Hi everyone, welcome back! A couple of weeks ago, I examined tears and grief and sadness and examined the role these feelings play in our lives. This week, I would like to examine something that probably each one of us does at the lowest point in our lives and that is to compare ourselves and our life when we are the our lowest with someone else out there who is even less fortunate than us.
Belief: I should feel better about myself, my life and what God has given me because there are so many out there who don’t have anything!
We hear this said to us; we say this to other people all the time and although there is no doubt that there are so many people out there in this world who long for the life that you have. Who long for the home that you live in. Who long for the cars that you drive. Who long for the education that your kids have access to. Who long for the freedom you have. Who long for the access to clean drinking water that you have. Who long for the access to healthcare you have. Who long for the health you have. Who long for the money you have. But the absolute fact of life is that everyone has their own unique life and therefore they have their own unique situations that they will face in that life. They have their own unique family that they will be born into. Their own unique gifts that they will be born with. Their own unique abilities and inabilities. Their own unique personalities. Their own unique struggles. Their own unique challenges. And although we all know that we are all unique and our lives are unique; however, we live our lives exactly opposite to this knowing. We live it in the exact opposite way because instead of living and loving our own uniqueness, we tend to compare it with the uniqueness of the people we know or in this case the rest of the world. And when we compare, in fact, the moment we compare, we have already lost that uniqueness because now instead of accepting what life has given us, we want what life has given someone else. And I know this is easier said than done – to live our uniqueness the best way we know because so many of us who are facing serious health challenges would like to have someone else’s health. So many of us who are facing money issues would like to have the money that someone else has. So many of us who are caught up in the middle of war zones would like to have the freedom that someone else has.
Folks, when we are born into this world we are dealt the hand and even though we can do whatever with this hand, we can’t change it! We can’t swap it with someone else’s. But when you are trying very hard to make yourself feel better by comparing yourself with the less fortunate; you are focusing on the fact that your hand is much better than theirs. But you are just looking at this at face value because if you weren’t, you would know that amazing fortunes have been created from the ashes of poverty and amazing fortunes have turned into ashes in the blink of an eye! So even if your reason for using this statement that we should feel better about our lives and ourselves because there are so many others out there who are much less fortunate than us is because you just want to feel better about your own life; remember that the only path to feeling good about wherever you are or whatever you have in your own life begins with accepting and NOT rejecting. And that’s exactly what you are doing is trying to accept your own life by rejecting someone else’s. But don’t be so fast to reject someone else’s life because you never know what they are capable of creating from the hand that they have been dealt!
I think we all know someone who turned around their so-called misfortunes because that is why those misfortunes were there in their path in the first place – to help them steer in the direction where they should be going and what they should be doing in this lifetime. You know folks, in this life, we have created very narrow definitions of success and happiness and love and peace etc. We have very rigidly defined the criteria of who and when and where and how can someone become successful or happy or peaceful etc. And without even examining, we are just passing this very short-sighted and rigid belief onto next generations. And because we are passing this on to our next generations, these new generations will not believe that they have as much chance to succeed as anyone else out there. They will not believe that they have as much chance to be happy as anyone else out there. They will not believe that they have as much chance of living an amazing life as anyone else out there. So, let’s try to not use someone’s misfortune to feel better about our own life. Let’s find it within ourselves to somehow love and accept ourselves and our life today and grow and create the life of our dreams. And when we can do that, our next generations will automatically learn from us to believe more and love more and create more!! The possibilities will be limitless 🙂
And as always, feel free to leave a comment if you feel like leaving one, and until next time, just believe in the possibilities 🙂
