25 Tiny Yet Remarkable Ways To Add More Love Into The World

Dec 21, 2014

The world will give you plenty of reasons to harden against it. You will never run out of evidence that points you in the direction of suffering and bitterness and anger. This world will not teach you how to love. This world will offer up little to no proof that you should believe in the goodness of it. This world will not open its heart to you and give you acceptance. You will always fight against injustice and you will never not be surrounded by suffering. This world can shatter your heart into a thousand pieces and it won’t always help you put it back together. This world will never adamantly and enduringly convince you that there is truth, love, joy, light.

What will you do?

Will you allow this world to harden you and then break you? It’s easy enough to allow. Let the anger and suffering wash over you and let it consume you. Start drinking to counteract it. Find someone to fuck. Look at your phone. Send a text. Scroll Instagram. Refresh Twitter. Next on Netflix. Go to a drive-thru. Medicate yourself. Spend your energy fighting against the feeling you’re allowing yourself to accept. Stave off another broken day by pretending you’re not cracking.

Or.

You can…

1. Practice compassion instead of ambivalence.

2. Build empathy instead of walls.

3. Practice self-awareness instead of distraction.

4. Stand up for something instead of claiming neutrality.

5. Do something that is not about you instead of chasing a personal pay-off.

6. Find a purpose instead of only doing exerting effort for financial reward.

7. Educate yourself instead of speaking without authority or knowledge.

8. Use your voice for impact instead of for gossip.

9. Be an example to the world instead of hiding who you truly are.

10. Make time for all types of love instead of looking for The One.

11. See all sides of an issue instead of demanding to be right.

12. Care about a cause that does not directly affect you instead of caring about only your own interests.

13. Put in effort instead of looking for the easy way out.

14. Face your demons, fears, emotions instead of denying them.

15. Be kind and understanding and radically accepting of yourself and of others instead of demanding others change.

16. Simplify everything instead of trying to find ways to cope with a complicated life.

17. Speak your truth instead of spending time hiding who you are.

18. Love instead of fearing, hating, judging. Always.

19. Subtract evidence of the cruelty and suffering of this world instead of adding to it.

20. Give a stranger a reason to believe in the light instead of a reason to believe in the darkness.

21. Be the change the world desperately needs.

22. Be the empathy you do not see from others.

23. Be the understanding you know is needed.

24. Be the love you do not see.

25. It seems like it would be too simple, too small to make a difference. But, it builds. It expands.

What is your next move?

8 Most Breathtaking Weddings Held Around the World

Adam East

Dec 20, 2014

Over the course of six years, we’ve seen some truly breathtaking photos of people being married all around the world. Whether they were standing amongst African wildlife or using nature’s fury as their backdrop, these couples decided to exchange their vows in a time and place they’d never forget.

The result? Each couple now has a set of stunning wedding pictures that are unique and all their own. Forget Photoshop, these are the real deal.

8. Tornado in Saskatchewan, Canada

When bad weather was predicted for their wedding weekend, this adventurous couple and their wedding photographer didn’t let that get them down. The Canadian couple and photographer Colleen Niska took advantage of the situation and sought out the dramatic skies before the rain started pouring down. Little did they know they would remember their special day in a much more unique way than ever expected! “We just happened to be at the right place at the right time in good old Saskatchewan, Canada,” Niska said. The lucky shots feature the brave couple standing along a gravel road with a massive tornado whirling in the background.

Colleen Niska on Facebook

7. Alaskan Glacial Pool

Anchorage-based photographer Josh Martinez traveled by helicopter to Alaska’s Knik Glacier with an adventurous bride and groom for one unforgettable portrait session. During the photo shoot, the couple frolicked through lush meadows set against a backdrop of snowy mountains, explored icy fields, and even waded knee-deep into a glacial pool of stunningly blue water—ruining the wedding gown in the process. For such incredible photos, we think it may have been worth it!

Josh Martinez’s website

6. African Safari Wedding

Redditor Corey Perkins, aka per1993, has just recently renewed his vows to the love of his life in a breathtaking African wedding. After having met his Zimbabwe-born wife of three years while attending Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania (each on an athletics scholarship), the two wed in the United States. It wasn’t until this year that the couple was able to finally fly over to the bride’s homeland and throw a wedding for her family to attend.

5. Oregon Countryside

It’s part of a wedding photographer’s job to immortalize precious moments while under pressure, but professional photographer Josh Newton’s most recent gig has received national press for its high stakes, burning intensity, and gorgeous results. Newton captured striking and dramatic photos of the newlyweds April Hartley and Michael Wolber set against the backdrop of a blazing wildfire, documenting a wild experience that’s sure to be unforgettable for both the couple and the photographer.

Josh Newton Website

4. New Zealand Mountain

Wedding photographer Eric Ronald captured a photo of a lifetime for one New Zealand couple, Belinda and Campbell. As a surprise for her soon-to-be husband, before the wedding, Belinda arranged for a helicopter flight so that right after the ceremony, the two of them could soar over a lake and land on top of a mountain. Despite the wind that day, the chopper appeared on the horizon and Ronald, the photographer, boarded it along with the couple.

3. Kenya

Wedding photographer Jonas Peterson captured breathtaking scenery complete with wandering wildlife when a couple wed in Kenya in the presence of their Maasai warrior friends. The bride and groom spent two years in the area putting together a book about a lion pride, and during the course of the project, they developed close, family-like relationships with the Maasai Mara locals. When the big day came, the couple’s friends hosted the ceremony at a camp on the plains.

Jonas Peterson’s website

2. Alaskan Ice Cave

Photographer Chris Beck recently captured stunning images of his friends Torsten and Sarah posing in the Mendenhall Glacier ice cave near Juneau, Alaska after their wedding nuptials. To get to the location, the group had to hike over rugged terrain for over two hours, kayak through freezing water, and climb the side of a mountain. Judging from the fantastic photos, we’d say it was worth it, as the couple now has a one-of-a-kind collection of portraits to commemorate their special day. The happy newlyweds look absolutely radiant in the ice cave, with streams of water flowing around them and the surreal blue glow of the glacier above them. Chris Beck’s website

1. Iceland

Calgary, Alberta-based photographer Gabe McClintock adds to the recent trend of unique wedding photos with his images of Sarah and Josh, a couple who eloped to the lovely country of Iceland to celebrate their nuptials. While the couple originally planned to have a simple wedding with their family and friends in Ohio, they ultimately made the decision to elope to a faraway, remote location filled with natural wonders.

Chris Beck’s website

25 Things I Have Learned In My Life

Adam East

Dec 19, 2014

In our instant gratification culture, it’s easy to forget that most personal change does not occur as a single static event in time, but rather as a long, gradual evolution where we’re hardly aware of it as it’s happening. We rarely wake up one day and suddenly notice wild, life-altering changes in ourselves.

No, our identities slowly shift, like sea sand getting pushed around by the ocean, slowly accumulating into new contours and forms over the passage of time.

It’s only when we stop years or decades later and look back that we can notice all of the dramatic changes that have taken place. Advice is always easier giving than receiving, but this is something that stuck with me, and it inspired me to share some lessons I’ve learned in my first 40 years of life. My 40s certainly were dramatic. Here are some of the things I learned:

I’ve learnt that…

You cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them.
No matter how much I care, some people just don’t care back.
It takes years to build up trust, and only seconds to destroy it.
It’s not what you have in your life, but who you have in your life that counts.
You can do something in an instant that will give you a heartache for life.
No matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.
You should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.
We are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.
There are people who love you dearly, but just don’t know how to show it.
True friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. Same goes for true love.
Just because someone doesnt love you the way you want them to, doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have.
Maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you’ve had and what you’ve learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you’ve celebrated.
No matter how good a friend someone is, they’re going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.
No matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesn’t stop for your grief.
Just because two people argue, it doesn’t mean they don’t love each other.And just because they don’t argue, it doesn’t mean they do.
We don’t have to change friends if we understand that friends change.
You shouldn’t be so eager to find out a secret. It could change your life forever.
There are many ways of falling and staying in love.
No matter how many friends you have, if you are their pillar, you will feel lonely and lost at the times you need them most.
The people you care most about in life are taken from you to soon.
Although the word “love” can have many different meanings, it loses value when overly used.
Love is not for me to keep, but to pass on to the next person I see.
There are people who love you dearly but just don’t know how to show it.
Even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one.
Every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch-holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.
I still have a lot to learn……