A little thank you to who ever you are!

To appreciate something is to see how every thing we have in this world comes from a source greater than ourselves.

For the last 3 weeks I’ve written about a lesson from my teacher.  This week I learned about appreciation.  I struggled to find the words that would best pass on the lessons that I’ve learned on this subject.  Every time I tried to write down what I’d been taught I would get caught up on some aspect of earnership that built the awareness of what the true value of something was and it would all just start to look like blah blah blah.  But when I got right down to it, I struggled with sharing this lesson because I wasn’t fully appreciating what I had been taught.

We’ve all have heard somebody say, if we do not appreciate something we will lose it.  That’s a great thing to say, but is it true?

We all enter this world with one thing.  We come popping out of the womb bare-assed and screaming with not a damn thing but desire.  We just came from a nice warm place with out a worry in the world and all we want to do is climb back up that canal because change blows!  We then make a couple slight adjustment.  We learn how to breath, pull milk from a nipple, and collect warmth off of another human body.  Then we get use to that and our answer to everything is scream when I don’t get what I want.  We proceed to grow older and change some more, almost always against our will, the only difference is we become better at screaming.  In fact we even learn how to use words, quiet tones, and negotiating tactics to get what we want.  We learn what other people want and become friends with with people that have the similar desires as ours because we may not have to change if we surround ourselves with people that are like us.  We even learn to share, because we figure out that if we give others what they want we are more likely to get what we want.  But at the end of the day there are 2 constants here:

   1. Change is constant and we don’t like it.
   2. We are beings of Desire.  

One could say that we enter this world with our body but ultimately that is temporary after all we don’t get to take it with us when we croak.  When we get right down to it if, or as most people believe when, we die we don’t get to take anything with us; our car, our house, our favorite pair of jeans, that sweet new Michael Buble song, or the ipod I’m listening to it on.  We leave behind people, pets, belongings, and a wake of actions.  So, if we don’t appreciate something we will lose it but it seems even if we do appreciate it we are gonna lose it anyway.  So, what the hell are we appreciating for?  And how could so many people repeat this lie about appreciation as if it was an absolute truth?  Maybe it’s not a lie... Maybe we are just appreciating the wrong things...

I remember getting my first car. I was 15 years old and I got a school permit that allowed me to drive strictly back and forth to school work and church.  At about age 13 I started hang posters on my wall of the perfect vehicle for me.  A Dodge turbo Cummins desiel pick up truck.  More torc than any young man should ever have at the tip of his toes.  However when the day came to pick it up off the lot it looked a lot more like a 1984, very used, very baby blue, Ford escort.  But the great news was it only cost $400.  But when I think back,  I don’t remember that day as a disappointment.  I recall it as one of the happiest moment of my youth.  I remember getting be hind the wheel and heading off down that gravel road and feeling the potential that came with this new chapter in life.  This lease of freedom that was delivered with my new responsibility.  I didn’t want a car, I wanted FREEDOM!  Now, that’s something to feel. That is something to appreciate.

We enter this world with desire the problem is that along the way our wires get crossed.  Culture, preexisting behaviors, and marketing train us to believe that we desire these physical false idols.  However, our true desire is never for the thing, it’s the feeling that we get from it that holds the value.  It’s not food, money, houses, and cars that we need to appreciate.  The objects themselves are finite.  And we will lose them with appreciation or no appreciation.   It’s things like health, wealth, security, love, and freedom that lead to happiness. They are infinite and they are valuable.  These are the things worthy of appreciation and if we don’t appreciate them we will indeed lose them.  However if we hold them dear and keep them as the focus of our existence the epicenter of our desire we can have them forever.   

My teacher once told me the way to live a happy life of appreciation is to remember that you are just managing the energy of some greater source and that source can take it back when ever it wants.  I’ve found this to be very humbling.  To be granted the right to manage the oxygen I breath, the sun that shines on me daily at no cost, the friends and loved ones I’ve been provided.  It certainly keeps you in debt to the source.

Love + Light - A+K

Btw: I’m not a writer so there will certainly be grammatical errors in nearly all of my post.