Month: May 2021

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Appreciating the Present Moment

A few days ago I took advantage of having time to take a long walk.  It was a lovely spring day around 70 degrees with sunshine and a light breeze.  In the city where I live there are many crabapple and other flowering trees, and they were in full bloom.  Some had white flowers, others were various shades of pink, and all were beautiful.  Each spring the crabapple flowers bloom for only about two weeks, and I’m thankful I was able to see them.

Taking in the beauty of the flowers reminded me of the importance of appreciating the present moment.  Often we’re so busy thinking about what needs to be done or what we want to do in the future that we don’t notice the special aspects of the present.  I realize our ability to do this depends on what is going on in our lives and of course there are times when it’s essential that we focus on something that needs to be attended to.  What I’m suggesting is that we check in with ourselves to see whether we’ve gotten into a pattern of not noticing those seemingly small things that can help us appreciate parts of each day.

Seeing the flowering trees also reminded me that there is much beauty in our world.  We all know from news stories and history that there are and have been many dark and wrong happenings in our world, and it’s important that we try to do what we can to decrease that darkness.  We can do this by trying to listen to our inner voice and endeavoring to follow our individual paths, and thereby to grow in consciousness.  Every person who becomes more conscious helps to counteract the darkness.  Expressing this symbolically, every person who becomes more conscious is a blossom on a flowering tree, adding to that which is beautiful in our world.

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No One Has Ever Become Poor by Giving

“No one has ever become poor by giving.”

This quotation is attributed to Anne Frank, who, along with her family and others, needed to go into hiding during World War II because they were Jewish and Hitler’s Nazis were imprisoning Jewish people.  After being in hiding from 1942-1944, they were discovered and transported to concentration camps.  Anne was only 15 years old when she became ill and died.  Her father was the only one in her family who survived, and when he returned to where they had lived, he discovered her diary.  Through his endeavors, Anne’s diary was published with the title The Diary of a Young Girl.  In reading it, I’ve been impressed by the wisdom Anne possessed at such a young age.

Anne’s statement “No one has ever become poor by giving” brings to mind the many ways that we can give.

We can be generous with our time by, when we’re with our children or grandchildren, giving them our undivided attention; by being there for our spouse or partner when she or he needs us; by visiting and calling elderly people who can no longer drive and who spend a lot of time alone; and by volunteering to help with causes that we believe matter.

We can be generous with the abilities we’ve been given by volunteering in programs to tutor children, by teaching English to people who have come to our country from other countries, or by teaching other types of skills at which we’ve become proficient.

We can be generous with the money we’ve been given by donating to nonprofit and charitable organizations to help them continue operating and working toward their goals of improving people’s lives.  We can also be generous with the money we’ve been given by donating to arts organizations to enable dance, music, theater, the visual arts, and other art forms to thrive and to be available to others to enjoy.

When I write the words “abilities we’ve been given” and “money we’ve been given,” I do so as a reminder that everything we have has been given to us by the Creator.  It’s important that all of us who have been blessed with talents, intelligence, good health, and/or loving relationships keep in mind the source of those blessings.  By giving in any of the ways I’ve listed or in other ways, we help to improve the quality of life for others.  By being generous, not only do we not “become poor by giving,” but the opposite happens:  by giving, our lives are enriched.

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Dreams Teach Us about Ourselves

I recently had a dream that illustrates the way in which dreams bring to our attention aspects of ourselves and by doing so give us the opportunity to recognize changes we can and should make.  Here is my dream:

I have taken a day off from work and for some reason I’m thinking about whether I have the information I need in case I have to go to the office sometime in the future when it is closed, such as on a weekend.  I decide to go to work to ask someone about that, even though I have the day off.  In the dream I live in the small town where I grew up in physical reality, and I work at a law firm that has offices in the building that was the school I attended.  I walk there and go up some stairs and see a coworker sitting at a large round table with several other employees.  I go up to her and she’s surprised I’m there since I took the day off.  I show her a card I have that I think has the access codes on it to enter the building when the office is closed, and I ask her if she knows whether that’s the correct information.  She rolls her eyes that I would come to the office on my day off to ask about this, and she talks about something different instead of answering my question.  It doesn’t seem that she is intentionally avoiding the subject; she just tends to think of things she likes to talk about.  The dream ends at this point, with me waiting for her to answer my question. 

This dream came to me during a period of time when I was having difficulty determining how to approach a problem.  It wasn’t until a few days after having the dream that I had the thought that it might be showing me that I was being immature in how I was thinking about what I should do; that my ideas were more like those I would have had when I was much younger and before I had had more life experience and hopefully had gained some wisdom.  I believe this is symbolized by the setting of the dream being the town where I lived as a child, including the house and the school building.

As I thought about this, I also realized I was responding to the problem as if in obedience to an authority figure, including being concerned that I might be reprimanded if I didn’t respond in a certain way.  This immature approach was also represented by the settings of my youth.  It was further emphasized in the dream by me being employed by a law firm.  Law firms can symbolize following specific rules as compared to other types of work that symbolize flexibility, choice, and creativity.

The presence of my coworker in the dream is also significant.  She represents the part of me who isn’t concerned about always following the rules, who by rolling her eyes makes fun of the overly responsible part of me who would come to work on my day off to find out information I could easily learn the next time I was scheduled to work.  I believe her talking about topics she wanted to talk about rather than answering my question is the dream reminding me to be careful about being rigid in the choices I make.

Having this dream and contemplating its possible messages helped me to change how I approached the problem.  Often after learning from a dream I wonder why I hadn’t thought of the things the dream pointed out without its assistance.  I guess that shows how limited I and others can be in our thinking and also how lacking in our ability to find creative solutions to problems.  This dream helped me look at the problem differently and to consider other ways of dealing with it.  In addition, it showed me aspects of myself of which I need to be aware so that they don’t limit me in future situations.