Is there anything good in the world at the moment

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

Is there anything good in the world at the moment

Hey, I need some help! My wife of 48 years is being progresively taken from me. Lots of couples don't make it for one reason or another. They just fall out of love....one of them has an affair....one of them dies!

But, this is a sh*t of a situation because...we both love each other, but we are being progresively pulled apart by this bloody disease....Multiple Sclerosis!

I come here to the CC because I want to escape for an hour or so every now and then, the reality of life.

I am sure, for every problem post, there are 1,000 nice posts that I would love to read and be a part of. I logged on tonight and this is what I see....

Bad times..png

 

Although I have, I don't feel I want to respond to any of those....I can conjure up enough problems in my life without taking on more!

I want to start a thread that is devoted to hosts who loved their guests, and guests who loved their host....I know there are many. I think we are loosing that great attribute.....empathy. It is all very well to help each other out of a scrape here or there.

But can we please start to see what has made this platform great for us. I loved reading Freds post about how he built and atoll into an Island hosting.

There are millions of funny stories out there, God I have related many, but they just disappear into an obscurity of hosting gloom.

Can I please ask you to post on this thread your funny happy stories so I can luxuriate in the things that have made us what we are.....human!

 

 

Cheers......Rob

58 Replies 58
Paul154
Level 10
Seattle, WA

You're   right @Robin4

We do wallow at times. While this board may seem negative, I think most of us enjoy this business.

I love most all of my respectful wonderful guests.

It shocks me how well they take care of my place. Often times they leave it cleaner than they received it!

I even like most of my "Not as good guests".even though they may leave the room a mess, they may have some redeeming quality like flexibility, humor or personality.

But good guests don't make good copy:)

I like dirt, irony, stories of frustration.   

@Robin4

 

Your message is right to the point. Your heart bleeds and instead of feeling relieve when looking into the forum to find friends, support or being in help with your gold heart to hosts in need of help - you read only disappointing stories, pure complaints not asking for resolving the problems but just accusing, even blaming AirBnB for not having something for free...

 

@Robin4You are my friend, you helped me once - as Willow and several other hosts - these are people who know what LOVE is, how precious and rare a thing in human life it is and how one feels lost in the world when seeing it slowly escapes...  

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Lilly28

I don't know that my heart bleeds Lilly but, I do like to have warmth around me and I do like to think that humanity is better because I was here, just as I am sure it is because you are here.

This community helps me because it recharges my batteries, it stops me from becoming morose and getting too bogged down in negatives. 

I don't want to all the time think and act for two people. I don't want to always be the last to get on the bus, I don't always want to be the one who always has to put those extra cans of soft drink in the fridge, put the steam mop over the floor, water the pot plants, do the shopping, think about what to have for dinner tonight, change the beds and get the washing out.....and back in again.

I would love a hand with that.....but it can't happen so, I need to compensate in other ways, and this is where the forum is of great help to me......This is my time, this is where I am not just an 'appendage' of someone else. I don't mean that to sound cruel, when it's someone you love you just do what you have to do.

But this is where I help me....and hopefully a few others.

 

Cheers.....Rob

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Paul154

Yeah you are right Paul, we all want to see that 2,000 word review rant, that absolute pilloring of the guest, or the host....it makes juicy reading.

I spent some time in support, and my god Paul, that was thankless....it was simply one angry problem after another all looking for some sort of validation where validation was in many instances not possible.

 

But I do like it here, the waters are continually shifting....contributors come, and they go, but the common thread about the CC is, the desire to help, everyone here has a heart they wish to share...

And I think that is worth a lot. 

 

Cheers.....Rob

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Hello @Robin4,

 

Thank you again for sharing such a personal note here and for encouraging more positive posts here.

 

The Community Center is a great place to find support, share experiences with one another and I am sure you and others would agree we have a fantastic group of people here. This being said, it is often easy to focus on problems that have arisen and we don't want to loose sight of that as it is important that we address more difficult conversations and also strive for improvement in ourselves and Airbnb as a company. However, I agree we are all human and I believe laughter, humour and great postive stories are the fruit of life and it would be lovely to see more of that here.

 

There are some wonderful conversations, many of which you have started, but it is for us as a community to bring these out more and steer this here.  @Paul154 made an interesting point that he 'likes the dirt, irony, frustration' and 'that good guests don't make good copy' and I'm sure he is not alone in thinking this, but it's about finding a balance and I think perhaps we just need to get creative with the delivery! 🙂

 

It isn't that easy, but it only takes a few of us to get the momentum going. I really like the sound of your new discussion topic, please do start it. 

 

Thanks again,

 

Lizzie

 

 


--------------------


Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Lizzie

It is a form of self preservation Lizzie! As you know, I spent some months in support and I found it soul destroying.....I never came across anything nice, just problems., I don't care what it might have paid, it was not worth it. Those people in support are a special breed, and I was not up to the task.

I have enough personal issues in my life but I still have the desire to help and it is nice to get that thank you post when you have presented a resolution for someone with a specific problem.

 

The CC is casual with no pressure, and I like that....just wish it could do something about Ade's legs, get her mobile again.

I have a piano piece for you Lizzie.  If I post it via 'Imgur' which is quick and easy, there will be vision but, no sound, so I am working on getting it up on a Utube link. I wish I was younger with a bit more computer knowledge. It is a song I am sure you will have a great empathy with.....stay tuned!

 

Cheers......Rob

Fred13
Level 10
Placencia, Belize

@Robin4  

  Remember that 'Guest Book' we keep for guests to write about their experience during their stay? It has  helped me so much reconnecting with people, at the most human level . Every time my mrs and I get to stay at the island, we read that book over a roaring fire, and it reminds us how fortunate we are for this whole experience.

   Georgie's letter (5 years old, from NYC) and she spoke about how her parents were now happy and  being so nice to each other and how her brother (10 years old) finally had time to play with her and drew great pictures of the family doing things - together.

   Or the couple that just left and the wife arrived looking absolutely exhausted (3 kids in 5 years) and for the first time she and her husband had a 'moment' alone; when I picked them up she looked radiant. She had no idea were they were going till they actually arrived. She wrote how she really got a chance to appreciate how lucky she was to have such a great husband. She read 5 books, and had not read a single one since they got married 7 years ago.

    The company owner,  wrote how he arrived so uptight and angry, and now upon reflection during his stay, will approach his employees totally differently and how he had made so many mistakes in the past. He wrote that like having a conversation with himself. 

    Some come to propose, some to figure out what to do next having lost someone, some to imagine a new direction in life, and most to only slow down.

 

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Fred13

You make me realise how much I have missed by not having a guest book Fred.

There is so much you fit into your life that you overlook the simplest things, and I am a little sad about that Fred. I have many pictures, guests just send them to me because they have no other way to express themselves......Betts and guest.png

They say a picture is worth a thousand words but I am not so sure....I would love to have a few words to look back on like you have Fred.

 

Cheers......Rob

 

Betty-B--M-0
Level 10
Nairobi, Kenya

@Robin4, I reckon yours made far better reading than the juiciest of guest gripes. There's something good in the world.

 

Betty

 

Lawrene0
Level 10
Florence, Canada

@Robin4, I was just about to reply to a thread that slams a host for not including photos of the neighbour's sketchy property. I know I am reluctant to photograph, for my listing, a neighbour's tractor - a tree fell on it last fall, and he has left it in place in a sort of tableau. Thank goodness for privacy concerns. 

But in the meantime I found this nice thread, so you get to hear about the tractor instead. It looks sort of cool, actually, but I am no judge of installation art. 

Thanks for all you do. 

 

 

 

 

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Lawrene0

Oh Lawrene, please don't sell yourself short, if your River Treehouse is anything to go by you are something of a creative genius. The treehouse itself is installation art!...I would love to see a picture of the tree whacked tractor. 

Ade gets terribly frustrated because every time I went to the dump I came back with 'someone elses cast-offs which I was sure I could find a spot for'. The net result of that is I have a shed full of 'someone elses cast-offs which I am sure I could find a spot for'.

Now is coming into your time of the year and we travelled half the way around the world to see Autumn in Canada, I would love to see some of your spring/summer.

 

Cheers.....Rob

You know what you might like better than a pic of the tractor, @Robin4? You're a piano man. Another neighbour and I (with the help of our reluctant husbands - practical like your Ade, I think) put my old piano, untuneable after the soundboard cracked, in her sheep pasture. The sheep liked it, and it became a bit of an attraction before a few of our hard winters finished it entirely. 

piano.JPG

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Lawrene0

There you go, an old piano never dies, it just becomes a work of art! We have a couple like that around here Lawrene. This poor dear is chained up in our main street outside one of the hotels.

IMG20180423140731 b.jpg

 

She had a reasonable sound when they first chained her there but, a good many less than competent pianists have brought it's playability into serious question. I won't attempt anything on it any more.

Since we married we always had two pianos in the house (both 'hand me downs') because Ade was a good pianist, much better than I. She had her 'letters' from the conservatorium, she was a qualified piano teacher. In those early days we used to do duets, songs written for 4 hands like 'Nola'! Our problem was always trying to keep these 2 instruments in tune!

One day I bought a tuning fork, I thought this can't be hard, the tuning fork is middle C, I had a good ear, just ear it from there. Well I ended up breaking two strings and we had to get the piano tuner in and the first thing he said was..."Who on earth has been mucking around with this"!!

Anyway that was the end of that piano because the two new strings went out of tune at a different rate to the rest and we had to get rid of it.....some charity piano demolishing thing where 6 big burly guys with sledge hammers tried to see how quickly they could make a piano fit through a 10" hole! I wish I had done what you did Lawrene, but I was young and stupid then!

Ade's steady onset of MS meant she lost control of her fingers and had to give away playing all together and I was becoming disenchanted with the other barely tuned accoustic so in 1992 I bought this Technics which has been the musical love of my life ever since....

 

IMG20180423133626 b.jpg

It was, and still is, the only digital that truly resembles a concert grand in touch, feel and sound! It is 26 years old now, nothing last forever, it gets a lot of use and I know one day I am going to turn it on and nothing will happen....and that day it will have to go into 'landfill' because it is not supported any more.

And, it's a toss up as what I am going be sadder seeing go....Adrienne or the Piano!

 

Cheers......Rob

 

 

Lawrene, there is something hauntingly beautiful about that photo. I would have loved to see the sheep's reaction to it! I have a bench fashioned out of an old Indonesian fishing boat I bought from Australia that is not fairing well with all the rain here, I will have to try and mend it this week.

Edwin57
Level 10
New York, United States

Just want to said thank you so much I do know how you feel and you are a hundred percent right

 we all have to put happy thoughts happy thoughts to make a better world