School is on its long journey and while I live in close contact to almost all my students I hear a lot of their daily stories. Mostly I feel sad and I would like to encourage each one of them this evening while giving the possibility to read the following lines:

Just enjoy reading and be your own judge.

It’s wonderful to be ‘man’, to be alive! To be an

ordinary person, to look at the sky, at the sun, at

the flowers and, in the evening, at the stars.

Watching children, laughing, playing, working,

hoping, loving, day-dreaming, being content, is a daily feast.

To be alive

To live simply and normally, to be good, not always

wanting everything, not to be jealous, not to nag or

complain, but to help, to do more, to comfort, to visit a 

sick person, to stand by if someone needs you, to make yourself tired for others, to fall off to sleep in a 

comfy chair, to eat and drink together… and all this

not because you must or because it’s important, but

because it makes sense to you, because you are

human, a fellow-man, because you’re alive.

Do you know the danger that threatens you these

days?

You live in the times of the ‘useful’. What purpose

does it serve? That’s what people ask. What use is

it? Will it pay? People weigh up the cost, the

efficiency and the end-product. People are busy.

People are pre-occupied. People are weighed down.

People calculate. Money must be the result. And

people forget that the beauty of life is found in

moments that are not calculated, when people are

living very ordinarily, very simply. People live longer

and longer but they are not happier and happier. They

begin by working in order to live and they end up working and forgetting to live. They haven’t grasped the essential thing in life. They still continue to believe that a person’s happiness lies in possessing more, eating well and living longer. In these days of so much

knowledge, how can people be so thick? Defend

yourself. You are not a machine made for one particular purpose. You are more than your function, more than your profession, your trade, your work.

You are first and foremost human, made to live, to

laugh, to have love, simply to be a good person.

And that is the only important thing in this world!