We will open the book.  Its
pages are blank. We are going
to put words on them ourselves.
The book is called Opportunity
and its first chapter is
New Year's Day.

Edith Lovejoy Pierce

The Old Year has gone.  Let the
dead past bury its own dead.  The
New Year has taken possession
of the clock of time.  All hail the
duties and possibilities of the
coming twelve months!

Edward Payson Powell

Days Like These

We're all living through something different right now, something far outside of our previous experiences.  The hard times that so many countries are going through economically and socially have done a lot of damage to many people's senses of security and trust and hope.  We see business after business failing, we see person after person losing a job and not being able to find another, we see homeowner after homeowner take huge financial hits because they bought their homes when they were expensive, but now find themselves unable to sell them for feeling forced to foreclose on them because they can't afford them any more.

All around us, people are hurting--and probably more so than people around me have been hurting ever in my lifetime.  When I'm in the supermarket, that man who's shopping with his kid more than likely has less money to spend than he did before, and he's trying to buy food that's much more expensive than it was just a few months ago.  But you wouldn't see that by looking at him, for he's not showing all the tension and worry that he's feeling.

The woman who's filling up her tank at the gas station is feeling relief that the price of gas is down from where it was this past summer, but she's still feeling the pinch of the economic downturn.  Every purchase that she makes these days strains her checking account, and she has to struggle to make ends meet every month.

The elderly couple who are sipping coffee at the coffee shop have lost a huge portion of their retirement accounts over the last year and a half to the incredible drop in value of the stock market.  While they had been looking forward to a comfortable retirement, they're now considering not even coming to this coffee shop any more, considering instead the possibility of staying at home, making a pot of coffee, and buying cheaper pastries at the supermarket or making their own.

That little kid that you see playing outside didn't get all that much this Christmas, and she can't understand why her parents are so tense and argumentative these days.  She still tries to be happy, but sometimes she's scared to go home because it seems that disaster is almost always just around the corner.  She's afraid of her parents yelling at her, and she's afraid that because they're yelling at each other so much lately, they may not stay together.  She's afraid of coming home and hearing the news that they're going to break up.

Times like these call for all of us who think about such things to dedicate ourselves to compassion even more strongly than ever.  These times demand that we try to see the bigger picture in every incident, in every situation.  People around us are hurting badly--not everyone, of course, but a huge number of people who haven't done anything themselves to bring on their current conditions.  People who trusted their financial advisors to steer them in positive directions have seen more than half of their "wealth" simply disappear.  Financial advisors who trusted the markets and the people working in them have seen their clients' money evaporate into nothingness.

It's very easy to point fingers and say things like "Greed caused all this."  But most of the people who are suffering weren't greedy at all--they were just simple people trying to do what they were taught to do in order to get ahead.

Our compassion can't refill bank accounts.  Nor can it restore the value to a home.  Nor can it change the circumstances of our society or bring back the portion of a retirement fund that simply disappeared.  But it can help us to see what other people are going through, and perhaps offer them kindness today instead of judgment or anger.  Our compassion can help us to brighten someone else's day and perhaps give them a bit of hope in seemingly hopeless times.  And if enough of us show true compassion enough of the time, then we can perhaps help others to be compassionate, too.

Times like these seem to be filled with despair and pain and frustration.  But the truth is that times like these are filled with hope and possibility and potential.  Five years ago, when things were still good for most people, most of us couldn't have cared any less about what compassion means or whether or not we should show it to others.  Now, though, many of us are in need of compassion as we go through bankruptcy or foreclosure or job loss.  Days like these can bring out the best in all of us, if we but allow that best to shine through.

In Seeds Of Greatness, Denis Waitley shows you how to nurture the greatness within you and gives you a system that allows you to do in months what many psychologists take years to accomplish. Find out how to overcome feelings of unworthiness and to set higher goals.