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Today's
Quotation:
A bag of apples, a pot of homemade jam, a
scribbled note,
a bunch of golden flowers, a coloured
pebble, a box of
seedlings, an empty scent bottle for the
children. . . . Who
needs diamonds and van-delivered
bouquets?
Pam Brown
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Today's
Meditation:
What
do we want? Are our wants sabotaging our feelings of
contentment and happiness? It seems pretty obvious
that the simpler we keep our wants, the easier it will be to
find contentedness and happiness. The more complicated
or expensive the things that we want, the more difficult it
becomes to attain them, and then we find that much of our
effort and energy in life is spent in the struggle to attain
material things, when that time and effort could be spent in
so many other ways that can make us so much happier.
The
expectations that we choose to have are one way that we
determine how we feel. If our expectations are very
high, and if our feelings depend on whether or not those
expectations are met, then we're setting ourselves up for
many disappointments. If we always expect things that
cost a great deal of money, then someone has to work very
hard to make that money, and then spend it on us.
If,
on the other hand, we make ourselves able to see the
incredible beauty in the bag of apples, if we allow
ourselves to feel the joy of the expectation of their taste,
if we choose to be aware of the miracle of growth that
apples represent, then we can make ourselves richer in life
without gaining a single material product. If we can
keep alive our recognition of the wonders of life, then our
lives will be filled with wonder, and all of our days will
be filled with bright moments as we realize just what a joy
it is to be alive and to be able to partake of such things.
All
day, every day, we're exposed to wonderful things in this
life. The question is, do we choose to see the simpler
things as wonderful, or do we lose out on the beauty and
magic that they can add to our experiences while we're here
on this planet?
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