"Do you ever feel abundant?"
That's what my wife said as we sat together at our kitchen table recently. Our two boys, one a toddler, the other an infant, sat across from us. The youngest one was sitting in the high chair for the first time, while my oldest has moved on to the booster seat. He was kind of giving his brother the side eye because he thinks the baby is moving in on his territory, but things were still pretty calm.
My wife's question was one she's asked me before. She says that sometimes this feeling of abundance wells inside of her. It's a feeling of good will and contentment that she thinks is tied to the existence of our two sons. She wants me to share it.
I mumbled some generic response to her. I've always been afraid of focusing too much on my blessings lest they suddenly be snatched from me and my entire world crumble. It's not that I think God is capricious, or unfair, it's just that I'm not privy to the details of his plan, so sometimes he can seem that way to me. My wife's joy, her happiness, frightened me. Sure, I love my children, but I'm more likely to see them as responsibilities instead of blessings.
But, my wife's comment stuck with me. Had I been too small-minded when thinking about abundance? I work in a field where bad news is the only news, and everyday my co-workers and I wait for the next batch of doom and gloom. I'm the sole breadwinner in my family and the aforementioned wife and children depend on me and God for all of their needs and wants. Despite the fact that my burdens are light when compared to the struggles of many, sometimes I do feel like Atlas, and the weight of my world feels crushing.
Abundance is often the furthest thing from my mind.
Sure, I thank God for his blessings, and on most days I'm content with my lot in life. But, I don't tend to sit around thinking about the abundance I possess. In fact, before this weekend, I would have struggled to think of anything I really had in abundance. Definitely not money, not love, not cars, or home, friends, or family. I felt like I have "enough" of many of those things, but I wouldn't all it an abundance.
But, my wife's comment challenged me to rethink my concept of abundance. Is not a decently paying job, for however long I may have it, an abundance when compared to a man with none? Are not two healthy, happy and beautiful children an abundance when compared to those parents whose children are suffering and dying in hospitals across the world? My marriage, with all of its fault lines and challenges is still an abundance when compared to being trapped in an abusive situation, or being forced to deal with the wreckage of a union that was intended to last forever.
Abundance, like so many thing is life, is about perspective. As I've allowed my perspective to contract, I've allowed my ability to feel abundance to contract as well. Opening my heart and mind to the reality of my life, allows me to enjoy it.
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8 comments:
I've often felt this way myself, and must remind myself not to focus on what I don't have, but rather to focus on the things that I underappreciate.
I really liked this post. I've shared it on my FB page if you don't mind.
I've been lurking here for a little while and enjoy your writing.
If you don't feel an abundance, maybe the plain ole truth is that you don't really have an abundance.
We can make our selves be happy, fulfilled, satisified with anything, but if you really have to put it into perspective and think long and hard about it, is it really organic?
Tiffany
Thanks and welcome. Feel free to share anything I write.
Smokie
I was out recently and saw this guy wearing an interesting t-shirt. It said, "Define Success."
Success, like abundance, is subjective even though much of the world thinks otherwise.
If someone is happy, fulfilled and satisfied, are they not in the midst of abundance regardless of their situation? And if somebody lacks those qualities, do they not feel a lack, regardless of how much they have acquired?
My Sensei had a good one about perspective.
"The world is 50% shit, 50% sugar, you choose where you put your focus. But just remember if you stand in shit long enough it dries around you"
;)
The voice you hear in your head is the power of the Gods. It's a remote technology, like a computer, perhaps functioning on some frequency, and it can listen and talk to everyone in the universe simultaneously.
What the Gods taught the children was the truth:::God is everywhere, and as you will learn:::If you want to go to heaven you have to be good.
It is a tool, and the Gods use their tools to test people with temptation:::It will role-play people in your life:::Parents, friends, spouses, and employers in an attempt to corrupt people. Ionically, it does the very same thing to those people whom you think you're hearing, except in that individual's unique way:::We are all managed by the God's technology.
But this "agent of the Gods" can do more than just communicate. It can force thoughts into people's heads, force behaviors onto their bodies. It can turn healthy cells in your body into cancerous cells. It is absolute power. And this is just the beginning.
The Gods favor the children most among all the people due to their innocence and purity. But society and the God's tools therein corrupt the children at a progressively younger age, yet another clue illustrating we live in a constantly deteriorating environment.
Children who fix their problems with the Gods accend into heaven. Adults enter clone hosting. The gods sell them as one in the same, but one is good while the other is evil.
And their corruption will cost the disfavored, for they will be reincarnated as a lesser life form into an ever deteriorating world, sucess becoming ever more alluding with each passing life.
The hole they've dug for themselves is even deeper than the one that existed from their prior lives, ensuring it will take even more time and work to fix their problems with the Gods. And for many of us there may not be enough time left.
Ours is an envionment where evil is perceived to be rewarded while good is punished. As with everything the Gods have a reason for creating this perception::::
People who fall on the good side of the good/evil scale have more favor, and when they do something wrong the Gods punish them BECAUSE THEY WANT THEM TO LEARN. The Gods want them to receive this feedback in hope they make corrections and begin to behave appropriately. The Gods DON'T like evil and refuse to grant this feedback.
EVERYBODY pays for what they do wrong, only evil people must wait until their next life before they will experience the wrath of the Gods, manifested in their placement as a lower form of life into environments with increased/enhanced temptations.
Sadly, this allows the Gods to position this perception of evil rewarded as temptation, one which they use as an EXTREMELY effective corruptor.
The Gods send the clue that the Jews are HIGHLY corruptable with the movie "The Ten Commandments".
Jesus was the "King of the Jews". Typical for the disfavored, once goals were achieved and sufficient damage was incurred the Gods allowed it to end, and the Jews killed him.
The Gods have called me "The Chosen One". What that means, I don't know. But the pattern holds true with the other prophets::
1. Jesus cooperated and created the perception of forgiveness
2. Muhammud corrupted half the Muslim world with polygamy.
I refuse to comply and fall for temptation. But that won't stop the God's will, for they used me to inspire items of popular culture which corrupted the people.
The Gods test you with temptation. You have failed. I recommend you make the decision to be good and never look back, for they will employ tactics to test your resolve.
The Gods selected and groomed me in prior lives to justify exploitation and use promoting temptation among the disfavored in the 20th and 21st centuries. The enormity of the dynamics enabling this situation is overwhelming, and each element is (un)justified in offenses of prior lives, illustrating their pre-meditated intent.
Wave upon wave of demented avengers
March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.
Oh, wow, Big Man, you got the Reader's Digest condensed version of this guy. I got the long version of this. Whose list did we end up on?
And if this is a joke, I can only thing of a few people we've mutually pissed off over the months who might go to this kind of effort for a prank. ;-)
crazy stuff man
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