I was just scrolling through Facebook the other day, as we all do when we are bored, and saw just a beautiful photo that said, “One in a million shot…a smile from heaven...”. It had three birds in perfect form of a smiling face. Although many of my friends — and all the other "cool" dudes that aren’t as much of a sucker for such scenes as myself — wouldn't react likewise, this photo put an instant smile on my face.

Its simplicity and effectiveness just hit me and threw me into an ocean of appreciation for everything I have. My mum is extremely similar to me, in this respect, so to make her day by ensuring she has a time out from her extremely stressful and non-stop carnage of midwifery, I tagged her in this photo. Hopefully she appreciated it as much as I did!

These are the simple things; the simple things that play with our heart and just make us stop and think of the positives we have in our lives. Granted, the majority of us in this misconfigured world don’t have it great and have to deal with so many stressors each day, whether these misfortunes are a result of our hand or whether we've just had a tough time. But no matter what, there is always something. That little something helping us along to endure the hard times, so that we can just push through.

In the case I shared above, it was the universal magnificence of nature. Something so simple and rare that it just drowns out any undesirables that life, in all its beauty, throws at you. I think we all need to try and appreciate these simple things a lot more and share that special moment with someone else, to try and spread your good feelings. Too many of us offload our problems and make it so unbearable for others that it affects everything their mood had in store for them at that particular time.

It is very rare for someone to put all of their sh*t aside and make sure that their mood and their struggles aren’t reflected and become absorbed by their companions that they are with a lot of the time. Thinking of others is massively important for me. If I see something that may brighten someone else’s day, or if I see a friend who seems down and upset, I have this burning desire to change it for the better — whether it is just simply sharing a picture on Facebook, or putting my arm around a mate and saying things he is doing great. There is way too much emphasis on what people don’t have, or what they need to get, instead of what brilliance they already offer.

The simple things such as a compliment, making someone a drink, or showing affection or adherence, is what will change such a slippery slope into the oblivion of negativity and deterioration of the self.

”When I proposed the theory of relativity, very few understood me, and what I will reveal now to transmit to mankind will also collide with the misunderstanding and prejudice in the world.
I ask you to guard the letters as long as necessary, years, decades, until society is advanced enough to accept what I will explain below. There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe and has not yet been identified by us. This universal force is LOVE. When scientists looked for a unified theory of the universe they forgot the most powerful unseen force. Love is Light, that enlightens those who give and receive it.

Love is gravity, because it makes some people feel attracted to others. Love is power, because it multiplies the best we have, and allows humanity not to be extinguished in their blind selfishness. Love unfolds and reveals. For love we live and die.

Love is God and God is Love. This force explains everything and gives meaning to life. This is the variable that we have ignored for too long, maybe because we are afraid of love because it is the only energy in the universe that man has not learned to drive at will. To give visibility to love, I made a simple substitution in my most famous equation. If instead of E = mc2, we accept that the energy to heal the world can be obtained through love multiplied by the speed of light squared, we arrive at the conclusion that love is the most powerful force there is, because it has no limits. After the failure of humanity in the use and control of the other forces of the universe that have turned against us, it is urgent that we nourish ourselves with another kind of energy… If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhabits it, love is the one and only answer. Perhaps we are not yet ready to make a bomb of love, a device powerful enough to entirely destroy the hate, selfishness and greed that devastate the planet.

However, each individual carries within them a small but powerful generator of love whose energy is waiting to be released.

When we learn to give and receive this universal energy, dear Lieserl, we will have affirmed that love conquers all, is able to transcend everything and anything, because love is the quintessence of life.

I deeply regret not having been able to express what is in my heart, which has quietly beaten for you all my life. Maybe it’s too late to apologize, but as time is relative, I need to tell you that I love you and thanks to you I have reached the ultimate answer! “.

– Your father, Albert Einstein

This letter from the genius Albert Einstein is one of the most powerful things I have read. It’s a piece where I knew everything that he was saying, and the way he was saying it is that love is so simple. Why do we all make it so hard to love?

There is so much tyranny, hate, and destruction! If we all just loved one another a little more then surely the world would be a better place, right? I’m not saying that being the most lovey-dovey person in the world, which could come across as patronizing, but just acting these simple things and being nice to one another, for me, isn’t hard — and it goes an extremely long way.

I would hope that once one person begins to change it will rub off on any other person that is witness to their kindness. Of course there are plenty of amazing people that go beyond what they should, but are there enough? Do you open the door for people? Do you think about what your actions could have done to someone’s feelings?

As Bob Marley famously stated, “The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.”