I know it isn't easy to think of helping others when we have our own lives to deal with on a daily basis. Most of the time there is always something pressing that takes our full attention, let alone the things we have on our 'TO DO LIST', where we usually scratch one thing only to add a new one. But you would be surprised how easy it is to help others without taking away from what we need to do for ourselves. Help comes in many ways, shapes, sizes, deeds, actions, etc.
Lets take for example one very small thing I do on weekdays. Every day on my drive to work I have a choice of either taking the freeway that gets me closer to work and where I would spend less on gasoline, or get off on another exit and drive for a couple of miles on a long street with many stoplights, where I know I am going to come across these guys that sell newspapers for a quarter on a specific corner. They are recovering addicts that do this as a project, and you see them walking towards the cars when the light turns red, always waving at everyone with a huge smile on their faces. I see car after car sitting at the light chosing to ignore them, not only by not purchasing the paper, and we know everyone can afford a quarter, but by not waving or smiling in return.
I happen to work in Marketing, so part of my job is placing ads in newspapers, and I get tons of them for free, I don't even like reading the newspaper, but I LOVE the warmth that comes out of these men's faces when I hand them that quarter. You would think I was giving them the keys to a new car by the way they thank and bless me.
I can't think of a better way for me to start the day, and it certainly didn't take much to make someone else happy. So today when you walk out your door, find ways of making a difference; smile at someone, pay them a compliment, make people that cross your path know that someone cares.
Five years ago I couldn’t figure out if my life was about to end, or about to begin. I had so little energy left to deal with the many obstacles and challenges I had ahead of me that I couldn’t seem to make sense out of the madness. But since I was still breathing, and somewhat excited with the thought that maybe, just maybe, I could still fulfill my last dreams, I decided I had to do something about the way I was looking at my life, and try to turn it into a game, an adventure.
At first I picked the game that matched the feelings I had inside, so I could make the game believable for me, and since I feel like I am living in a “Science Fiction World,” in my game I saw myself having all these extra-terrestrials sending me tasks to do with a lot of challenges, and if I didn’t accomplish the task right, or even if they were just in a playful mood, they’d throw meteors that I was supposed to dodge. In the meantime, I’m here on Earth, on the California freeways, trying to make sure the cars that drive by at 80+ mph don’t hit me, while I run across back and forth avoiding the darn meteors.
I don’t know, maybe it’s all those realistic looking video games that my son has been playing for years, but that’s the way I felt about my life at the time.
So as you can imagine, even though I was managing to move forward in spite of the chaos, I wasn’t doing it without lots of scratches and bumps, not to mention the many negative emotions like fear, disappointment, anger, stress, amongst others. So after all the mistakes I was still making, I decided I needed to change the game I was playing. It still had to be credible to me or it would feel like a lie, but it also needed to feel exhilarating and adventuresome, so that the otherwise negative emotions could become positive to help me move forward faster.
Now I’m becoming much more familiar with White Water River Rafting. I’m still not fully on the driver’s seat, but I help steer with one hand, while grabbing on with the other, and it’s definitely getting to be a lot more fun.
Once we can realize that no matter how many challenges come our way, we can only take care of one thing at a time, that if we stress it makes things even harder, and that if we trust that we are still going to stay afloat, that even if sometimes it feels that the raft might tilt, we can still get back on it, then we can see that anytime now, maybe even on the very next turn, there is a serene lake where we can just float for a while, maybe do some fishing, enjoy the sun, the peaceful setting, the scents and the sounds, until we decide what game we’d like to play next. 'Life is an Adventure' make yours a fun one! Hugs xoxo @nit@
