Daily Meditation March 8, 2022-Everything in the World

Today’s Quotation:

Everything in the world we want to do or get done, we must do with and through people.  Every dollar we will ever earn must come from people.  The person we love, and with whom we want to spend the rest of our life, is a human being with whom we must interact.  Our children are individuals, each different from any other person who ever lived.  And what affects them most is our attitude–the loving kindness they see and feel whenever we are around them.   If you’ll begin to develop and maintain an attitude that says yes to life and the world, you’ll be astonished at the changes you’ll see.-Earl Nightingale

Today’s Meditation:

I love this passage because of its focus on the other people in our lives, even the people who we don’t truly recognize as part of “our” worlds.  But the fact is that our lives are inextricably linked to other human beings, and we do have an effect on them.  If a stranger greets us and we hurry by without acknowledging the greeting, we have a negative effect on that person, if only for a few moments.  If we say hello and continue on our way, we’ve acknowledged that person’s existence and had a positive effect.  And what we give to the world of course comes back to us.

Do we spread loving-kindness?  There are many who say that this is our ultimate goal on this planet–to spread loving-kindness to our fellow human beings.  And when we are able to accomplish this goal, we find that our lives are transformed in the process, and we’re no longer so strongly focused on things and negative thoughts and feelings, but we’ve become truly happy, content human beings who love life and living.

Yes, people will discourage you, often unintentionally.  But what do we do with that discouragement?  Do we take it to heart and allow it to stop us from reaching our ultimate goal of spreading love, or do we polish it up and put it on a shelf with the rest of our discouragements, and move on with our lives, continuing to work towards our goal?

We all know the right answer, whether we practice it or not.  If we do learn to practice it faithfully, though, we’ll be astonished at the changes we’ll see.  Trust Earl on this one!

Questions to ponder:

1.  How does life change if your focus is on others?
Can you try it for a day to find out?

2.  What kind of attitude do you habitually share
with the people in your life?

3.  What is your ultimate goal on this planet?

For further thought:

How true it is that, if we are cheerful and contented, all nature smiles,
the air seems balmier, the sky clearer, the earth has a brighter green. . .
the flowers are more fragrant. . . and the sun, moon, and stars
all appear more beautiful and seem to rejoice with us.-Orison Swett Marden

Credit: Living Life Fully