I don't always explain what I am thinking as clear as I would like, but here I go again, trying is still free. see the thing is, lately I have noticed that some of the most interesting things happen right after I wake up, and they usually happen at Walmart or some other such place where people of all walks of life seem to congregate. I have learned a lot by simply watching people, How they interact with strangers in public. And there are a lot of unhappy people around here. Wait a minute. Back up, let me pour myself a cup of morning brew and chew on this for a minute. Ok, that’s enough chewing. I have reached the conclusion that most people in the population at large wouldn’t know happiness if it walked up and bit them on the butt. Wait, let me tell you how I got there. Strictly for the sake of argument, let's leave the poor people out of this picture, for the moment at least, and concentrate on the other two types of people that I noticed. One Being, the people who seem to have everything and constantly find themselves wanting, craving and or demanding more. The other being, the people who have enough, but can never seem to have enough.
See, before anyone starts to think that I’m just spouting off, let me just say that I know, first hand, people in the very positions of which I speak. Let's take Joe Blow Jones. He has the perfect house, the fancy cars, the high paying job. Etc… Etc… Etc… so what’s his beef? Joe is so caught up in his material possessions that he’s forgotten how to just relax and enjoy life. His greed for more and more material wealth, has become all encompassing, and misery has become his life. He worries about losing what he has, so he is constantly looking for the bigger and better deal. And it doesn’t matter to Joe, who he has to step all over to get the brass ring that he believes so defines his life. Ok Now move down the food chain for a minute and right below Joe is John Blow Smith. Now, John doesn’t have quite as much as Joe does, but he still has much more than the average American who is busting their hump to scrape by every day. He has a nice house, He has a nice car and a beautiful wife but can’t seem to enjoy any of it. More. More. More. The common thread that will tie Joe and John together forever is their misery. They seem to have everything and yet have nothing. Both unknowing victims of the perception that the more you have, the more you need. Greed is good.
See now Let me get away from those guys. It could be contagious, and I don’t want to become infected. See? I never had much. I always worked hard enough to earn enough money to maybe not get Everything that I ever wanted, but I think that I have everything that I really need. Most importantly, a good perspective. Ok Joe. John. Lay off of your obsessions with material wealth for a minute and let me take you on a little trip, if you will. It won’t cost either of you a single penny, and it will only take a moment of your precious time. Close your eyes and listen to my voice. It's in the middle of July, you're baking in the summer heat, and when you open your eyes you're standing on the beach at Lake Tahoe, Nevada. And as you slowly approach the water you can almost taste its cold refreshing waves as they lap at your feet. Slowly now, wade in and let it consume you, until you are totally lost underwater. And when you finally resurface, you can feel the suns' warmth reflecting off of your skin.
Catch your breath… Ready? Close your eyes again. You hear that sound? Do you smell that? Damn. My favorite time of year. Fall. Leaves shedding from the trees. everything is golden brown. There are a bunch of kids piling up leaves on old man Nestor's front lawn, while he sits on the front porch watching them like a proud Grandpa. You can hear them all giggling and laughing, as they line up single file to take the plunge. You ever do that when you were a kid? Have You ever done Anything that didn’t involve money? Roast marshmallows or hotdogs over an open flame? Have you ever told ghost stories around a campfire and end up scaring yourself and everyone else silly? have you ever been camping or fishing in the woods and woke up in the morning in a sleeping bag covered in dew? I could go on with this forever, but I won’t, but see there is an old saying that I recall hearing as a child that stuck with me that says “one man's curse is another man's blessing” the world is full of blessings that don’t involve having that competitive edge that you think you need, it doesn’t involve material wealth or money, see, it isn’t difficult to be truly blessed in this life, all you need to do is to learn to look past what you perceive to be important, and embrace what truly is…
~Scratch~
I think this is a big part of why you and I get along, the appreciation, the REAL appreciation of the little stuff. Because, the older we get the more we understand that the little stuff is really the big stuff. The clear, luminous blue of the sky after a couple days of torrential rain. The smell given off by hot asphalt or baked dry dirt when the first raindrops hit. The way the sun glints off a bird's wing or picks out the jewel colors of a butterfly. The way the birds talk to each other in the morning, even before it's light enough to come down out of the trees, and the way they talk again at bedtime, only this time their little chirps and burblings sound sleepy. The taste of the first sip of coffee in the morning, the tart, icy deliciousness of lemonade on a mid-afternoon in July. The important stuff is what you feel, not what you have.
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