{"id":26553,"date":"2023-04-13T16:34:42","date_gmt":"2023-04-13T16:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalchildtv.com\/?p=26553"},"modified":"2023-04-13T16:36:52","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T16:36:52","slug":"global-child-argentina-the-power-of-perspective-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalchildtv.com\/global-child-argentina-the-power-of-perspective-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Global Child Brazil \u2013 The Joy of Simplicity"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Isabela, our beautiful host for our Global Child Brazil episode told me the story of what it was like growing up on a farm in the outskirts in a tiny town a couple of hours from Sao Paolo. Both of her parents were German immigrants and one of her earliest recollections is how she used loving to play with the different farm animals. We had just returned from both of our first times doing white water rafting. I jumped off a bridge during that adventure and Isabela, who didn\u2019t want to get wet, was thrown in by one of the instructors. I thought it was so funny (you should have seen her face) but at the same time metaphorical that in life, sometimes you\u2019re going to get wet weather you want to or not. What was most interesting during that experience was the joy that both she and I felt through the simple act of floating down a river and fighting to keep our rubbery craft from toppling over. The joy of simplicity.<\/p>\n

When we returned from rafting, Isabela told me an even better story of how her parents gifted her with a head of a chicken (apparently they were cooking the rest) and Isabela took it to play imaginary games as a young girl would with a Barbie doll. Aren\u2019t children awesome like that? They can have fun with the simplest of things. You travel through Africa and they\u2019ll be playing soccer with coconuts, in Mexico children will play catch with rocks and in Jordan, they love to sword fight with sticks. Children find ways to have fun in the moment and with the most simple things available to them.<\/p>\n

Growing up my mother always told me to stay away from conflictive girls. She said: \u201cson, life can be hard enough on its own, find someone who will your life more simple, not more complicated.\u201d At the beginning, I shrugged it off and boy was my Mom right. I\u2019ve paid attention as I\u2019ve matured through heartbreak and wisdom, perhaps that\u2019s why at the time of this writing I\u2019m still single. The most beautiful things in life are simple. A glorious sunrise. Chocolate. A beach with just enough breeze. Coconut water on a hot day in the tropics. A well-placed high-five with a friend. Babies. Floating on a raft down a river. A nice patch of rolling green grass to lay on. An acai bowl. A great caipirinha during sunset.
Simplicity brings joy. Wait, I have a better one. Simplicity reveals joy.<\/p>\n

I think that in this fast-paced world we live in, it\u2019s so important to realize that honestly\u2026 sometimes less really is more. I can\u2019t tell you the number of times where I\u2019m sharing a beautiful moment with someone that gets interrupted over and over again because they haven\u2019t silenced their phone or because they\u2019re browsing on IG every five minutes. With Isabela it wasn\u2019t like that; because from my experience in Brazil, I was noticing that enjoying the simple things of life and being in the moment is a great Brazilian trait. Isabela and I visited a dangerous Favela and traversed it\u2019s graffiti-covered steps with the guidance of a local inhabitant. We toured the streets of Rio and saw people dancing for no apparent reason. I even met a friend who took us on a ride on his sailboat. He quit his job as a stockbroker and now did just that\u2026 sail. When I asked him why, he said that he preferred the simple life because it made him happy. Happiness and joy are like close cousins. They\u2019re related but they\u2019re not the same thing. Happiness is tied to what is \u201chappening\u201d around us. By definition, it\u2019s very difficult to be consistently happy in this world with all these external factors messing with our groove. On the other hand, joy is internal. Joy is how we feel on the inside regardless of what is happening on the outside. I\u2019d like to present to you the idea that, when we simplify our complicated lives and learn to live in the moment with gratitude for the particular place we find ourselves in, we reveal joy that has been placed inside. I read a book called One Thousand Gifts by Anne Voskamp that hypothesized that joy is directly proportional to our gratitude. Try it out\u2026 after you finish reading this blog post just sit there for a couple of minutes listing every single thing you\u2019re grateful for. You\u2019ll notice it happening: a warm feeling from the inside, the smile bubbling up on our face\u2026 it\u2019s joy!<\/p>\n

What I discovered in Brazil with Isabela, is that Brazilian people have to constantly fight the crowds, their traffic, their crime and their complicated social and geopolitical situations to enjoy the simple wonders that they\u2019ve been blessed with. Rio is possibly the most scenic city in the world. Iguazu is the most impressive series of waterfalls and rainbows known to man. Perhaps that\u2019s where the battle for joy is\u2026 in fighting to keep the simple things sacred. Enjoy going for a walk and watching the sunset. Have a coffee with a friend and leave your phone at home. Eat an ice-cream because you can and then exercise it off because it\u2019s a blessing to be able to. Whatever the simple things in life that you find you enjoy\u2026 go after them and let\u2019s allow joy to reveal itself because, at the end of the day, life is just like that rafting adventure: since you\u2019re going to get wet, you might as well enjoy it!<\/p>\n

By
Augusto Valverde
@GlobalChildTV<\/p>\n

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Isabela, our beautiful host for our Global Child Brazil episode told me the story of what it was like growing up on a farm in the outskirts in a tiny…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26554,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[220],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalchildtv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26553"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalchildtv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalchildtv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalchildtv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalchildtv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26553"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/globalchildtv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26558,"href":"https:\/\/globalchildtv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26553\/revisions\/26558"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalchildtv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalchildtv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalchildtv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalchildtv.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}