We can’t have everything. We can’t always just take. Life consists of taking AND giving. It seems, however, that in our society the giving and taking has come out of balance. This applies to feelings like caring and sharing as well as material goods. The more you have, the more you seem to be valued. The richer in money, the more you supposedly can accumulate. This ranges from Real Estate, vacation places, collections of whatever, expensive cars, clothes to even more friends. All this keeps you busy all day long and stimulates the nervous system a great deal. The pace is fast and exciting. It becomes almost addictive. If nothing is in the agenda one feels bored.
“Wait a minute,” we say, meaning, “I am right back with you.” What it comes to is that we actually want to do several things at the same time. Instead of taking this minute to breathe, we stop breathing altogether and squeeze in one more thing.
What I want to do, however, is to wait indeed one minute, stop, breath and think. “Do I really want to keep staying in this treadmill, spinning around and around, faster and faster?” I ask myself. The answer for me is clear, “Definitely not!”
The first step for a change is always to acknowledge the status quo. Step two is to follow through. I have managed the first step and stopped successfully. Now comes the breathing part. I pause and watch the trees outside my window. Their leaves sway gently back and forth. I relax. Sitting in quietness, being still, I can finally feel myself again. Now I can start to meditate. – Coming out of my meditation after 20 minutes I feel refreshed, clear minded and can start to think, “I know what I don’t want anymore. What do I want instead?”
In many ways I have always been a forerunner. Pioneers are often misunderstood since they are ahead of time. This doesn’t make life easy for them. I often made compromises just to be one of them, one of the crowd.
Having started my last third of my life I realize I don’t want to follow the crowd any longer. No more giving in. No more giving a little, take a little. But only giving all, taking all. Now again, this is meant on all levels, material things and even more so with the things that really count in life. Not limiting my energy, my joy, my love, my wisdom neither in giving nor in taking. Not holding back in sharing my smile and my laughter. Accepting complements, presents and favors without restrictions.
I know many people who bargain about everything. “Well, last time I did this for you, now I want that from you.” I don’t like these calculated actions any longer. I don’t like narrow-minded perceptions any longer and I don’t like restrained and petty attitudes any longer. They only produce a calculated, narrow minded and restrained and petty world. The “Give-a-little, take, if possible a-little-more-stance” of our world today has proven unsuitable, even destructive.
Why should we hold back our talents, our joy, our love, our wisdom, our energy? Why should we only take “a little”, when something is offered from others? Only a mind, which thinks, that it might run out of these qualities would stint with them. But the truth is, that every human being has more than enough of it. We never run out of love unless we shut the valve.
I now know what I want, “I want to keep this faucet open. I want to go beyond my limitations. I want to dare to use the vastness of abundance, which waits for me to be spread out into the world through my unique being.
I want to join the pioneers again and practice to be a giver and not so much a taker. And I have a strong feeling that we pioneers will have followers…