Have
you ever had a day that was all grunge and growl and no
ice cream cones? Sure you have; so have I.
Let me tell you about one of mine.
What I remember most about this particular day is that
nothing seemed to fit. The morning arrived too
early. I overcame that, but when I arrived at work
I was given a new assignment: a knotty one, which
was impossibly uneasy and awkward. It was a task
for which I had no inspiration, something I plain didn't
want to do. And everyone in the office seemed
sour, as though they had overdosed on lemonade.
I did close my eyes briefly in an attempt to remember
they were holy creatures, but it was a cursory
overture. When I opened my eyes people were still
futzing around in an unhappy way and the harmony was,
well, absent.
I began doing the unfortunate assignment, sighing
heavily the way people do when they are certain that
happiness is an entirely alien concept.
By lunch I was ready for help. I took my cafeteria
tray outside, found a bench under a tree, and sat there
alone, watching a troop of high-energy ants march
meaningfully along a cement curb. I noticed that
to an ant, nearly everything is an obstacle. After
all, they're miniscule.
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My spot
under the tree was very peaceful, rich with inspiration
and hope, and eventually I began to wonder why I had spent
all morning looking at life with such small eyes. I
thought, look at this: when the ego is in play, our
vision is as small as ant eyes staring at pebbles and
seeing boulders. That's exactly what I had been
doing: staring at pebbles and seeing boulders.
So I closed my eyes and remembered that the bench, the
tree, the ants, the day, the office, the work were not
outside of me, instead -- they were elements contained in
my infinite self. And then I felt a flood of peace
chase through my arteries.
As soon as the peace struck home, I decided to accept the
ants as innocent.
When I went back upstairs to my desk, I was wearing
different eyes: no judging, no blaming, no searching
for molehills to make into mountains. No peering at
events through a frown. No squinting.
It is a far, far easier way to look at things. As I
removed the strictures from my seeing, everything around
me seemed to sigh and relax and settle into a cool, easy
pace.
Later that afternoon, someone in our group decided on a
whim to go get ice cream for everyone. So towards
the end of the day, there we all were, scooping out
heaping platefuls of ice cold inspiration, joshing and
kidding around as though we were all 12 and it was recess.
I thanked the ants for the lesson.
* * * * *
Visit
Elsa at her tremendous "Spiritual Growth"
website: "This
is a chapel without walls. Our purpose is to offer daily
spiritual inspiration and healing to all who stop
by. This teaching is non-sectarian and
interfaith. We believe that you are a holy and loving being, and that your greatest task in life is to
discover your own sacred self, and your own sacred
purpose." elsajoy.com
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on perspective
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It is the mind which
creates the world around us,
and even though
we stand
side by side in the same meadow,
my eyes will never see
what is beheld
by yours,
my heart will never stir to the
emotions with which yours is touched.
George
Gissing
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Our
environment, the world in which we live and work, is a
mirror of
our attitude
and expectations. If we feel that
our environment could
stand some improvement,
we can
bring about that change for the
better by improving our
attitude. The world plays no favorites. It's
impersonal. It doesn't care who succeeds
and who fails. Nor does
it
care if we change. Our attitude toward life
doesn't
affect the
world and the people in it nearly as much as
it affects us.
Earl
Nightingale
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I went to see my father in the
hospital about a week before he died. He had
suffered for years with emphysema, hooked up to an oxygen tank, barely
able
to move around, and was failing fast. Bedridden, he was on
constant oxygen
and medication; his six-foot-two frame weighed only 130 pounds because
eating anything but ice cream was too difficult. Every breath
was a labored
struggle. I asked him whether the quality of his life was worth
all the effort.
"I still enjoy being alive," he responded.
"Sometimes it's easier to breathe and
then I really enjoy just quietly taking a breath. I still enjoy
reading the comics
in the newspaper and watching the ball games on TV. My life is
good." He
said not a word about all that he had lost, all that he would never do
again.
M.J. Ryan
Attitudes
of Gratitude |
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