


What is The Good Life?

If someone came to your door with a bouquet of roses and an oversized check for 100 Million dollars, what would you do? Would this be a blessing or a curse? So often we believe that the acquisition of Much is what we truly want; that having more is far better than having little, but is affluence and the attainment of wealth what we truly seek? Is it ultimately satisfying? Does it fill the heart, mind, body and soul with that incomparable sense of accomplishment and purpose that drives us?

Or is Less truly More?

What is the plan for our life? The vision that is intended that will satisfy all of our needs, not merely monetary ones, but those that keep us questing after the intangible. In this season of plenty, when the harvest comes under the sickle and is gathered in before the long, dark night of winter, should we perhaps take stock of what we have and what we are being given? Plenty… yet, what is Plenty? Is it just enough to meet our needs, keep us from being hungry, cover our heads from the wind and the rain, or is it excessiveness that compels us to desire more?

If what we have is truly enough; if what we wake up with in the first light of day gets us through the day, keeps our tummies from rumbling and our beds warm at night, then what do we do with the excess? Do we even consider it excess? Shouldn’t we consider it excess? Because, perhaps there is someone, somewhere,human or animal, who doesn’t have enough to make it through the day. Maybe somewhere, someone has a rumbling tummy and is cold, wet, afraid. Maybe the excess we have could take that gnawing pain away, if we extended it. Twenty dollars may seem inconsequential to you or I, but what if that twenty dollars, or ten dollars, or fifty dollars meant the world wouldn’t stop turning for someone?

Balance is the true design of the universe. We know this; it is inexorably written on our hearts and into the very fabric of our beings, which is why we are filled with such inexpressible joy when we are able to touch the life of someone else and make a difference. What we are given in excess is precisely what someone else needs, for the precise reason that we can give it and be blessed in the giving. It is this inscrutable mystery that binds us together and makes each one of us absolutely necessary.

It is our own generosity that will generate an abundance in our hearts, minds and spirits of those things that truly give satisfaction. Joy. Love. And that Sense of Accomplishment, that Awareness of Purpose we all desire and strive for, and which, inescapably, makes us hungry for more. It is a circle, a rhythm of balance, a wheel, but whatever you choose to call it, it is what keeps life turning. We are given blessings so that we may bless others and be blessed by the giving in return. Even the thought goes round and round.

So the next time you are about to buy that extra cup of coffee at Starbucks simply because you have an extra fiver, or when you decide to schedule a manicure because you got an extra large tip or a bonus, take stock of the harvest of plenty that has been laid store for you and consider what small ripples you may generate in the Sea of Change.




Beautiful Photography found at: lighttouchphotos.com