Lots To Do. What To Do?

Sometimes I feel like I just have a lot to do. When I do, it affects me greatly. Hiding worry and stress is really an art. There are times that if I were to describe my problems I feel like people would write them off instantly as minor struggles or worse, overreactions. Truthfully maybe that could help me realize the real magnitude of what I was going through. In either case, I feel what I feel and that is enough. Justified or not. The question is what can I do? A lot of the time I need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. After coming to grips with what I'm dealing with, I just work hard, do the best that I can (because that's the most I can do), and pray to God each and every night right before my head hits the pillow. That way when I wake up I can look out the window with a sense of peace and announce to the world my determination by confidently rolling up my sleeves.

True Givers

Here is an amazing story I read in a book I recently just finished called, "Bird by Bird," by Anne Lamott. The idea of what it means to be a true giver has been on my mind a lot lately and this true story, by Jack Kornfield of the Spirit Rock Medication Center in Woodacre, really answers that question.

An eight-year-old boy had a younger sister who was dying of leukemia, and he was told that without a blood transfusion she would die. His parents explained to him that his blood was probably compatible with hers, and if so, he could be the blood donor. They asked him if they could test his blood. He said sure. So they did and it was a good match. Then they asked if he would give his sister a pint of blood, that it could be her only chance of living. He said he would have to think about it overnight.

The next day he went to his parents and said he was willing to donate the blood. So they took him to the hospital where he was put on a gurney besides his six-year-old sister. Both of them were hooked up to IV's. A nurse withdrew a pint of blood from the boy, which was then put in the girl's IV. The boy lay on his gurney in silence while the blood dripped into his sister, until the doctor came over to see how he was doing. Then the boy opened his eyes and asked, "how soon until I start to die?"

This story moved me to the reality of what it truly means to give. It may not be to the magnitude of laying down your life, but we should be willing to give it all for the sake of giving.

What do you think it means to be a true giver?

Conscious to Mistakes

My biggest problems have always come from my own mistakes. Looking back though, at the huge trash pile of problems that my mistakes created for me, I wouldn't change them. I wouldn't because I have learned from those mistakes. I have taken them and used them as water to help me grow into the person who I am today. Mistakes, it seems, have the potential to make us respond by traveling down one of two very opposite roads. The road that continues to make those mistakes or those similar to them, or the road that avoids repeating them. A lot has to do with the individual. That determines which one of those roads they will take in response to their mistakes. I wish I had the magic spell that, when repeated, would always help me to respond by traveling down the "right" road. All I can say is, I try to be conscious about what I am doing post-mistake. That is what helps, along with some God sized help, to direct me to the road of non-repetition.

Wishes

Wishes have been on my mind a lot lately. I just can't help but believe in making wishes. Of course logic turns it all to childlike fantasies but maybe that's just the kind of thing I'm looking to embrace. Either way, I've noticed myself having this one wish. Every penny I throw into a fountain, eyelash I blow off of my fingertip, shooting star I see, and 11:11 I catch, I find myself making the same wish every time. You know something is truly the desire of your heart when you have limitless options for wishes yet you continue to wish for the same thing every time. Try to take notice of your wishes and if you don't at all, try it out. It's certainly worth the try because I'm finding that if you believe hard enough... it just may come true.

See

It all comes back to our perception. How should we see the world? As I read the works of great authors I say to myself, wow they are living in a totally different world. Why? Because their vision is marked by creativity and imagination. They sense something deeper. I'm not saying everyone should live in some kind of fantasy world 24-7. I'm saying that we constantly have to remind ourselves of who we are and who we want to be. How we want to see. If we don't, we will fall into the trap that says the world is just superficial. So many people are just carbon copies of everyone else, strutting through life without taking notice of what's around them. It's all surface to them. No creativity. No deeper meaning. I've been known to fall into that trap. We all have. It's just so terrible because that's simply not who we were meant to be. There is so much more to this world beyond just the surface and we were meant to dream it up and draw outside the lines. It just all comes back to our perception.