Call Yourself A Barefooter for a Week, Serve a Purpose…and Become Stress Free

Become a Barefooter and Leave Your Imprint

 Barefooter

Going ‘barefoot’ (also ‘barefooted’) means for a person not to use, or to go without, any type of foot covering. It is traditional to go barefoot in many developing world, but less common in industrialized due to greater societal taboos, fashions, or peer pressure against going barefoot.

A ‘barefooter’ is someone who prefers to go barefoot occasionally, often, or at all times. Calling oneself a barefooter implies that being barefoot is a voluntary choice (as opposed to, for example, not being able to afford shoes), or whenever use of footwear is decided to be unnecessary. Reasons for choosing to go barefoot include the sensation of one’s feet in direct contact with the ground, and to confirm many perceived spiritual or natural health benefits one may experience…..

…Many religious traditions consider removing shoes as a pious gesture of humility, especially appropriate when approaching holy places.  Wikipedia

A Message of Purpose from Bilaal Rajan

International Volunteer Week is taking place April 19 – 25, 2009, and to celebrate the occasion, Bilaal is spearheading an initiative where he will live life without shoes for the entire week. As they say, “You never really know someone until you walk a mile in their shoes,” so Bilaal is taking it a step further: He is going barefoot!

He is asking fellow students, teachers and the general public to do the same, or as long as they can, to better understand the struggles faced by underprivileged children in the developing world – many of whom cannot afford shoes, let alone attend school or even know where their next meal is coming from.

Children in these countries walk miles in their bare feet every day to fetch water, work on their farm lands, go to school, or perform other chores. For many of them, the first priority is to take care of their families.

I’m urging everyone to spend just one hour bare feet any day during International Volunteer Week. Even better, you can spend a half or even a full day bare feet at work, at school or at home. What are you prepared to do to make the world a better place? Bilaal Rajan

……Become Stress Free for a Week

Going barefoot really puts you in a different sort of mindset, and is usually only reserved for those special, relaxing moments.

Think about when you tend to go barefoot — at the beach, at home on the carpet, walking on cool grass in the summer, — and you’ll get an idea of what we mean. Exercises geared toward strengthening the body and relaxing the mind (yoga, tai chi, martial arts) are also typically practiced barefoot.

“Maybe the whole world secretly understands that free feet produce a different, more philosophical, relaxed, and unbusinesslike mindset. Without shoes, our ambitions would fade away, wolfish trade practices seem too much trouble, international frictions look foolish. Armies would curl up to take a nap. Nobody would get any serious work done,” wrote Barbara Holland in ‘Endangered Pleasures’.

Or maybe we should all take our shoes off next time we’re at work, and see just how stress-free we become?  (www.sixwise.com)