You Are Everything!

There’s no such thing as a small, inconsequential life.

Do you ever wonder… 

…about the point of it all?  …if your life has any consequence?…if all of the pain and difficulty are really worth it?  Have you ever heard the song that goes, “You are everything, and everything is you?”  

In the larger scheme of things, you are everything and everything is you.  

 There’s no such thing as a small, inconsequential life, because we’re all connected.

Each life is of tremendous consequence to the individual and to all of existence.

Every thought you have and every action you take impacts everything else — everything that exists.  Every bit of your learning and development makes it easier for others to learn and develop.  Each act of kindness, each act of love, has an impact. It helps you and everyone else in the quest to learn, contribute, and evolve. 

Rosa’s Way 

Rosa, the new head waitress at Café Phoenix, wondered what the other staff had experienced before she was hired. “They’re all so jumpy and afraid,” she thought. “What happened?” 

One of the waitresses, Terry, finally confided in her. “The last head waitress watched us like a hawk, swooping down on us at every turn. It was like she expected we wouldn’t do our jobs!” 

Appalled, Rosa became even more conscious of treating the waitresses with respect. She coached them when needed, but in a way that helped them feel good about themselves and improve their skills. 

Rosa has had a positive effect on the entire staff at the Café. It has taken time — more than a year of building relationships and helping staff to feel their value.  

Waitresses and cooks alike smile now.  Their lives at work are good. Even better, they’ve experienced Rosa’s way of trust and respect, and it has changed them. They feel better inside — about themselves and the world.

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Like Rosa, you have a purpose in being here. Each one of us does. There are the visible examples, like the famous missionary Mother Teresa, and there are the not-so-visible examples, like Rosa. 

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You have a critical role to play. Sometimes it’s hard to know what that role is, because often you can only see one part of the picture, like third base. If you could see the whole picture, the whole ball game — if you could see life through a spiritual lens — you could better understand your critical role in the action.  

What may appear to you to be inconsequential may actually be of great significance! 

Alone Again 

Estranged from his biological family, Devon felt even more alone since he’d broken up with his partner. And on top of his relationship troubles, work was more stressful than ever. The daily routine of fighting the traffic, spending long days in his cubicle answering the telephone, then going home tired and frustrated was overwhelming. “What’s the point?” he wondered. 

Mike worked in a different department than Devon, but had run into him in the employee lounge a couple of times. He would have liked to get to know Devon, but felt he didn’t have the time to strike up much of a conversation.

On this particular Friday, however, Mike made a point to stop by Devon’s desk.  They spoke amicably and discovered they were actually from the same town and knew some of the same people. They also shared a similar hobby — genealogy.  

When Devon left the office that night, he felt lighter. He felt hopeful. On his way home he even stopped at his favorite book store to participate in a discussion group about a book he’d recently read. He hadn’t done that in a long time. It felt good.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ 

Mike may never know the difference he made for Devon by simply stopping by his desk. Looking through your physical eyes, you just can’t see most of the impact of your actions. 

Our lives are connected, like drops of water in the ocean. We’re each here for our own journey, as well as the journeys of others. We’re all in  this together!

Tell me…

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?     Mary Oliver

Wild Occuring, growing, or living in a natural state; not domesticated, cultivated, or tamed

Precious Of high cost or worth; valuable

Life

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Welcome to the Light of Change blog, where we’ll be sharing tips and trips about wild, precious, life.

Blog is short for web log, a term used to describe websites that provide an ongoing chronicle of information.  If you’d like to receive this twice monthly blog, please sign-up under “subscribe” in the left hand column.

Web logs are meant to create dialog, so feel free to comment on blog content by clicking on the “Tell me…” title a the top of the page.

“I’m big,but I’m not bad.” 

I looked up from the gas pump and laughed.  There he was, standing almost 7 feet tall, smiling, holding a window squeegee. 

“Can I wash your windshield, ma’am?” “Yes, do” I said.. ”That’s a good opening line.”  

“Well I’ve learned you have to be yourself.  No matter what people tell you.  You have to follow what’s right for you.  So don’t you listen to what others say, you just do what you know yo uneed to do.  That is how you expand your spirit.”

I couldn’t believe he was using exactly the same words that had just been conveyed to me only 20 minutes earlier. This 7-foot windshield washer had been a basketball player.  Around the world twice, he told me.  but in that life, everyone wanted a piece of him.  He didn’t like it.  He couldn’t trust anyone.  He’d “been a few rounds with God” he said.  A knock down, drag out, face-to-face encounter, where he finally understood that he could, and should, make choices that make him happy.  Joyful.  At peace inside. 

“And whatever you’re worried about, God will take care of it.  You just do what you know you are to do.”  

God, Allah, Yaweh, the Divine, the Infinite, the Universe, the Source, the All.  So many names for something none fully understand and osme question the existence of.  Yet her I was, the universe speaking directly to me, reinforcing the messages I had just been given.  

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What does it mean to do what you know you are to do?  To be yourself, fully, completely?  It means stepping out beyond your known life, your known foundation.  Stepping out into what feels like thin air, only to find that this new breath of air, this new foundation, is stronger, fresher, and sweeter still.

Copyright 2006 Light of Change - All rights reserved.