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Today's
Meditation:
I
give a lot of thought to the things that I need to do
today. I put a lot of thought into what I'm going to
wear and to
buy and how I'm going to spend my vacations. I give
a lot of thought to ways that I can increase my income and
make ends meet, and to what I'm going to do on my next day
off from work.
I
don't give a lot of thought to how I can make others
happy. I give some thought to it, and these days I
give more thought to it than I used to, but I honestly
give more thought to our financial situation than I give
to other people's happiness. And I don't do that
because I'm obsessed with or preoccupied by finances, but
simply because they demand much of my attention if I'm not
able to keep them straight.
What
Eleanor is asking me to do, I think, is to put more of my
focus on other people's happiness-- and when I do, I'll
experience more joy myself. Because even though my
finances are important, keeping up on them does not give
me joy-- a sense of relief when bills are paid, perhaps,
but not joy.
I
sat down today to prioritize some tasks that I have to
take care of, and I spent 45 minutes or so thinking of the
tasks and then planning how to approach them. What
if I had spent that 45 minutes planning ways that I could
bring joy to the lives of others, without it ever being
discovered who did so? A nice card for a good friend
or a co-worker? A single simple flower for someone
as a pick-me-up? How about treating someone to ice
cream? There are many simple ways to bring joy to
the lives of others, yet I don't often spend a lot of time
thinking about them, and I spend even less time putting
such thoughts into action. And if Eleanor's right,
then I'm cheating myself by not bringing joy to
others. That's a pretty high cost, and not one I'm
sure I want to keep paying. . . .
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