lives and even then they don't achieve complete happiness. That is a very  idealistic situation.

It's helped me feel better but the moment I stop and try to live without it I go back into depression. It's like a tablet that one takes almost every minute of the day.

I have printed my meditation on my business card. I don't suggest that it'll help everybody or that it'll help quickly or permanently but it changed my life.

It goes like this:

"Whatever befalls me will not disturb my mental joy because being unhappy I will not accomplish what I want and my virtue will diminish."

I think that only if a person really wants to heal his sadness this will help him but if he doesn't really want to heal his sadness it won't help.

I also recommend reading a book by the Dalai Lama called "Healing anger". I found it very difficult to read and understand but after reading it about 3 times it helped me, even though I didn't completely understand it.

Complete understanding like complete happiness is a goal to strive for all our lives and very few people achieve it but it is possible and it is worthile trying to achieve it.

Make the best of life

Everything in life is so sudden and so surprising, we simply don't know what's going to happen next.

We just have to accept and respect and adjust to living in the new situation.

Let's all try to enjoy those close to us, to be kind to them and give them encouragement in everything they di,

Let's enjoy our kids and our family for a good long life

 

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