Recently, a friend of mine told me that I hadn’t posted anything on my blog. Unfortunately, I was all too aware of the lapse in posts. It’s not like I haven’t learned anything, I have, but I haven’t “settled down” enough to construct something to put on it.
Today is the day. I found the following story on God Vine… a website of inspirational stories…
“A group of 50 people were attending a seminar. Suddenly, the speaker stopped and decided to do a group activity.. He started giving each one a balloon. Each one was asked to write his/her name on it using a marker pen. Then all the balloons were collected and put in another room.
Now these delegates were let in that room and asked to find the balloon which had their name written, within 5 minutes. Everyone was frantically searching for their name, colliding with each other, pushing around others and there was utter chaos.
At the end of 5 minutes, no one could find their own balloon. Now, each one was asked to randomly collect a balloon and give it to the person whose name was written on it. Within minutes, everyone had their own balloon.
The speaker began – exactly… this is happening in our lives. Everyone is frantically looking for happiness all around, not knowing where it is.
Our happiness lies in the happiness of other people. Give them their happiness and you will find your own happiness.
And this is the purpose of human life.
I don’t know the name of the person who did this exercise, so in that way I can’t give them proper credit, but it was published at the following link:
http://www.godvine.com/read/these-people-discovered-the-key-happiness-is-somewhere-gv-fb–626.html”
Our lives are filled with countless opportunities to bring happiness to the lives of others. Many times, we are quite unaware of having done so, which brings me back to my friend.
She is young enough to be my daughter, but old enough to have a child of her own. For some reason, when our paths crossed a bond “connected” and we became friends. She shared her precious child with me and I took the reins of “surrogate” grandmother to him, teaching him to do things like climb stairs before she was ready for him to do so. I know she thought I was naughty that day…
Bit by bit, the more we got together, the friendship between us grew and blossomed. I always thought that young mothers wouldn’t prefer to be friends with women so much older, but then I remembered my young mother days, and how I gravitated to those who were much older than me. I suppose I did it because they were so much more experienced than I was … and it was fun for me. I was “getting” something without realizing that I was probably “giving” something at the same time.
I can only relate it to now. My young mother friend does not realize how much she has given to me just by reaching out to me to go “antiquing,” second hand shopping, or quilt fabric shopping…Her amazing and generous heart brought more “life” into mine. Without her knowing, she gave to me in a way that she never could have imagined. She taught me about trust. Her zest and excitement for life brought sunshine to my world.
I have pondered why she might think being friends with me is a fun thing to do, but it never occurred to me that I, too, might be “filling” a need for her…(of course, I don’t know this as a fact,) but it is a truth in life, that when we give to others freely, we often end up bringing many good things to ourselves; especially when we are not looking for anything in return for our good deeds.
What my friend has done for me here has been done in other chapters in my life and I have learned, and continue to learn that each of us is intricately connected to the other, whether we know that person or not. What we do to others as we interact with them, whether we know them or not, will ripple out to affect many people.
There are many things I learn from my friend, but one of the best is because of her, I am a better mother to my daughter. As a result, that relationship is improving…
Because of my friend my life is richer and I appreciate more as I look at the world through her eyes.
What I want to leave with you today is that there is never a moment, in our interactions with others, that we don’t make some kind of impact on that person. For me, even though I still falter in this arena, I am learning that what I do when I interact with others, will leave an some kind of imprint on the life of another. My goal is to make the imprint a positive one…
For all those who have left an imprint on my life, I thank you…
Refined and Purified 