This is the question a new book by Dan Zadra and Kobi Yamada asks. I came across it by chance at a local Starbucks and parts of it moved me to tears. What a timely and inspiring reminder of the beauty of life, and how to be grateful for the little things!
In Spirit of the season, I thought it would be appropriate to share this excerpt with you:
You Are Royalty
If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep... you are richer than 75% of the world's population.
If you have a little money in the bank or spare change in a dish someplace... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.
If you can drink from your kitchen faucet whenever you want... you are more fortunate by far than 1.5 billion people who have no access to clean water at all.
If you can attend a church or a political rally without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death... you have the kind of freedom denied to more than three billion people in the world.
If you can read this message, you are more blessed than two billion people who cannot read at all.
If your everyday problems are weighting you down, there are millions of people on Earth who would gladly trade places with you right now - problems and all - and feel they have been royally blessed.
Remember: "From those to whom much is given, much is expected."
For the rest of the stories, you'll have to get the book (but you might want to wait, because I am giving it to some of you for Christmas! :-))
Gratitude is the key to opening one's heart to joy and love. And how easy it is to say, and how difficult to do at times! We all get weighted down by the problems of daily life, by worry and anxiety or by the sheer pace of living: too many people to please, and too many things to do. Even time set aside for Meditation or "Spiritual Exercises" sometimes becomes just another hurried thing on a never ending "to-do-list" (which, of course, defies the purpose of a spiritual practice!). One antidote for this is to consciously slow down, to make time for "unstructured time". Time to dream, to be creative, to spend with loved ones, to journal, to read poetry, to look at the stars. If we can't slow down enough to open ourselves to the magic of the moment, we are not only missing out on something essential, we are missing life itself.
This is what happened to me this particular day when I came across the above mentioned book at a Starbucks cafe. I had been to a Yoga class in the morning where the instructor asked us to set an intention for the class. I couldn't think of anything at first (and for me as a former dancer I tend to approach any movement class in a no-nonsense kind of way, super alert and ready to "perform". Only that in Yoga, this is not the purpose...), but then I came up with the intention to open my heart.
Somehow, this simple little thought made my whole day special. It made me notice things I may not have noticed ordinarily, small little events or "waking dreams" that appeared throughout the day like an invisible chain of pearls, ever guiding me to keep my heart open, ensuring me of spiritual guidance and the wonder of life.
In that sense, I think gratitude is not only the key to open our hearts to the beauty around us, it is also the key to make a difference in somebody else's life. It is gratitude that makes us wish to serve, to give something back to life, and as such gratitude becomes the force behind inspiration, hope, and upliftment, in ways both big and small. You never know what power could lie in just one person opening her heart to love - it could just be the cause that sends a ripple of inspiration around the planet!
No comments:
Post a Comment