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Today's
Meditation:
Oh,
the things that we value! How many people do you
know who put their highest priorities on their wealth,
whatever form it may take, rather than their
character? There are many people in this world who
think that losing their collections of
something-or-another would devastate them, would turn them
into something less than they are, so they protect them at
all costs. They identify with their wealth, whether
it be in the form of money or baseball cards or cars or
property.
But
when all is said and done, it all comes down to who we are
inside. I like to think of how I would react if our
house were to burn down and leave nothing to
salvage. I'd like to think that my response
would be much like Emerson's when his house burned down--
he told a friend that the flames were quite
beautiful, and they should enjoy them while they were
there. He was aware that all of his writings that
were in the process of being lost, as well as all of the work that he
had put into creating them, meant very little at the
moment. What mattered was who he was as a human
being. The rest could be replaced, for the most
part, but his own self could not be.
I
also think sometimes of what life would be like if I were
to have an accident that left me paralyzed, such as what
happened to Christopher Reeve. How would I respond,
especially in the long term? Would I still feel
balanced? Would I still love life every day? I
can't know, of course, but I do know that I do my best to
spend more time developing myself than I do trying to
amass wealth of any material sort. I also do my best
to maintain my health, for much of my character develops
from the way I treat myself, and I want to treat my body
with dignity and respect.
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