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Reflections August 2015

Life Is for Living

It's Not Too Far to Tomorrow

By Neil Wyrick

Are you guilty of looking for the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow with a pickaxe? Do you spend your time running from job to job, friend to friend, community to community picking and axing, in your complaining way, toward your own private disasters?

I was a child of the Depression when no one had many "things," and I automatically accepted the wealth of simplicity happiness. With no factory-made jungle gyms, I climbed trees; with no model dam kits bought at a local store, I built dams in a nearby creek. And I spent hours wandering in the wonder of the woods. I think I gained a lasting happiness that cannot be experienced with another new car or house or goodie-gadget.

As you woke up this morning and began to make the choices that would shape your day, did you choose the following thoughts, “Oh, what a beautiful morning! And, now I am going to enjoy my breakfast, and my morning paper, and later on, this afternoon, I’ll go for a walk or sit on the back porch and listen to the birds sing, and…”

Or did a different set of thoughts shape your day? “I feel miserable and when I finish listening to the morning news I'm sure I'll feel even worse. And when I get to work, my fellow workers, or clients, or customers, etc., will drive me crazy like they always do. And I when I get home this afternoon I’d love to take a walk except for all those crazy dogs who do nothing but bark at me and scare me to death, and…”

Are you guilty of looking for the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow with a pickaxe? Do you spend your time running from job to job, friend to friend, community to community picking and axing, in your complaining way, toward your own private disasters?

It will date you, of course, but do you remember the cartoonist Al Capp and his cartoon strip Li’l Abner? Remember the character named Joe Btfsplk who carried around his own little rain cloud wherever he went? Too many folk wake up each day with their own little rain cloud – their soul full of doubts, their heart full of hates and their mind full of gripes. And unfortunately, these bad habits can grow into a personality trait for, from the day we are born until the day we die, our identity is shaped by all the decisions we make.

Remember the old adage that warns us to treat others as we would like to be treated? Well, as Ralph Waldo Emerson mused, “Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself.” And only if you are willing to meet tomorrow with the best that is within you can that be a gift anyone would like to receive.

 

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