Has it not been a gift for you to see a blue sky as well a night blue sky sparkling with stars and hope? How about leaves on trees changing colors and appearing and later disappearing? And what about babies so innocent and powerful and so aware of their needs and knowing that their needs will be filled!
You live in a great miracle of life that is not to be overlooked.
There are puppies and kittens, and elephants and all kinds of animals who naturally know just how to take care of their babies. Is this not a gift given? How remarkable and full life is! Yes, when there is plenty of milk, why would anyone cry over spilled milk?
There is nothing eminently wrong with crying. It’s also part of life, yet is it necessary to cry over so much as you may and perhaps extend crying's expiration date in testament to overwhelming heartache?
Find that which gives you pleasure in life and thus gives you delight from inside yourself. Come to life with the idea of being well-pleased. Make it as easy to be pleased as it is to be displeased. Focus on what gives you happiness. Is it so hard to count your blessings? Or are you better at counting other people's blessings and lack of your own? Dear Ones, sometimes you are cranky with life.
One of the best things you can do for life is to be good-natured about it. Okay, the toast was burnt this morning. Is this really so important to you? Even if your toast was burnt, you can welcome life. Perfection is not owed to you. When you find perfection, you have received a bonus. It makes a difference whether you expect perfection, insist on it, or welcome it as an invited gift.
How do you want to be greeted? Do you want life to grumble at you?
When real trouble hits, you know the difference. You lingered over mourning a boyfriend who ran off with a friend of yours. How your heart was wounded, and how you suffered. Then, when your mother or father dies, oh, yes, you feel the difference in your loss now. You wasted your heart on something less vital. Now you know how deep loss can be.
So many people are sure they will be happier when something in their life changes, yet there are many who have the treasure you may seek, and they haven’t found the happiness that you are sure will come with it.
You look for one thing after another to bring you great happiness. Happiness is more than receiving gifts. Greater happiness comes from giving. Natural giving brings you greater happiness than giving in order to receive a return. Yes, always be real. Give for the joy of giving itself. A dress-up of giving doesn’t pass for the real thing.
Yes, be true to yourself and not to an idol you put forward in your mind. Put your true heart forward, and then you are ideal. Truth is a great gift, not a designated return down the road.
You are always seeking Truth. It is such peace to simply be true. Patting yourself on your back may too often not be true. A piece of fruit, an apple, for instance can look perfect, and yet it may lack the flavor of a runty little apple that was not hand-picked and fell from a tree. You want to give and receive the great goods, without having to receive in return. It is you who has to give with the idea that you wish to give, and that's it.