My children are usually making comparisons, from good to better or bad to worse. I wonder what life in the world would be if comparisons were not made. Perhaps one secret to life is to live without comparisons. Without comparisons, perhaps you would be happier with whatever life may bring you. You wouldn't be going back and forth and back again. You wouldn't think in terms of loss nor would you think in terms of gain. You would just be, and life would just be.

You wouldn't compare your appearance to someone else's. You wouldn't compare your test scores. You wouldn't feel discouraged. You wouldn't wait for something to encourage you either. You would just be you, who you are, you moseying along. You would be your own best friend. In fact, you would be everyone's best friend.

You wouldn't think about being a friend to all. You wouldn't decide it. You simply would be it, a friend to all, because you would see clearly. You wouldn't be matching up thoughts and sorting them all out. You wouldn't put people in various bins. They would all stay out in the open, and you would be free from past thinking, and they would also be free from your past thinking.

You would no longer think of tall and short, fat and thin, lovely and unlovely. All would be lovely. Imagine that! Everything in sight would take on a lovely hue because you would not compare anyone to anyone, or anything to anything. Because of this, the difference in you would be like between night and day. The thing is that you would enjoy night and day. You would enjoy. What could there be not to enjoy?

You wouldn't compare apples to oranges, though you would know an apple from an orange. You would know bananas. You would know that you don't stick bananas in the refrigerator and that you do stick apples and oranges in the refrigerator.

Every time you would bite into a fresh fruit, it would be like you were tasting it for the first time. Imagine having a new fruit or more a day! Imagine if you had never tasted a blueberry before, or a kiwi, or a pear, and were tasting it for the very first time. What delight! How different might your life be?

Even if you had been swimming five minutes ago, now diving in would be new, as if you had never swum before.

Even if you had been married twenty years, your wife or husband would be a surprise every day.

When you stop comparing, you will have let go of the past. You would be out from under it. You would have come out from hiding. Isn't that what the past is, a barrier to hide behind and get lost in? Isn't the past a barrier that prevents you from going out front without a shield and armor?

Of course, it is a beautiful thing to make comparisons in poetry. I make comparisons all the time. I compare life as it seems to be to you with life as I created it. I compare your vision to Mine all the time. I compare life as it is at present and what it can be to your very same eyes. I use comparison to bring you forward, beloveds. It may be that you use comparison to pen the world in so it is found wanting. Earth falls short when contrasted to Heaven.

When you look at Earth without the mask of the past, you too will see what I see, and you too will see the magnificence of Heaven on the very Earth you tread.